Passion, risk-taking make Maine Masque plays worth seeing> Students have the willingness to put on shows that aren’t often seen

If productions by the Maine Masque are not on your theatergoing calendar, then you’re missing some of the most refreshing performances in town. A division of the School of Performing Arts at the University of Maine, this troupe often has the energy and risk-taking willingness to put up shows you won’t see other than on college campuses and at well-endowed professional theaters.

Over the weekend, Maine Masque opened its season with an evening of one-act plays directed by J. Norman Wilkinson, a UM theater professor who is retiring at the end of this year. The first, “On Baile’s Strand” by William Butler Yeats, had a misty Irish setting and revived the heroic Celtic legend of Cuchulain (played brightly by Christopher P. Ashmore). In a move of Greek proportions, Cuchulain unknowingly kills his own son (the deep-voiced Matt Meserve) and then goes slightly bonkers.

The cast dressed in earthy shades of browns, oranges and slate, and traversed a set of Stonehenge-like rocks. The men, whose story this was, wore bound leggings, tunics, gold pieces and imposing wigs that made them look like well-dressed cavemen. A fool (played with plenty of darling energy by Kristen Williams) and a blind woman (played with secure wit by Dolora LaPenta) foil the major action with their squabbles over food and omens. Their interactions gave the comic relief needed to offset the swords and screaming done by the serious business of the men.

“The Cornfields of New York” is Wilkinson’s uproarious reworking of “Les Boulingrin” by French comic playwright Georges Courteline. The original story features a husband-and-wife team that deals abusively with an unwelcome visitor as well as with each other. Wilkinson’s script is somewhat more civilized. It is set in turn-of-the-century New York in the home of two spinsters who receive a gentleman caller hoping to find a cushy place for himself in their cozy domain. Instead he finds that the sisters and their maid are terrorists with no inclinations toward being “the weaker sex.”

This is slapstick stuff with glasses of water spilling, chairs tumbling over, and ears and noses getting a good twist, and the audience rolled with laughter. The cast — Misty Dawn Jordan, Collin Worster, Jennifer Drew and Elaine DiFalco — handled their humorous responsibilities with charm and conviviality.

Sunday was the last run of these shows, but there are four more theater productions — and more than a dozen dance and music events — throughout the year. It’s a recommended performing arts series — if for no other reason than that these students are on stage because they have a youthful passion that’s almost always worth the price of admission.

For information about the Maine Masque season, and other student-staff performing arts events at UM, call 581-1773.