Swim Shorts 3

Jump into this clever site-specific series which is performed in a Midtown pool.



By Ellen Wernecke

Sitting in a deck chair before the Impetuous Theater Group’s production of “Swim Shorts 3,” a series of short plays taking place at the rooftop pool at the Holiday Inn on West 57th, I thought, “Why even bother to put on a show?” With a view of the sunset over the Hudson, I would have been contented to watch a turtle, or perhaps a precocious baby, swimming in the pool. And that was sans cocktails.

I’m glad they bothered anyway, because the five original works presented, all of which use the pool in some way, were pure, hot-summer-day fun. Particular highlights of the first slate are Janet Zarecor’s “Forgiveness” in which the pool represents quicksand in which two friends are sinking, while a guardian angel tries to decide who to save; in Joe Mathers’ and Brian MacInnis Smallwood’s “Der Eisbar,” teams of swimsuit-clad soldiers enact Cold War battles, with lots of splashing. Yet all the plays somehow nudged at the limits of what “stage” means, simply by virtue of the body of water for which they were written.

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”Swim Shorts 3”
Impetuous Theater Group
Through July 29 (series 1; series 2 runs Aug. 1-12), 7PM
Holiday Inn Midtown, 440 West 57th Street (between 9th & 10th Ave.)
Tickets $18 (plus $7 if you want to swim), Brownpapertickets.com