18-Year-Old S.D. Playwright Advances With ‘Setbacks’

Eighteen-year-old Eric Kobrick, a recent graduate of Crawford High School in San Diego, decided to write a play because, as an actor, he had a hard time finding the kind of parts he wanted.

“Setbacks,” the story of a father who comes into conflict with one of his two sons about the other one who has Down’s Syndrome, was one of four one-acts chosen for production in the annual California Young Playwrights Project show, set for Jan. 10-21 at the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre’s Elizabeth North Theatre.

Kobrick, whose knowledge of Down’s Syndrome comes from research rather than personal experience, now finds he doesn’t want to act in his show. But he is auditioning for a part in “Avatar of Descent,” a story about a young man’s inner journey by fellow winning playwright, Jay Schwartz, 18, a freshman at Occidental College in Los Angeles.

Kobrick, who works at a Video Blockbuster store, where he is saving his money to go to college, was working as a stage manager on a CYPP touring show, “The Inner Circle,” a story about AIDS and teen-agers, when one of the actresses in the show let slip that Kobrick’s play had been chosen by CYPP.

“I was really happy, but it was almost frightful,” he said on the phone from his San Diego home. “A couple of the actors from ‘The Inner Circle’ were in shows (David Whitney Johnson in “Solid Oak” at the Gaslamp and Linda Libby in “Angel City” in an Ensemble Arts Theatre production), and you would see them scanning the papers every day. So the first thing I thought of was critics and stuff and what people would write when I got produced. But I abandoned that idea, and now I’m just happy to be produced.”

Besides Kobrick and Schwartz, the other contest winners are Gina Bowman, 16, of Katella High School in Anaheim, author of “Someday,” a story about a Soviet girl who befriends a black girl in the United States, and Aaron Arredondo, 18, a freshman at Fresno City College, who wrote “The Testing of Abraham,” about a sinister television evangelist who puts a yuppie couple’s beliefs to the test. The shows, which range 20-40 minutes in length, will be presented together at 8 p.m. performances Wednesday through Saturday, and at Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2.

The project, now in its fifth year, is the brainchild of Deborah Salzer, a teacher who designed the CYPP to teach and train aspiring playwrights under 19. All of the four, except Schwartz, are products of CYPP’s classes or workshops contracted by California schools from San Diego to Fresno. One of CYPP’s greatest successes was producing the work of Josefina Lopez, now a student at UC San Diego, whose play, “Simply Maria or the American Dream” was broadcast on KPBS-TV this year and whose work continues to be produced in a variety of theaters. Her latest work, “Food for the Dead,” played at Teatro Campesino.

Playwright Oana-Maria Hock wrote a play called “Berlin, Berlin” for UC San Diego a few years back, about travelers trapped behind the Berlin Wall waiting for freedom. Not surprisingly, she has a hunger to see what remains of the wall, which she went to see as part of her research before writing her play. “A lot of people called me and said your play is obsolete now, right?” said Hock from New Hampshire, where she is living this year. “And I said, ‘Not really, because I was writing about real walls and imaginary walls. Now, I wonder about the imaginary walls that remain. I would be interested in a follow-up story. I hope I will be able to go there with a director and write a series of one-acts, inspired by what is happening and how people deal with this kind of freedom and the confusion it must bring. I’m going to try to find if there’s any way to do it.”

PROGRAM NOTES: “The Life and Life of Bumpy Johnson,” a world premiere by Amiri Baraka about a Harlem gangster who bankrolls the Harlem Renaissance remains one of the surest bets to make the 1990 San Diego Repertory season, which will run from May to January, 1991. The season has yet to be made finalize, but seven shows will be pulled from the list that includes the Baraka play. Others up for consideration are: “Burn This” by Lanford Wilson; August Wilson’s Pulitzer- and Tony award-winning play “Fences;” “Born in the RSA” by Barney Simon; Shakespeare’s “Cymbeline” or “The Winter’s Tale”; “Precious Memories” by Romulus Linney; Mac Wellman’s adaptation of “Dracula”; Eugene O’Neill’s “A Touch of the Poet” and “A Moon for the Misbegotten.” Also on the list, for the Teatro Sin Fronteras project, is Ariel Dorfman’s “Reader,” a story about a censor of books who finds himself reading a book that exposes dangerous secrets of his own life; “Life Is a Dream,” by Calderon de la Barca, a twist on the Oedipus myth set in Poland, and “Fuenta Ovejuna” by Lope de Vega, about a town in revolt against a dictator. The theater will choose one of those, which will be included in the the seven plays for the season.

The artistic staff is also considering a new musical and a new play. . . .

The La Jolla Playhouse, which has said that it needs to raise $500,000 by Dec. 31 to ensure a 1990 season, now needs $106,360 more. At the same time it is $460,000 closer to its $1-million, financial-stabilization campaign, which ends in June. And, if the figures don’t seem to add up, that’s because what’s been thrown into the mix is a $200,000 challenge grant which pays $2 for every $1 raised by the Playhouse, but only after the Playhouse has reached the $300,000 mark. It is still $39,693 shy of that figure. . . .

The Public Arts Advisory Council just awarded $3,000 to a bilingual theater project--an original translation/adaptation/production of a children’s fable scheduled for free performances in Spanish and English at the Carlsbad Cultural Arts Center in 1990. Teatro Meta veterans Luis Torner will direct and Yareli Arizmendi will act, with the new play written by Troy Cardenas, music composition by Todd Bryson and music performance by Linda Higley in collaboration with the Center for World Music, the San Diego Head Start Program and the Carlsbad High School Drama Department. . . .

Ensemble Arts Theatre presents Peter Parnell’s “The Rise and Rise of Daniel Rocket,” the story about a boy who can fly, tonight through Dec. 3 at the Winston School campus at 215 9th St. in Del Mar. . . .

Banquo got his revenge on Macbeth in last week’s bowling bash at the Aztec Lanes for the La Jolla Playhouse, which presents “Macbeth” through Sunday at the Mandell Weiss Theatre. Banquo (Robert Beltran) vanquished Macbeth (John Vickery) 174-166. That should put some added heat into Macbeth’s on-stage murder of his old friend this week.