Comic relief
Adam Bock's TV-inspired Thursday at Encore and a pair of one-acts by Mrozek from foolsFURY offer two ways to get there.

By Rob Avila

ADAM BOCK'S NEW comedy goes by a cunningly mundane title. As days of the week go, Thursday rivals Tuesday as the dullest. Even Monday, as the start of the work week, commands a certain terrible respect. But Thursday is pure calendar filler, grafted onto Wednesday by sadist-industrialists bent on squeezing a little more sweat from wage slaves before Friday, our nation's traditional day of slacking. Nevertheless, when Bock starts clocking the commonplace of his version of suburbia, we're inclined to shout "TGIT."

The world premiere of Thursday offers a pleasant excursion into a spotless, TV-toned, pastel neighborhood – where no one seems to be doing much in the way of real work and the day flies by in a series of sharply stylized comical encounters and pantomimes among a circle of quirky characters. The story revolves around Marcy (Chloe Broznan), who returns to her hometown via rehab after a failed career as a TV starlet. Her fumbling ex-boyfriend, George (Craig Neibaur), offers his friendship, but Janet (Jibz Cameron) and girlfriend Charlene (Lisa Steindler) form a peevish unwelcome wagon out of loyalty to George's possessive girlfriend, Alison (Cassie Beck). Meanwhile, George's brother, Pete (Jason Frazier), wallows in vengeful self-pity over his ill-considered breakup with boyfriend Jimmy (David Ryan Smith), now being courted by 12-stepping shelf-stocker Alex (Robert Martinez).

Bock's strength comes in part from an effortless postmodern blending of a stylized, TV-inspired virtual reality and the emotional immediacy of the stage. Encore Theatre Company's sleek production knowingly imbues Bock's high-energy buffoonery with choice snippets of pop music (courtesy of David Molina), a spare but eye-catching pop-art set (by James Faerron, with lighting by Christopher Studley), and a disarmingly sharp and charming cast.

Director Kent Nicholson – who has helmed two previous productions of Bock's plays, including Encore's presentation of Five Flights, the repeatedly extended theatrical surprise of last season – has a sure and artful way with the material. Thursday lopes, scoots, scampers, and generally bowls along with the manic comic energy and deft physicality that combines elements of a Warner Bros. cartoon, a savvy sitcom, and a Laugh-In rerun. Characters tend to hotfoot it off the stage, leading with a vaudevillian's decisive stride; that is, when they're not skedaddling, hopping around in agitation, or coughing up hair.

At the same time, Bock has a flair for a certain laconic form of comic dialogue (out of which a precariously packed closetful of self-exposition occasionally tumbles). And he draws his characters with a gently satirical wit that casts ultimately compassionate glances on ordinary human foibles. His light comedy contains a soft blush of melancholy, hitched to Marcy and Pete's confrontation with the daunting emptiness of failure and rejection. In the end the small concessions of friendship and the mutual pain of starting over give a quietly humane lift to a scene beautifully played by Broznan and Frazier. And then it's Friday.

No fooling

If you like your satire spicy, foolsFURY has a Polish bill not to be missed: a program of two very funny one-acts by the internationally renowned short-story writer and playwright Slawomir Mrozek. A supreme satirist, Mrozek has a style that's been grouped with the theater of the absurd since his first plays in the late 1950s, while displaying its own peculiar mix of the madcap, the grotesque, and political allegory.

In Out to Sea, directed by foolsFURY's artistic director Ben Yalom, three hungry men adrift in a raft – Fat (Gwen Loeb), Thin (Emilie Miller), and Medium (Alexander Lewis) – discuss who among them should rightfully sacrifice himself to the appetite of the others. The ensuing political debate, which at one point takes the form of an election campaign, supposedly turns on who has had the best life and, thus, will have the least regrets. But it's clear early on that the fat man (in the unmistakable top hat of the capitalist) and the simpler but strapping medium-size man who takes his orders are in league to devour the intellectually minded thin man whatever happens. The action unfolds with a flurry of cartoonish posturing, conducted with circuslike precision atop a small tabletop and trunk serving as a "raft," until we arrive at a surprise ending that, especially in a time of jingoistic rampage, forcefully drives home the pointed edge of the metaphor.

In The Party, three friends (Lewis, Loeb, and Miller) show up to an empty room prepared for what they had thought was supposed to be a party. The initial confusion and disappointment turn to a questioning of the nature of the party they thought they had been invited to. Is it a wedding or a funeral? And what's the difference again? Directed by Rod Hipskind, the Marxian element here is more Groucho than Karl. As the companions fight for their right to party, their fragile and fragmented egos unleash three ids and a costume trunk riding a giddy wave of paranoia and possibility.

Clever direction by Yalom and Hipskind and three excellent performances (twice) – together with nicely spare but evocative musical accompaniment by Doyle Ott and Lesley Poirier – bring nimble physical comedy and a range of thematic colors to these rarely seen theatrical gems.

'Thursday' runs through Nov. 2. Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 5 p.m., Thick House, 1695 18th St., S.F. $15-$20. (415) 821-4849.

'Out at Sea' and 'The Party' run through Oct. 26. Thurs.-Sun., 8 p.m. (no show Sun/19), Next Stage Theater, 1620 Gough, S.F. $12-$20 (pay what you can, previews and Thursdays). 1-866-GOT-FURY, www.foolsfury.org.