An Hour’s Worth of Potential

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO — Camino Real Playhouse’s 10-minute-play contest showcasing budding playwrights is a good idea that has some unintended consequences.

The current edition of “Six at Eight” unveils three playwrights who appear to be far from budding. But it also contains three pieces by one of the country’s most imaginative young scribes, David Ives.

This mix of work from a voice at the top of his game with those of relative rookies tends to show up the rookies, highlighting that 10 minutes can be packed with wit and ideas--or bereft of them.

Which is why some of these shorts feel much longer than 10 minutes. One that doesn’t is first-place winner “The Gift,” by Charlotte Samples, with B.J. Scott as the grieving sister of a brother with AIDS who has died. Samples’ play--as directed by Joe LaMasa--has Frances address the audience, and the play carries the authenticity of both a memento mori and a confessional.

Evan Blake’s “A Cup of Coffee” earned second place honors, though it’s not clear why. An interminable dramatization under Randall Stanton’s direction in which a nervous, well-meaning father (Brian Page) meets his recovering daughter (Debbie Sperry) in a clinic, the scene meanders to an end without shedding light on the daughter’s life or her father’s.

Lynn Snyder’s third-placer, “Junk Mail,” also goes on and on, care of Gigi Fusco’s direction, overplaying its central gag about two strangers (Monte Collins and Marsha Collins) meeting over junk mail in a post-office lobby. Snyder has the notion to find a metaphor for the war between the sexes, but this one isn’t inspired.

Ives’ plays, though, are all inspiration. His oft-staged “The Philadelphia” doesn’t receive here the kind of hyper-energetic staging it requires--director Jill Forbath Roden’s actors tend to insert beats where none exist--but the piece’s fun absurdity of people stuck in geographic states of mind (Vince Campbell’s Al is stuck in a “Los Angeles”) comes through loud and clear.

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Even more ingenious is “Words, Words, Words,” in which B. Aaron Cogan, Scott Haring and Kerene play three lab chimps stuck in a cage with three typewriters. Their scientist master is testing the “hundredth monkey” theory, which posits that if enough monkeys are put in front of enough keyboards, one will eventually write “Hamlet.”

Ives’ show-offy side comes through here with his fabulous display of literary in-jokes (the chimps slip into talking like Hamlet and Milton), but director Ian Downs keeps things in control, emphasizing the underlying poignancy.

The funny sadness of men and women trying to connect makes Ives’ “Sure Thing” a small masterpiece of contemporary comedy.

Like a rewound tape, Rick Boal’s Bill keeps taking an empty seat at a crowded coffeehouse next to Pamela Turner’s Betty, flubbing his lines, and starting over. Ives’ pair want to connect, but their words get in the way--and yet they keep trying to make it right. Director Edith M. Schwartz stages with requisite precise timing, though she has her actors dressed too bourgeois for a New York coffeehouse.

The program’s fourth-place new play, Marilynn Bates’ “Up With the Angels,” receives a reading at Sunday’s performance only. An earlier reading suggested that Bates has written the stuff of a screenplay scene, not something that can be effectively staged.

* “Six at Eight,” Camino Real Playhouse, 31776 El Camino Real, San Juan Capistrano. Tonight, Friday and June 28 at 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m. Ends June 28. $10. (714) 489-8082. Running time: 2 hours.

A South Orange County Community Theatre production of short plays by David Ives, Charlotte Samples, Evan Blake, Lynn Snyder and Marilynn Bates. Producer: Jill Forbath Roden. Directed by Joe LaMasa, Randall Stanton, Gigi Fusco, Roden, Ian Downs and Edith M. Schwartz. With B.J. Scott, Brian Page, Debbie Sperry, Monte Collins, Marsha Collins, Vince Campbell, B. Aaron Cogan, Scott Haring, Kerene, Rick Boal and Pamela Turner. Lights and sound: Fusco, Roden, LaMasa and Randall Stanton. Production advisor: Don Took.