Below: That's Phariss and Bentz
again as the title characters. A
single-act short named
"Motherland" is the other featured
play. Heller has perfornances of
these original one-act pieces
scheduled through Nov. 23. 
Preparing for their performances in
Heller Theater's "What in the
World" are (at left, top) Laurie
Phariss, Rich Bentz, Mark Miller,
(bottom) Jesse Pate and David
Gray. They appear in the episode
titled "Horace and Daphne."
Photos: A. CUERVO / Tulsa World
Yes, it's time again for Heller's annual spotlight on a pair of original one-act plays. And yes, Heller's technical director, Scott Heberling, is helming both productions, seemingly a given considering the oddities of both of these absurdist farces.
"I've kind of been the champion of this original program, and for stylistic reasons, Julie (Tattershall, Heller's artistic director) told me, 'You do know that you have to direct both of these, don't you?' I knew what she meant."
"Horace and Daphne" and "Motherland" seem a natural fit for the director who's brought Samuel Beckett's apocolyptic masterpiece "Endgame" and Vaclav Havel's paranoid "Largo Desolato" to local stages in recent years.
In fact, one of the oddest productions in recent memory had to be Heller's May 2001 presentation of "Beast of Burden," an odd duck of family dysfunction that made "Roseanne" look like . . . oh, that's not enough to describe just how odd it was. That audicious and slightly brilliant original work was authored by Doug Dolcino, a New Mexico native whose "Motherland" is this year's opening one-act play.
This new work -- about a pair of brothers (played by Corey Douglas and John Cruncleton) who are deposed princes from an unknown foreign land now working as bellboys in a big-city hotel -- is stylistically similar to "Beast of Burden," Heberling says.
"These guys are hunkered down in this coat closet that they're not supposed to be in, and they're trying to piece together their lives back when they were exiled," he said. "We're not quite sure what to make of the closet. One theory is that before they were exiled, they were locked in a small room in the palace for years, and the coat closet reminds them of that and helps them remember."
The second of the one-act plays, "Horace and Daphne," is the first play written by Tulsan Tim Neller and stars Rich Bentz, David Gray, Mark Miller, Jesse Pate and Laurie Phariss.
"Tim just showed up at Heller one day about a year ago, and it's kind of an amusing story," Heberling said. "He showed up with this script in his hand, and at the time I'd been flooded with original scripts, most of which were subpar. I really wasn't in a good mood to be approached with a script, but he's a nice guy. I kind of shoved him off, but I'm obligated to read these things, and a couple of nights later I'm in this 'here we go with some more crap' mood.
"I later told Tim that as a testament as to how much I liked his play, that not only did I like it, I was in a bad mood and I liked it."
"Horace and Daphne" first
hooked the director with its
initial 
image of a gigantic egg
onstage being nested by a
middle-age man. Apparently, this
man has been obsessed with
egg-sitting ever since he
competed in this event in the
Olympics.
"In this guy's world, egg-sitting is an Olympic event, but this egg has driven a wedge between him and his family," Heberling says, laughing. "I liked Tim's script because it leads us down a path that at first seems innocent and funny, and then it leads us somewhere very different."
"I think I chose both plays for the same reason: they both create their own world, and this world is at once very similar to our own, and wholly different at the same time," he continued. "That's how these two go together, as I see it. You just have to open up, and you go along for the ride, and say, 'OK, I can buy that.' "
Heberling encouraged unpublished writers who might have "a piece of magic sitting on a desk" to send it to Heller for consideration. The theater received more than 30 original one-acts and full-length plays in the last year that were considered for production.
Michael Smith, World entertainment writer, can be reached at 581-8344 or via e-mail at michael.smith@tulsaworld.com.