Apart from enjoying the experience of a play in performance, the fun of “Famous for 15 Minutes”, the Bermuda Musical and Dramatic Society’s current production at the Daylesford Theatre, is finding out whether your favourite of the six plays is the judge’s too.

That particular pleasure will have to be delayed until the evening of August 21 when the winner of the Golden Inkwell and $250 is announced by judge Ian August. In the meantime, I can savour the memory of six quite different plays.

Different criteria, of course, go into judging a play script than those used to judge a performance, but interesting ideas, engaging characters, clever plot lines and witty repartee are, I believe, necessary elements of a successful play, and by those criteria, the six short plays are, by and large, successful.

Though only three could be described as comedies, all the plays had comic elements, leavening the more serious discussion of coping with elderly parents and dementia, incest and rape.

The curtain rises on a post-apocalyptic world to the tune of “If you were the only girl in the world, and I were the only boy”, and it is this construct Owain Johnston-Barnes wittily presents in “Cockroaches”. Fully of irony – the two humans on which the survival of the species depends are a recently-divorced couple saved by the environmentally unfriendly lead paint used to paint the house – the play explores the fact that, Armageddon notwithstanding, “We’re still the same people with all the same problems.” In performance, some of the razor-sharp repartee was dulled by flubbed lines; nevertheless, this play was one of my favourites.

“The Mason”, written by Kevin Comeau, is very much of the moment as a couple face hard choices in an economic downturn. Jim, an unemployed mason, and Ali, his expat wife hanging onto her job in international business, are in arrears with their mortgage and have to choose between putting Jim’s dad, Lucas, in a home and renting out the house or sending their son to a government high school.

A former school-teacher, Lucas, convincingly portrayed by John Dale, sits dozing in his wheelchair as the debate rages around him. From time to time Lucas rouses himself and injects into the dialogue apparently irrelevant asides, with comic effect. Using Lucas as a sort of Greek chorus is a clever technique, as the asides appear more pertinent as the plot progresses, though the philosophical musings are occasionally heavy-handed and could do with some editing. The thought-provoking ending encourages the audience to look at the morality of their own choices.

The first half of the evening closed with Henry Godfrey’s entertaining “Chance Encounter” that is anything but. A recently widowed Russian meets a London businessman with interests in Eastern Europe, and an apparent desire for a romantic interlude. The audience is intrigued by the interchange between Owain Johnston’s suave businessman, and Carol Birch’s grieving widow, as the plot seems to morph into a murder mystery, before the surprising twist at the end.

“A Long Engagement” by Liz Jones opens the second half of the evening, with an extended monologue on the tendency towards the dramatic in the Long family before flashing back to events of 25 years earlier. Billed as “a domestic comedy during which parents and student daughter vie with each other for centre stage”, the plot has considerable dramatic irony, though I felt little empathy for the characters.

A robbery gone wrong and the secrets the heightened tension reveals is the premise of “The Slip” by Karenmary Penn. Though I missed the motives for some of the robber’s actions, the subsequent interchange between the two customers taken hostage, enhanced by the competent acting of Connie Dey and Barbara Jones, I found compelling.

An explosive family secret wrapped in layers of polite conversation and pickled in alcohol is slowly revealed while Kate Mitchell and her mother come to terms with Mrs. Mitchell’s progressive multi-infarct-dementia. There are some moving descriptions of memory loss – memories like fireworks, blazing one moment and sparkling fragments the next – some delightful comic elements, and a touching ending, but the plot seemed just a little schizophrenic, not entirely sure whether it was a drama or a comedy.

Maybe it’s an age thing, but I’m like totally so not into teen talk about the advantage of a tight anus over an ‘unpicked cherry’ or discussion of the relative virtue of masturbation, so “I [heart symbol] You Brady McGrady” by Andrew Stoneham didn’t move me as it did some members of the audience. Nevertheless, I acknowledge the skill of capturing the cadence of young adult dialogue and teens’ preoccupation with the opposite sex, and the end of the play was cute.

In all the six quite different, but thought-provoking, plays created an entertaining evening, and taken collectively an interesting insight into the Bermudian psyche.

The playwrights are to be commended for entering the competition, and I await with interest Mr. August’s decision next Saturday night and the question-and-answer session with him on Sunday, August 22 at 11a.m. at the Daylesford Theatre.