ARONSON'S NEW SPOUSE-SWAPPING COMEDY 
                                              By Carol Benet
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area theater
                                                                 Weeks starting Oct.  5, 2009
                                                                 Vol. 12, No. 20
          The SF Playhouse keeps pouring out hits.  This little theatre in the heart of San Francisco currently presents the world premiere of Billy Aronson’s The First Day of School, a comedy about what parents would really like to do, once the kids are gone – all day.
            The resultant show is clever, funny and risqué.
            Two couples and one other parent, after the kids are tucked into their classes, become involved in a sexual rondo that is hysterical as every line is interlaced with the usual talk about their kids’ teachers, the curriculum, the fund-raising, the after school teams and so on.  So clever is Aronson’s dialogue that the juxtapositions of this kind of normalcy with the outrageous proposals, refusals, and then acceptance of the idea that they should have sex with each other during these vacant hours makes this one very funny drama.                     Bill English, Artistic Director of SF Playhouse and set designer here, plays the part of David. He and wife Susan (Zehra Berkman), come up with the idea of how to spend the day and they go off and proposition the others very matter-of-factly. The responses of Peter (Jackson Davis), Kim (Marcia Pizzo), Alice (Stacy Ross) are some of the funniest scenes that I have seen.   All along, and especially when they eventually succumb to this wacky and shocking idea, they are wedging in their incessant cell-phone calls to conduct their lives and respond to their spouses. 
            Soon, once the set changes from the halls of the school to the dining room of Susan and David’s house, it becomes a free-for-all.  English’s set, perfect in its domesticity and practicality, is completed with two high-lighted photos of their children.
            When the baby-sitter (Torie Laher) and boyfriend (Myles Landberg) sneak into the house after school (short day for them) for their own assignation while all the adults are upstairs doing their monkey business, soon all are exposed and the embarrassment and denial is another highlight of the play. Stage director Chris Smith rides herd on the ensemble throughout.
            Besides this play, Billy Aronson created the idea and lyrics for Rent and has written for Beavis and Butt-head 
            The First Day of School runs through November 7 at the SF Playhouse, upstairs from the Jean Shelton Theatre, at 588 Sutter Street, between Mason and Powell.  For info: (415) 677-9596 or go online.
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        © Carol Benet 2009
        Carol Benet is a regular theater reviewer for artssf.com.
    These critiques appearing weekly (or sometimes semi-weekly, but never weakly)focus on theater, dance and new musical creativity in performance, with forays into recordings by local artists, and a few departures into books (by authors of the region)as well.
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