• printer friendly
• mail this article
• iPod format
• digg

Photo

Leslie Schwartz and Adam Ortiz have a drink at Green Tea Terrace before getting freaked out by &#

So it started out normal; guy and girl meet, they go out on a blind date, and they say good night. It doesn’t end there. Guy starts stalking girl – from threatening phone messages to psychotic break-ins – until girl has to run and change her name.

OK, OK, so we’re tricking you a little bit – this was actually the plot of the Geffen Playhouse’s new play “Boy Gets Girl” seen by this week’s blind-daters, Leslie Schwartz and Adam Ortiz. Both first-years, Schwartz is a communications student from Fremont, Calif., while Ortiz is a psychology student from Orange County.

After meeting at Sproul Turnaround, the two journeyed to the heart of Westwood to the Green Tea Terrace on Westwood Boulevard to not only learn about each other, but to poke at the possibility of love.

“My first impression was that Leslie was a pretty girl with a welcoming personality,” said Ortiz. “She gave me a hug instead of a handshake and that just showed how friendly she was.”

Leslie said that Adam came off as complacent and kind in their first meeting.

The two discussed topics from books they’ve both enjoyed to movies they’ve seen and even musicals they can sing while Schwartz sipped her blended green tea latte and Ortiz drank his hot gunpowder green tea and with a side-order of boba in a bowl.

“When I was looking at what to order the flavor gunpowder stuck out with me,” said Ortiz. “It was surrounded by friendly tea flavors, so I gave it a shot.”

With the after-taste of gunpowder in his mouth, Ortiz continued the conversation ranging from classes to the couple’s perception of Los Angeles.

“When we first started talking, we never stopped,” said Schwartz. “I felt like I knew him for a lot longer than we actually had – I never felt like a stranger with him.”

From the teahouse, the two went to the Geffen to see Rebecca Gilman’s play “Boy Gets Girl,” which recounts the thrilling tale of a blind date that changes the life of the girl forever.

“The play was definitely a thriller – the fact that it was about a blind date and a stalker and we were on a blind date made it even more scary and ironic,” said Ortiz. “You could have sent us to a graveyard at midnight and that couldn’t have been any more frightening.”

According to the two, even though the play may be frightening, it kept the audience’s attention, (and its breath) while taking audience members through a roller coaster of events from death threats by the guy to the woman’s devastation.

“What impressed me most about the play was the fact that the last line of each scene left you waiting for more,” Schwartz said. “They perfectly summed up the feelings of that scene to make a fluidly written piece.”

Not only was the plot of the play intricate, the skills of the actors were impressive and realistic. According to Ortiz, the main character, Anastasia Coon as Theresa Bedell, was so convincing that he was waiting for the girl to actually run off stage and into the audience for safety.

“What the play did extremely well was plant the idea of blind dates going awry in my head,” Schwartz said. “Being a woman on a blind date, it starts to make you wonder what you’re getting yourself into – but I was reassured when Adam told me during intermission he wouldn’t stalk me.”

Though the play was enticing and thrilling, it did seem to fall apart at the end, according to Ortiz when the play ended on an open-ended note instead of having concrete closure.

“The end didn’t satisfy me,” said Ortiz. “It wasn’t as thrilling as the rest of the play; I would’ve rather seen the girl fight back like in ‘Enough.’”

From stalkers and death threats to boba and green tea, the date itself ran a gamut of moods, and even if it wasn’t quite a torrid love affair, it was at least an adventure.

“He was an awesome guy and we clicked so well,” said Schwartz. “I’d definitely want to hang out with him as friends again – he was one of the few non-superficial people I’ve met here.”