Don’t pass on your chance to see 'Pass the Ducks' 

Watch "Pass the Ducks" on YouTube by clicking here.

A play where the legs of actors are visible! Where characters sometimes speak over each other and give each other eye contact! And where the actors actually move around — and even change costumes! 

That’s right. This is not another “Zoom Talking Head Theatre” presentation while area playhouses are shuttered. “Pass the Ducks — A Dance for Two People” has the look of what live theater used to be before COVID-19. 

“Pass the Ducks” was recorded safely last September at Lansing’s First Presbyterian Church’s Molly Grove Chapel. Angela Voit, Cecil McIntire and Matt Ottinger, who also edited, ran the cameras. Emily Clark directed and Marcus Fields was the assistant director.     

The premiere of the Doak Bloss play is available on his YouTube site. The original Jan. 22-24 viewing window has been extended to Jan. 31. 

“Pass the Ducks” has interacting performers, a set and multiple camera angles and changing shots — more elements not available on the multi-panel, Zoom format most acting groups have had to resort to. The three-scene, about-an-hour-long play features Bloss as Jake — a father who has lost a son. Heath Sartorius plays Will, a friend of the son. Jake and Will both meet on park benches in the summer of 1991 — during the initial AIDS crisis. 

Despite neither character being particularly likeable, Bloss and Sartorius make it hard to not stay fixated on them. The verbal Bloss — with an inconsistent German accent — appears quite genuine as the dad with a mysterious facade. The more animated Sartorius projects a believable anxiousness and a credible image of a young man in turmoil.   

Both seem well-rehearsed. If the duo had more than two days to perform together (rehearsals were done virtually) and if “Pass the Ducks” had a longer live run, Bloss and Sartorius would certainly have reached even higher heights. 

The bonding of the unlikely pair is revealed — and much more. Bloss’s engaging script takes unexpected tangents. Attitudes towards gays, father and son relationships, pornography, the German’s record-keeping of atrocities and the dynamics of theater are included. And in the process, “Pass the Ducks” never has mundane chatter or wasted lines. 

Clark keeps the movements appropriate and the conversations flowing. “Pass the Ducks” has fast-moving dialogue I sometimes found hard to hear clearly. But since the show is on YouTube, I could rewind and get a second chance. 

The set is a mere two benches, but with the charm of the unique 3-D white backdrop of the Molly Grove Chapel. Street clothes shirts and pants are the only costumes, but “Pass the Ducks” doesn’t require anything more. 

Don’t confuse the title with a notion that “Pass the Ducks” might be suitable for kids. It surely is not. To reveal the title’s true meaning would spoil a great surprise. The recording is a limited chance for us stage-starved theatergoers to watch a good facsimile of what we miss.