Stephen Sherwood and Vanessa Alvarez Photo by Tim Garcia and The Pear Theatre

Under the clever and creative co-direction of Jasmine Lew and Bryan Moriarty, a cast of seven shifts quickly and impressively in repertory fashion among the eight plays, developing in fast fashion characters ranging from whimsical to bizarre, cartoonish to starkly real, heartwarming to heartbreaking. As can be expected of any set of world premieres, not every work is quite ready for prime time; but be assured the one-hour, forty-five minute (including intermission) evening of Pear Slices 2025 is overall highly engaging and thoroughly entertaining.

As the evening's lights dim, playwright Paul Braverman immediately plunges us into the realm of the Public Domain where characters from long-past plays, films, and nursery rhymes roam freely and where anything can happen (like the Big Bad Wolf finally consuming that perky, pesky Red Riding Hood). When bad things happen, there is only one place to turn: The Public Domain Police Death and Dismemberment Detective Division (or better known in these parts as the PDPDDDD).

Today, the former shell of an egg lies like a raw omelette in front of Wall (Max Mahle)–that same Wall from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream who now has been freed to speak at will and is having a heyday making scrambled eggs jokes galore. A no-nonsense Jo Sunday (Vanessa Alvarez) and her sidekick Joe McGuffin (Stephen Sherwood) have arrived–maybe the past understudies for the Joe Friday and Bill Gannon roles in 1960 TV's "Dragnet"? With bland expressions and tight lips, Sunday is trying to just get the facts from a giggling, pun-producing Wall and a squawking, clucking chicken named Henny Penny (Jamie Melendez), the latter running around like her head's been cut off squealing about upcoming doom and a sky falling. A Mysterious Demise is a fun and frolicking opening playlet that has the potential to be a full-length play in the land of Public Domain.

The evening also sports another Paul Braverman-penned mystery, this time a fabulous farcical take on the 1940s movies of noir genre entitled Deuce Cooper: Full House. Set in a dimly lit, run-down hotel room, a star witness against the notorious Bloomfield mob, Guy Debalizi (Stephen Sherwood), is awaiting transfer to a safe haven by undercover agent, Deuce Cooper (Dave Leon). The plan is to skidoo Debalizi before the mob's hired assassin gets to him.

When Cooper arrives disguised in the blue uniform of a bellhop with an extra uniform for Debalizi, he finds him on the bed looking a little too stiff for comfort. But wait, there are more knocks sounding on the door, and soon we are howling in laughter as the room is filling with lots more blue. Max Mahle, Vanessa Alvarez, and Jaime Melendez also star in Braverman's second hilarious winner of the evening.

While we are on the evening's comedies and farces, two more grace the mostly bare Pear stage–one working well and one just a bit too graphic. The latter, Occupied by Greg Lam, involves a desperate-to-pee Dennis (Dave Leon) finding the only loo in sight locked and occupied by a loudly grunting Voice (Stephen Sherwood) who clearly is suffering a bad case of constipation. The sound effects from within and the bodily antics on the outside are frankly soon too much like a Friday night, frat-house, fart festival. Greg Lam does leave us with a closing reveal that ingenuously opens up the real truth behind this tale of toilet trouble.

More successful, at least in my opinion, is Cherielyn Ferguson's Fair Play, which opens as Will Shakespeare (Dave Leon), with a keen eye and script in hand, is watching a rehearsal of Friar Lawrence (Delaney Bantillo) performing the hastily planned nuptials of Romeo (Stephen Sherwood) and Juliet (Max Mahle, in wig and drag as was the custom for the all-male casts of the Elizabethan stages).

Just as the humble Friar is in the process of declaring "Till Holy Church incorporated two in one," flashing lights and a whirlwind of sorts land Will and his two would-be lovers before a Jersey-accented, rather impatient Marriage Clerk (Delaney Bantillo now in one of the evening's best-performed comedic roles) who just wants to see some birth certificates before issuing a marriage license. But when the wig comes off Juliet and she–or rather he–finds out that holding hands and even kissing Romeo is not something that will send then to the public gallows, the fun really begins.

Totally different in nature from the above four are the remaining quartet of playlets. Two sisters remember a deceased father as they sit under a star-studded night sky. Livie (Delaney Bantillo) is bursting with excitement, her entire being abuzz as she gazes through her new high-tech telescope and recalls how much she once enjoyed talking about the galaxies with their father. No matter how much she begs, Livie cannot coax a bored and bothered Rossa (Alison Starr) to engage. The more Livie pushes and the longer awkward silences extend, the more the sisters move to an inevitable brink of past resentments spilling forth. The resulting eruptions lead to a new calm with its own revelations for the sisters–and a surprise one for us as audience. Brigette Dutta Portman's Stargazers is a pleasant-enough exploration of the timelessness of sister rivalry and sibling bonding.

As dressed-to-kill Penny (Delaney Bantillo) sits on a bench in front of the neon sign of "Joe's Fish Sticks" awaiting a blind date's arrival, she nervously texts her friend, Brit (Alison Starr), sitting at home in PJs munching on a box of Lucky Charms. Penny is concerned about a strange guy (who does happen to be cute) who has parked himself next to her, carrying a big, black, and obviously heavy bag. Britt is freaking out that Penny should run before she gets kidnapped. But Penny is not going to miss meeting her now-late date, and Asher (she learns Mystery Man's name played by Max Mahle) is proving to be a bit more interesting than she originally thought. Sophia Naylor's Probably Not a Bag of Ears is at best mildly amusing.

Likewise is true for Erin Panttaja's Rossum's Robot Truckers, a quick look at the fast-changing and fast-increasing influence of AI on the world of work. Karen (Vanessa Alvarez) is interviewing long-distance trucker Devin (Dave Leon), an SME (Subject Matter Expert) for information she is attaining to be fed into the LLM (Large Language Model). The implications of the AI world for each of them and for the world at large become intellectually and emotionally clearer for each as their conversation progresses. Otherwise, Eric Panttaja's new work is certainly currently relevant and somewhat thought-provoking but also a bit ho-hum.

Much more compelling in both its timeliness and its heartrending relevance is Enrique (Henri) Muñoz's Not in America, perhaps the most successful and most important among this octet of new works. This is another play involving sisters, this time a teen, Sofia (Alison Starr), and a ten-year-old, Yamilex (Jaime Melendez), both of whom are evidently undocumented and are trying to survive by carefully wrapping and boxing recently picked pears. Sofia is wrapping as fast as she can while Yamilex is grabbing empty boxes and pretending she is somewhere else, anywhere else but sitting on the ground working while also hungry for something other than the bruised pears her older sister lets her eat. The more Yamilex skips around and tries to get Sofia to play with her, the more the older sister gets angry. Threats to tell "Pappi" by the elder sis and promises to tell "Mommy" by the younger are only the tip of the iceberg for the back-and-forth battle ensuing between the two.

But as a bell announces the work day's end and as the two settle into their makeshift home of a cardboard tent, emotions and moods for both shift. What follows is an achingly beautiful, sad, and too true glimpse of the lives, fears and dreams of two children caught in a nightmare not of their making.

The range of experiences we the audience is afforded in less than two hours is striking. One moment we are in tickles, another, in near tears; and maybe another, slightly bored. But put the eight new works together as The Pear Theatre has once again done in its Pear Slices 2025, an evening of exciting, live theatre is in store along with the exiting satisfaction of having supported by our presence the birthing process of new works–one or more which very well may return someday on some stage as a full-length world premiere.

Pear Slices 2025 runs through June 8, 2025, at The Pear Theatre, 1110 La Avenida, Suite A, Mountain View, CA. Tickets are available at www.thepear.org.