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The Pear Playwright Guild’s annual Pear Slices fest offers eight 10-minute plays, and the range of the buffet is pretty impressive. Also impressive is the care the company has taken with each one, giving all of these entries their own lighting, costumes and sometimes music. That said, let’s just run through them in order.
Maury Zeff’s opener is “Girls Just Want to Have Patents,” and it does precisely what needed to be done: address the astounding genius/goddess revelations about
actor Hedy Lamarr, who co-invented radar-jamming tech used in World War II. When their comically loud film director calls for a break, Hedy (Sarah Benjamin) immediately pulls out a complicated diagram of her latest Nazi-busting invention. Although it’s not that far from the truth, the scene is very amusing, and the plot twist is damned clever.
With “After Amy,” Max Gutmann has written a masterwork in the things that go unspoken. A young gay man (Raymond Alvarez) returns to his hometown for his mother’s funeral and meets with an older friend (Tim Huang). Although his friend seems just as oppressed by their small town as his New York friend used to be, he doesn’t want to talk about it, when talking about it is precisely what he needs to do. It’s a simple and powerful scene.
Greg Lam’s “The Shrewing of the Tame” is an incisive post-mortem on the original Shakespeare, wherein Kate (Benjamin) has mysteriously settled into a meek trad-wife existence. Sister Bianca (Alexandra Velazquez) arrives to protest the loss of her sister’s fire and to kvetch about her own marriage. The piece addresses some of the more troubling aspects of the original play, employing dialogue that’s Shakespearean in feel but (fortunately) not in vocabulary.
“The Tree” by Barbara Anderson might be my favorite. An anxious wife (Irina Dianova) reminds her husband (Huang) to cut down their dying oak tree. He’s been putting it off, and he comes to realize that it’s because he and the tree are aging together. Naturally (as these things go), the tree starts talking. Stephen Sherwood’s oak-voice is so perfect it’s hilarious, and he deserves extra brownie points for holding up his “branches” for such an extended time.
Bridgette Dutta Portman’s “Once Upon a Dream” takes the Disney princess trope to new places. The Pea Princess, Sleeping Beauty and Goldilocks end up at a sleep disorder clinic. Extra credit to Dianova for maintaining a perky soprano speaking voice throughout; to the fabulous gowns (Nancy McClymont, costume designer); and to Velazquez for her sullen Goldie, suffering from bear-induced PTSD.
“Elam” by Tom Mercer cuts a little close to the heart, following the plight of a long-incarcerated asylum-seeker (Alvarez) who is suddenly introduced to a long-lost relative, who’s suffering from dementia. Break out the Kleenex for this one. The cell-window silhouettes by Noah Price are an excellent touch.
John Levine’s “Cyrano No No!” takes the AI personal assistant idea to scary extremes. A tech worker (Sherwood) finds his computer equipped with a new OS (Sir I Know, or Cyrano) that looks to resolve his indecisive nature simply by making his decisions for him, including those relating to his personal life. The play has an accelerating momentum that gives it a fun sense of careening out of control.
My comic favorite — and a fitting finale — is Paul Braverman’s “Dirty Harry and Virgin Sally.” A pair of California condors are given a shared sanctuary to encourage the production of some chicks. Harry (Alvarez) psyches himself up for courtship with a series of hilarious gyrations. Sally (Velazquez) accepts him, but informs her betrothed that she is somehow already pregnant. (Does this sound familiar?) Harry complains of dragging around a ton of unused seed while Sally dreams of making their human subjects worship her as a goddess. It’s all pretty hilarious, and both actors do an excellent job of channeling their avian selves.
Pear Slices was directed by Joey Dippel and Tonya Mara.
“Pear Slices” runs through July 31 at The Pear Theatre, 1110 La Avenida, Suite A, Mountain View. Tickets are $45. 650-254-1148. or thepear.org.
