Fritz Blitz 2004, featuring California playwrights, is the August festival at the Lyceum Space in Horton Plaza, beginning just four days after the close of the Actors Alliance Fest's two-week run. Week One includes four short plays, Week Two one full-length play, Week Three has a duet of plays, and Week Four ends the Blitz with four short plays.
Fritz tends to platform plays that are more on the cutting edge (Read: Viewer Discretion Advised!). So far this one is rather calm by Fritz standards.
Absolutes is by San Diego playwright Craig Abernathy, under the direction of Fritz artistic director Duane Daniels. One (the boss), John Rosen, and Two (the underling), Katie Hartman, are in a company and a world of absolute right and absolute wrong (i.e., their company is right and the competition is wrong.) Also, he is absolutely right, while she may be wrong. Interesting pacing and, somehow, the play was interesting too.
Speed Dating 101 by Los Angeles-based Jeffrey Davis was amusingly directed by D. Candis Paule with Jonathan Sachs as Aaron and Teri Brown as Marti. The show is a satirical look at a relatively recent phenomenon in the singles circuit where a couple spends a few minutes together (in this case ten) to discover a bit about each other. After the allotted time, they move on to the next coupling. In this very short piece Aaron and Marti run the gamut from introduction, to proposal, to first fight, and, finally, to moving on. Sachs and Brown were totally convincing in their ever-changing moods.
God Said Quiet by another Angeleno, Perma Teeter, was directed by Duane Daniels with Fred Harlow as Man and Brielle Meskin as Girl. Man, custodian of a park, has seen a young girl sitting on a bench quite often. He tries to empathize with her, for he has a young daughter too. They find a common thread between them in the death of her mother and the dying of his wife. God Said Quiet is a sweet look at how tragedy affects us at different ages.
Invisible Bob by Concord playwright Tom Horan, directed by Forrest Ayslworth carries the theme of mega-global corporations to the absurdist maximum. Bob, Michael Lamendola, has been a quiet mail room clerk for the last ten years. His cohort Ed(Jim Chatham) has been with the company over 100 years. Now both are trapped in the ever-changing corporate culture. Bob faces dismissal under the rule that any person over the age of 25 must be married -- they're better workers. Ed's challenge is to retire before they up the age minimum. Teri Brown is Mr. Boss. Ms. Brown as a man takes a bit of convincing, but she does it. Seeing Brown request certain under-the-desk acts from her secretary is not only ribald but adds to the unreality of this piece.
Her underling, Miss Understanding, is humorously played by Chrissy Burns. Young Erin McKown convinces as aging Nana, Bob's dying aunt; Wendy Savages is Mary, Bob's true love; Chris White is Dr. Bungle, aptly named; and Bob Himlin is Bill, who is assigned to fire Bob and Ed but has trouble with the "F" word: "fired. Invisible Bob, so named because as Bob is eliminated from the workforce (he actually disappears), is a humorous but scathing look at the level of intrusion a corporation can have into our lives.
