In between seasons, New Village Arts Theatre in Carlsbad is staying lit with what the company is calling a Summer Comedy Festival. The festival consists of a mainstage production, an "off nights" pair of one-act plays, and a comic blues harmonica show (one night only - Monday, August 10, at 7:30pm). If all of the offerings are as satisfying as was the mainstage play at its opening on Saturday, New Village Arts should be able to start calling the Summer Comedy Festival a annual tradition.

"Time Flies" is the name of said mainstage play, and it was written by David Ives, a New York-based writer whose day job involves adapting neglected musicals for presentation in the Encores series. Mr. Ives is a graduate of two famous university drama programs, Northwestern and Yale, and in "Time Flies" he has created a series of six short plays (around 15 minutes each, 90 minutes total without intermission). The plays have next to nothing to do with each other in terms of content, but each tackles the age-old philosophical question, "What is Reality?"

Now, don't let me scare you away. None of these plays ever attains the comic philosophical level of, say, Chekhov. Rather, several of them play like sketches on Saturday Night Live or Second City improv bits that were refined and put into the company's repertoire.

The play that is most like a Saturday Night Live sketch is the opener, "Time Flies." Two mayflies (Tim Parker and Rachel Robinson) return from a first date wondering how far the good-night romance should go. While deciding, they settle down in front of the television to watch a nature program starring David Attenborough (Wendy Waddell). It doesn't take long to realize that Mr. Attenborough is shooting at a stagnant pool of water where they are residing and that he is describing them. They also discover that the lifespan of a mayfly is only 24 hours and that each of them will be dead soon, no matter how they handle the niceties of the date. By putting the mayflies into human form, Mr. Ives plays with human understanding of social conventions and probes how those conventions might be different if we were born, matured, mated, and died in a single day.

"Soap Opera," the second play, seems more like a Second City improv where the audience has suggested a date at a fancy restaurant as the situation and the characters as TV's lonely washer repairman (Adam Brick) and the washing machine that never needs repairing (Rachael VanWormer). This one spins out (sorry) to infinite absurdity as the pair try to get past an unctuous maitre d' (Joshua Everett Johnson), and everyone gets to try on the idea of a human falling in love with a machine, with unexpected results.

Television is an easy target, and the third play, "Captive Audience," takes perhaps too easy a poke at that target. Rob (Mr. Brick) and Laura (Ms. VanWormer) enjoy the kind of marital bliss that their namesakes from "The Dick Van Dyke Show" would find to be envious, except for one thing: Rob, in particular, seems to be captivated by television. In particular he seems hypnotized as a TV man and woman (Mr. Parker and Ms. Robinson) keep baiting him with the promise of showing reality only to deliver marketing pitches instead.

The fourth play explores the nature of the doppleganger, where each person might be thought to have an identical double, even an evil twin of some sort. This one's set in a doctor's office where doubles (Mr. Johnson and Mr. Brick) interact with other doubles (Ms. VanWormer and Ms. Waddell). Even the nurse (Mr. Parker, in drag) is a tease as the characters (and the audience) try to figure out which double is which.

The fifth play hearkens back to another Second City sketch, where the performers have been told to improvise an Agatha Christie murder mystery, except with a twist. Actually, as murder mysteries often turn on what appears to be real but isn't, there is more than one twist, but you'll have to go see the show to find out what they are. Michael Philip Thomas joins the cast for this and the last play, though here he spends a good deal of his time lying face down on a carpet.

Finally, Mr. Ives gets his chance to be Chekhovian in "Degas C'est Moi." A New York man (Mr. Johnson) decides to spend his day being Edgar Degas. No matter that this famous artist is dead; his identity will be appropriated for a day to see what it is like. As Degas goes through his day, he learns how different people react to his ruse (or is it?), and one of the things he learns is that you can't be famous unless someone else shares your fantasy of fame. The entire cast is in this one, including Sam Floto, who also played a bit part in "Soap Opera."

Mr. Johnson has directed this production efficiently, and his youthful company has responded in like manner (including the technical staff - Tim Wallace. Becky Pierce, Mary Larson, Adam Lansky, and Bonnie Durben designed colorful sets, lighting, costumes, sound, and properties respectively). It was the show's first time in front of an audience on opening night, and both the cast and audiences should find more laughs in it as the run progresses. Of the able troupe, Mr. Parker stood out for managing to discover what was especially funny in each character he played.

As the old saying goes, "Time flies when you're having fun." New Village Arts hasn't given us a mindless summer entertainment, but if you're willing to think a little, time should fly.

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