Ongoing Repercussions of a Day in ‘September’

In what may be the first play in Los Angeles connected to the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, Paul Jordan presents “September 25th,” three one-acts that each take place at or around a park bench in New York City on the same day.

The production is presented by Falling Safe, in association with the Stella Adler Theatre, at the Stella Adler Theatre.

In “Coffee” a man who ran down 50 flights of stairs, Art (Devon Michaels), meets with the fireman, Frank (Stan Klimecko), who saved him. Drinking coffee at 8 a.m., they discuss the surreal nature of their new world, the necessity in the Jewish religion of finding remains of the presumed dead and going fishing--presumably on the boat that Frank can buy with the check Art offers him for saving his life.

“Someday” is about a couple who meet at lunchtime to discuss diverging plans in the aftermath of the attacks. She (Sarah Reilly) wants to move back home to Chicago, while her husband (John Rowe), who is finding new work generated from the World Trade Center tragedies, wants to stay. An incidental character, a policeman (Paul DiPaola), reappears at the same park bench at dinnertime in “Poconos.” He’s meeting with a woman (Janet Lo) whom he wants to marry, but she has just asked to break up.

None of these pieces is deeply philosophical, and their link to Sept. 11 is rather thin beyond the point that these three relationships are changed forever. These relationships could be taking place anytime, anywhere to anybody. Perhaps that’s Jordan’s point. But if so, in Reilly’s case, director Melanie Merians pushes the actress to be too emotionally strident.

If Jordan means to show the aftereffects of this great tragedy, the intensity of this shared experience and the enormity of the destruction, the distance from normality isn’t apparent, and Merians fails to build layers of meaning and emotion that are absent in the text.

*

“September 25th,” Stella Adler Theatre, 6773 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. Dec. 20-22, Jan. 9-10, 16-17, 8 p.m. $12. (323) 937-1397. Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes.