It sounds like the beginning of a joke: An angry young man who’s just lost his mother, a crooked state senator running for re-election, an odd pair of star-crossed lovers, a wise and lively prostitute and a ruthless business woman meet in a bordello … but that’s exactly the scenario in the grand-prize winner of the Chattanooga Theatre Centre’s biennial Festival of New Plays.
“The Primitive Streak,” written by Hunter Rodgers of Dayton, Tenn., opens in the CTC Circle Stage today and continues on weekends through April 10.
Hope Alexander, a professional actress and director who recently moved to Chattanooga, served as both the chairman of the judging committee for the play competition and director for the world premiere of the play.
“The Primitive Streak,” she said, is a dramedy, not a full comedy and not a full drama.
What it is, Alexander said, is a “very entertaining” and “kind of sexy” play with well-defined characters and dialogue that “feels natural in an actor’s mouth.”