Oh don’t go too hard on them.”

This was someone’s idea of a cute epithet right before I went to opening night of the annual Senior One Acts at Cleveland. A joke obviously, but it upped the notch on the cynicism meter uncomfortably. Well humor me people, I’m not that jaded.

The lineup of directors this year is truly breathtaking, and sacrifices were made to get a boat load of freshmen talent on board, a fact that surprised my companion but is seriously key to a strong future drama department.

“A Good Woman” opened the house, breaking in some young’uns with ever-capable Amos Leager through some cute punchlines and Monty-Pythonish humor. No worries about the accents since British people are funny no matter what.

“Perfect” was the gem in terms of ideas and content hidden under its sly, Desperate Housewives coolness. Not that this is some stupid school paper (oh, waaait…), but the political debate between uber talented Joellen Sweeney and Rebecca Solomon was fiery and very entertaining to watch. Using a current events based script, this ended up the best kept secret in the whole lineup, definitely for the voter in you.

Of course, there’s the standard sarcastic/ironic fare that seems to have popped up in every lineup of One Acts, this time called “The American Dream.” Inner cynic be damned, this slice of neo-fifties dark humor still got lots of laughs, and personally I found the granny character, kudos to Liza Cortright, quite juicy as the old grump in the splintered family. Oddly absent of kids though, but I guess they’re all, like, kids anyway. Despite an actor setback filled graciously by director T Smith, the characters were smooth, including Nnamdi Agum playing a Gatsby metaphor and Jordan Beck as the lackadaisical daddy.

“Ferris Wheel” worked quite charmingly as a postmodern fable, and featured the most simple and beautiful set design ever. Melanie Meijer and Edward Beaudin (a.k.a. Jack White) are two very capable actors who convincingly played charmingly flawed strangers brought together by circumstance.

“Sorry, Wrong Number” deserves accolades for suspense, mostly thanks to the gripping and highly believable Ellen Wallin as a woman home alone fearing for her life with only a phone connecting her to the world. Supporting actors exchange roles as phone operators and callers and keep the plot from fleeing, even when offstage voices echoing in the auditorium were practically indecipherable (I liken the effect to ghostly).

Being familiar with “Variations On The Death Of Trotsky” and its clever stylization, having performed it way back when, barely prepared me for the fresh onslaught. Speculative in nature, newcomer Sam Bennett proved to be the embodiment of a famous communist politician coming to terms with his death. Also, Phil Schallberger had a close-to-genius moment when he pops out as Ramon the gardener. His performance alone was worth the ticket price, but seriously, do demand that he play his guitar. Do it.

Finally, a crowd pleaser and tonguetwister for stars Cal Ludwick and Lauren Elgee, “The Universal Language.” An incredible play of words, a neat tower of Babel concept, and some references to songs provided the final lick of frosting off the cake. Suffice it to say, I was sad to see something so very good end so soon. I’ll die happy.