San Diego Playbill - Theatre Reviews

The Elventh Annual Fritz Blitz

~ Week #1 ~

The Eleventh Annual Fritz Blitz of New Plays by California Playwrights is rolling along at the Lyceum Theatre in Horton Plaza. Out of nearly 200 scripts submitted, 11 have been chosen for the four-week “blitz” where newly created works are put onstage for the first time in a festival of creativity that San Diego is fortunate to host.

The first week featured four new plays beginning with Craig Abernethy’s latest work, Absolutes. John Rosen and Katie Hartman are the two unnamed characters debating the need to stand firm with their political party on every single issue, always presenting the issue with a self-righteous air and in stark black-and-white, good vs. evil terms instead of acknowledging the many nuances that most issues have. No story or character development – just a brief statement about the ridiculousness of “absolutes” so often spouted by politicians (especially during election years), and too often swallowed by the voters.

Then school is in session for Jeffrey Davis’s Speed Dating 101. It's sort of a vocational school, the participants learning how to date more efficiently by moving from table to table (and from date to date) every few minutes. Those precious minutes are used to fill out a scorecard with all the essential information: What’s your favorite color? What’s your most painful secret? Are you in therapy??? A fun, amusing little show buoyed by the work of Teri Brown and Jonathan Sachs as they get to know each other, fall in love, and break up all in a mere ten minutes!

Pema Teeter’s God Said Quiet changes mood considerably when a kindly janitor (Fred Harlow) begins talking to a sad, withdrawn teenage girl (Brielle Meskin) who sits on the same park bench every day. Her quiet demeanor is the result of divine intervention, God having told the girl to be quiet. As it turns out, the two strangers have suffered through the death of a family member, and their different experiences and efforts to deal with their loss help create a bond that could offer some healing for both.

Week One ends with one of the most outrageous shows of the Blitz – Tom Horan’s Invisible Bob. Welcome to the future of corporate America in all its glory with this satire that includes a great performance by Jim Chatham as 123-year-old employee named Ed who keeps working because the company keeps putting off its earliest retirement age. Disappearing Bob (Michael Lamendola) is his closest friend in the company. His life is dominated by a mailroom job that treats him like a nothing, his amusingly absent-minded Nana (Erin McKown), and his courtship of the boss’s daughter lovely Mary (Wendy Savage). But Mary’s father, Mr. Boss (played with proper pomp and arrogance by a cigar-smoking Teri Brown) is not fond of Mary’s choice, and Bob’s mailroom career (as well as his existence and all memory of him!) may be in serious jeopardy. Other archetype characters in this comedy-rich cast include Bill (Bob Himlin) as a brown-nosing middle manager, Dr. Bungle (Chris White) as the worst kind of company-owned doctor, and Miss Understanding (Chrissy Burns) as Mr. Boss’s secretary who is ready to jump or kneel at the boss’s beckon call. The show is nonstop craziness, which is often entertaining but can also eventually wear down the humor.

~ Week #2 ~

The second week of the Fritz Blitz is filled with a full-length play by Doug Field, the author of such shows as the Off-Broadway hit Down South that the Fritz performed so successfully a couple years ago. This new show, Viburnum, stands out for its originality, delightfully conceived characters, mix of comedy and despair, and the clever way that Doug unfolds the story – not to mention a talented four-member ensemble that seems to be in complete synch with one another.

Rhona Gold stars as a middle-aged woman whose opening monologue gives us an insight into her harsh, loveless childhood and the equally loveless, terribly lonely life that has followed, though it is clear her lack of affection has not stopped her from having both a sense of humor and a vivid imagination. In fact, those may be her only gifts that have gotten her through this long. But this day may be the start of something new, as she is nervously busy preparing for her first date in forever.

Surprisingly this lonely woman is not entirely alone in her nervousness. Her day is spent getting help and advice from three nameless female roommates, each of varying ages, outlooks, and experiences (or more precisely, a lack of experiences – one of the many common threads all four seem to share). D. Candis Paule is the moody, bitter, cynical thirtysomething who is not too fond of men who are only good for one thing, and she is not very hopeful for the night’s adventure. Wendy Waddell is the hopeful romantic twentysomething who has never actually been on a date, but she’s read about it. Rachael Van Wormer is the bright and excited teenage girl who hasn’t been on a date either, but she’s written about it in countless stories of which she is always writing. The rich dialogue among this amalgam if full of underlying grief and terrific humor – nothing more humorous than when the teenager convinces the other two to act in a play she has just written full of cheesy melodrama hilariously performed by the cast, but with a message to Rhona about finding love. In the end, Rhona may have to decide whether these three muses are helpful in her quest for love, or a barrier.

For more information on the Blitz, please visit their website at http://www.fritztheatre.com/.

Rob Hopper
San Diego Playbill