All in the Timing
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All in the Timing (ISBN 0-679-75928-X) was originally a book of six one act plays by David Ives dating from 1987 to 1993 and published by Dramatists Play Service in 1994. The current collection contains fourteen one-acts. The plays are short and comedic, with frequent wordplay. These plays are commonly performed, especially by high school and college students, due to their brevity, wit and simplicity in staging. They are:
The original six plays:
- Sure Thing: A man and a woman meet for the first time in a cafe, where they have an awkward meeting continually reset each time they say the wrong thing, until, finally, they connect.
- Words, Words, Words: Three chimpanzees attempt to write Hamlet. It discusses the merits of literature and questions its necessity.
- The Universal Language: A man and a woman fall in love while communicating in the invented language Unamunda.
- Philip Glass Buys a Loaf of Bread: A musical parody of minimalist composer Philip Glass, in which he has an existential crisis in a bakery.
- The Philadelphia: A man in a strange state where he must ask for the opposite of what he wants in a restaurant.
- Variations on the Death of Trotsky: Leon Trotsky dies several times from a mountain-climber's ax wound received 36 hours prior.
Other plays now a part of All in the Timing:
- Long Ago and Far Away: a married yuppie couple argues about the nature of reality and becomes caught up in a bizarre scenario involving time travel and suicide. This is one of the few dramatic pieces in All in the Timing.
- Foreplay, or The Art of the Fugue: Three miniature golf games taking place simultaneously, showing one man on three separate first dates.
- Seven Menus: Seven dinners at the same restaurant, showing the evolution of one circle of friends.
- Mere Mortals: Three blue-collar construction workers discuss how they are really the Lindbergh baby, the son of Czar Nicholas II of Russia, and the reincarnation of Marie Antoinette.
- English Made Simple: A young man and woman meet at a party, and their immediate romantic attraction is translated into comically unromantic grammar lessons as they struggle to free themselves from the banal constrictions of party talk.
- A Singular Kinda Guy: A monologue about a man who believes he is actually a typewriter.
- Speed-the-Play: A parody of the works of American playwright David Mamet. His major works are each lampooned.
- Ancient History: One of the few dramatic works in All in the Timing, History is about a couple discussing tradition and relationships before and after they hold a party.
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