Cindy Goldfield and Aaron Wilton in All Thumbs by Aaron Loeb. Photo by Alessandra (le) Mello.

PlayGround’s annual festival presents fully staged productions of short plays selected from their regular Monday night reading series. This year theyl feature seven one-acts with a variety of styles and subjects, from the deadly serious to the whimsical. The production values are of the highest quality, under various directors, the pacing, especially of the scene changes, is taut, the simplified stage settings at Thick House on Potrero Hill are effective in denoting widely different scenarios, and the costuming by Lisa Lowe evokes a variety of settings and times.

The characters in the first fourteen-minute play, Truffaldino Says No, ably directed by Chris Smith, are standard Commedia dell’arte players, and the authentically designed costumes denote their exact roles. The entire ensemble of seven actors appear as stock characters: Soren Oliver as the intelligent harlequin clown Arlecchino takes a suitably imperious lead; Aaron Wilton plays the opportunistic Truffaldino, Michael Phillis enacts Flavio the handsome young lover, and Brian Herndon plays Il Capitano with a sense of authority and bewilderment. Danielle Levin plays two roles well, that of the doctor and of old man Pantalone; in a simple costume shift, she uses a fake beard as a topknot, then as a chin decoration. The entire scene is decidedly over the top, in deference to the Renaissance style, and style is the heart of this broadly-gestured comedy.

 Where the first play uses only stools as set pieces, the second, GymnopĂ©die #1 uses a bare stage with one bentwood chair as a barre for Lisa Morse (Isabella, a love interest in Truffaldino) as dancer Melissa under the instruction of Brian. As their relationship deteriorates, she stabs him with a mimed knife and he falls to the deck. Director Molly Noble keeps the action in a consistently motivated flow.

Seen takes place on a set with a bed. In blackout after one of many highly efficient and well-choreographed scene changes, there are the unmistakable sounds of sex. Danielle as Daphne wears a nightgown, but Michael as Gary is totally nude. After the lights come up he eventually and casually dresses, then plays guitar and sings to Daphne, while she dances. After she discusses such lipstick shades as “naked panty hose” and “nude,” she tells him she is three weeks pregnant. But, “You’re not the father.” Then she cavalierly says, “I got rid of it.” The philosophical question she poses is “are you seen or being seen?” The twelve-minute play ends when she tells Gary, “I’m gonna take a shower. Wanna watch?”

John Jacob O’Reilly Smitherton’s Bid  to Save the World, staged by PlayGround Artistic Director Jim Kleinmann, uses a cast of five on a set of two bentwoods and an office chair. Soren as rich magnate Smitherton asks his subalterns, “What does that have to do with world peace?” He is so rich he hopes to purchase world peace.

Barbara Oliver directs Daniel Heath’s Wednesday on a slightly more complex set of a side table with a chair, three chairs side-by-side as a couch, some familiar stools as a coffee table, and a small balustrade to suggest a staircase. Brian as Robert sits at the table writing while Eve, played by Cindy Goldfield (the devious love interest Colombina in Truffaldino) heads up the stairs to check on their child. She changes her mind and says to Robert, “Let’s get drunk.” She proposes a drinking game where one writes an expected answer and the other asks a question; the loser finishes the glass. Cindy plays the wife as domineering and bitchy, while Brian acts as a devoted, long-suffering husband. Playwright Heath’s conceit is that weeks move from Wednesday to Wednesday, and “Every week is a snake that eats its own tail.”

Mark Routhier directs Net on a bare stage with small nettings left and right. Aaron begins as a slightly effeminate Alfonso the bridge jumper, bemoaning his fate. Then Soren enters as Stuart the cop to rescue him from himself. He tries to talk him down and calls him “a sad fuck.” “Yes, I am,” Alfonso admits. In the end he wins: “I broke Stuart’s perfect record of saving jumpers.”

The brilliant finale All Thumbs was written by Aaron Loeb (His First Person Shooter has been critically acclaimed and his Abraham Lincoln’s Big Gay Dance Party will be presented as part of the New York Fringe Festival.) The entire ensemble appears again, three as a chorus of Monsters in fuzzy jumpsuits. They identify themselves as “the cavity creep” and repeat, “We make holes in teeth.” The tiny baby Thumbelina is accidentally squashed under her mother’s shoe.

The Best of Playground 13 continues through May 31 at Thick House, 1695 18th Street, San Francisco. Tickets ($23 to $40) are available by phone at (415) 401-8081 or at www.playground-sf.org. Staged readings of other full-length plays continue through May 25. Please see “Hot Tickets” for details.