Some short plays fresher than others in ‘Pear Slices’

The 2022 version of “Pear Slices” finally got underway last Friday at the Mountain View theater after a cast member’s breakthrough case of COVID delayed opening night for a week.

Despite the postponement, “Pear Slices” will not be extended but instead will end May 29 after just nine performances.

The eight short plays in the program were all written by members of the Pear Playwrights Guild.

The end result is an uneven evening of theater, with most of the 10- to 12-minute plays keeping the audience’s attention and earning deserved applause. One of the best, “Destiny Calls” by Leah Halper, is also performed first and sets the tone for the night.

Vanessa Alvarez shines as the grandmother in “Destiny,” despite the fact she doesn’t look old enough to be Arturo Dirzo’s grandma. Dirzo mostly holds his own, though his sincerity seems forced at times.

Alvarez also stands out later in the program in “Latino Souls” by Linda Amayo-Hassan. She’s ably supported here by Jery Rosas as her husband. Together they go back to their homeland, Puerto Rico, a year after Hurricane Maria to discover that their entire neighborhood was wiped out.

Playwright Barbara Anderson’s “On the Ledge” has some fine moments, though the storyline is a tad farfetched. Here, a bone-weary older salesman (Rosas) checks into a four-star New York hotel that he expects to stay in while working on several important business deals. After a long flight delay, Rosas has already ordered both booze and food to be delivered to his room. The delivery person, an embittered young woman (Jessica Osegueda), decides to go out on the ledge of his balcony to look at the view. Then she decides she might jump because she feels she has nothing to live for.

“Coffee and Cigarettes,” written by Anne Yumi Kobori, teeters between good and wacky. Carrying a bouquet of flowers, nicely dressed Reg Clay knocks on the door of an apartment where his girlfriend, Lauren Jiang, has closed herself off from the world and is drinking herself into oblivion. Whiskey bottles are strewn all over, and she’s sitting on her floor having another glass of wine. She finally lets him in, and he cajoles her into a better mood by giving her reasons to hope for a better future.

Ron G. Rosenfeld’s “On the Beach” and “Long Ago” are both somewhat silly and mediocre, although “Long Ago” has some funny dialogue. He’s also the author of “Here Today,” which took a while to understand but is gentle and full of suffering.

Jiang is the tragic figure in “Here Today,” a mother who has lost her son. She sits out on her balcony on his tiny hobby horse every year on his birthday. Her husband, played by Rosas, wakes up to find her missing so he goes outside to cheer her up. Together, they imagine what their son would be like now, at age 15, and then they plan a wonderful life for him that they know he’ll never have.

“Pear Slices” is directed by Troy Johnson and Tessa Corrie, ably assisted by a hard-working stage crew headed by Kelly Weber Barraza, good lighting from Carsten Koester and David L. Hobbs’ fine sound and projections.

Although much of the clothing worn in the show looks like it came from the actors’ own wardrobes, there were a number of costumes (a tuna fish, a crab, a dial telephone and an address book) that were obviously created for this show by Patricia Bristow.

Tickets for “Pear Slices” are $38 at www.thepear.vbotickets.com/events or 650-254-1148.

Masks must be worn by all audience members when inside the theater. Each person must show a valid vaccination card before being seated.