When you go into a small Blackbox theater to see two premiering short plays you tend to go with limited expectations. But the double bill at American Theater of Actors exceeds expectations in every major category – writing, direction and acting. The two short, dark comedies make for a great afternoon or evening of fun entertainment.

Tango in the Rockies by ATA Artistic Director James Jennings follows the paranoia of old couple Tom Crouch (ALBERT) and Ginger Kippe (MILLIE) as they run away to an isolated cabin in the mountains to avoid whoever is relentlessly trying to meet and confront them. We get to see the fear of the unknown that threatens to overwhelm them and put them into dangerous and possibly untenable positions. The acting, writing and direction all make the absurdity amazingly realistic especially as their attitude flips when they find out their “stalker” is a real-estate agent trying to purchase their poorly maintained home for a Latin American developer’s planned entertainment complex.

Meny Beriro’s The Rubber Band Company is a 30-minute piece which is wonderfully dark. ATA regular Ken Coughlin, Tom Luke Di Costanzo, and Derek Donnellan are all terrific in their roles as the old salesman, the overbearing and obnoxious lead salesman and the mindless, egotistical, and greedy boss respectively. But the real find is Stephanie Andujar who embraces her role as the ambitious, loyal young woman who thinks she has come up with the idea that will propel her to a Vice-Presidency of the Company until betrayal, the killing of one co-worker and the death of another drive her to violently murder her corporate boss in a fit of rage. What delightful and crazy fun.