Periodically, Chicago receives a small production that has been a hit elsewhere—Philadelphia, Boston, in this case, LA. The producers move it here with big expectations of repeating that success in this more theatre-savvy market and probably have hopes of turning one success into a long running series of successes across the country.

Chicago—where producers' dreams go to die.

That is because most of these shows aren't that good, which makes one wonder either about the theatre savvy of these other markets or about the producers that interpreted a friendly home crowd as a sign of greater success to come.

Matt & Ben is far from the worst of these efforts. In fact, it's already had its New York run, but it's still a severely flawed show. It relates the pre-success friendship of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, who sit in a small Boston apartment with big plans for a new screenplay. Not the one you're thinking of, but a literary adaptation of Catcher in the Rye. Suddenly, the screenplay of Good Will Hunting falls from the sky, sparking the rest of the play.

And did we mention that Damon and Affleck are played by women?

Part satire, part buddy drama, part drag show, Matt & Ben suffers because it's not quite good enough at any of them. Most successful early, when it's moderately funny, Matt & Ben doesn't do nearly as well when things get serious. We can buy women playing men in a comedy, but ask us to take those same characters seriously in a dramatic context? They better be top-notch actors.

Unfortunately, Quincy Tyler Bernstine (Ben) and Jennifer R. Morris (Matt), while capable, don't have the chops to make that transition without more help from the script (and it's a very shallow script). Morris fares better as the super-serious Matt, but Bernstine goes right for a broader characterization of Ben, (and Ben's a much less developed character) which acts as a barrier between the audience and sympathizing for these two young wanna-be stars.

Still, it's a short piece—just over an hour—and there's enough decent humor to carry an audience for that relatively short span of time. Matt & Ben will probably have some success just because of the names in the title, but with a little more focus it could have been a much better play.

Matt & Ben—Jam Theatricals

Michael Phillips, Tribune—"It's all slightly inside, occasionally hilarious as written but a fine deadpan time as performed by Bernstine and Morris. (Both are graduates of the University of California-San Diego, which put out a remarkable bunch of performers throughout the 1990s.) As directed by David Warren and staged here by associate director Benjamin Salka, Matt and Ben is a plain and simple bull session among friends, spiced with a gift from above. Who knows, maybe these two didn't even need divine intervention. After all, Ben says: "We're white, we're American, we're male and we were in School Ties."

Hedy Weiss, Sun-Times—"An extended sketch (I wouldn't even dignify it by calling it a "play") that might get a few mild titters if it were performed as part of a Second City show about the vagaries of Hollywood, Matt & Ben has a single virtue: It runs just 61 minutes. Yet even at that length, any possible interest in it fizzles long before it chugs to an end. In fact, it is pretty much out of steam before it even starts…The two actresses, under the direction of David Warren, do what they can. But the script that has dropped into their laps has no bite, no wit, no meaning, no need to exist. There is no there there, or anywhere in the vicinity. You'd be far better off just renting Good Will Hunting."

Kerry Reid, Reader—"At a brisk 65 minutes, Matt & Ben doesn't spend a lot of time fleshing out the characters. but as might be expected, there are plenty of snarky—and deadly funny—pop culture allusions…The two women (playwrights Mindy Kaling and Brenda Withers) may turn out to be one-trick ponies, but in this intelligent assault on the hollow quest for celebrity they've largely justified the hype."

John Beer, Newcity—"In the version that Jam Productions has mounted at the Theatre Building, Quincy Tyler Bernstine and Jennifer Morris bring verve and wit to their respective portrayals of Ben and Matt, as well as the supporting roles of Gwyneth Paltrow and J. D. Salinger. Bernstine, in particular, is able to replicate the look of quizzical constipation so familiar from "The Sum of All Fears" and "Gigli." And David Warren's direction establishes a precise sense of timing; even when Matt & Ben turns sitcom-treacly, teaching us the lessons of true friendship, this cast and crew keep the proceedings entertaining. It may be fluff, but it's beautifully executed."

Web Behrens, Free Press—"For the most part, the duo skillfully ride the show's comic rhythms. Especially funny is Bernstine as mope-a-dope Affleck, who (in the show's shrewd view) was clearly born under a lucky star. He doesn't care too much or try too hard, but he's rewarded anyway…Morris, meanwhile, plays the Abbott to Bertstine's Costello and she's got a harder time of it, trying to convey the gravitas and the truer talent of her half of the pair. It's briskly directed by David Warren on a delightful set by James Youmans, a goldenrod, orange and aqua fantasy of what Affleck's bachelor pad looked like in 1995."

Rick Reed, Windy City—"You could find worse ways to spend an hour than Matt & Ben, arriving in Chicago after a successful off-Broadway run, where it played for 10 months in the East Village. I think, though, you could find better ways. It's been two days since I witnessed the phenomenon known as Matt & Ben, and I'm still ambivalent about it…Although there are plenty of laughs and the material is topical, Matt & Ben to me seems more like an extended sketch. It could probably be trimmed substantially and work as well, if not better. And its cleverness is not, to my mind, so clever that it deserves this stand-alone mounting. We see just as good stuff on the Second City Stage, or even Mad TV, for that matter."

Anatomy of Revenge—Bailiwick Repertory

Kevin Nance, Sun-Times—"Anatomy might have succeeded, nonetheless, as a taut suspense yarn of vigilante justice in the face of official incompetence. In skilled hands, the story might have aspired to the implacable drive and cheap-but-potent thrills of the Jacobean revenge dramas. But despite director David Zak's efforts to inject some zip into the material by generously sprinkling it with male nudity (much of it frankly gratuitous), the play is both lurid and lame, a potboiler wannabe that can't summon the strength of its own pulp-fiction convictions."

Jennifer Vanasco, Reader—"Michael Rougas's Anatomy of Revenge is wince inducing for a different reason. A premiere, it seems a throwback to the angry AIDS plays of the 80's, offering nothing new and using the threat of AIDS to boost the fear that being gay is dark and dangerous: the protagonist, Roger, seems to be saying that the plague makes gay culture a wasteland. But oddly, none of his friends dies of AIDS but rather from drug-related or homophobic violence."

Lawrence Bommer, Free Press—"Rougas' script is too schematic, its by-the-numbers depiction of the aftermath of an attack too analytical and self-conscious to trigger in Roger or the audience any palpable hunger passion to punish Voltaire. One reason is the play's indifference to why Voltaire attacked Roger. His controlling, religious grandfather is hardly explanation enough. But neither should it be left to the audience's paranoia. Especially considering the recent Lakeview-related murders, our community needs to learn more than how healing transcends reprisals. We need to know why such horrors happen."

Venus Zarris, Gay Chicago—"Bailiwick Repertory presents the world premiere of Anatomy of Revenge, written by Michael Rougas and directed by David Zak. The script is so cliche and contrived that it is soap opera-esqu. It is about 20 years too late in its subject matter and handling of it to be even the least bit profound. And the script, acting and direction are so sophomoric that it is hard to follow. It is filled with one contrived formula after another. The epiphany—most of the shocking events are actually just a revenge fantasy contrived by the lead character to process his rage—is so formulaic that it is reminiscent of a dream sequence from a Wayne's World sketch and just as goofy."

Foolin' Around With Infinity—Phalanx Theatre

Christopher Piatt, Sun-Times—"Director Luke Hatton and his gifted cast try to do Dietz a favor by reviving his forgotten Cold War play and trumpeting its cooler-heads-will-prevail philosophies. The thanks they get is a script that is hopelessly stuck in the year of its creation: 1988. As the baby boomers were addressing their guilt for surviving their own hedonistic youth, and as linear structure was starting to disappear from popular American playwriting (Three Tall Women and Angels in America were just around the corner), Dietz cooked up this elliptical anti-nuke polemic. The message that we're living on borrowed time comes from a playwright who feels he's doing the same."

Kelly Kleiman, Reader—"Steven Dietz's smart 1987 play with a stupid title gets a near definitive production from this new company. Dietz—who points out that searches of weapons of mass destruction needn't go further than our own backyard—uses a stylistic mix of realism and metafiction to complement the play's thematic mix of physics and metaphysics…The piece requires emotional depth as well as intellectual dexterity, and director Luke Hatton provides both to create a production that's crisp without being brittle."

Nina Metz, Newcity—"A recent article in the New Yorker pointed out that most men and women serving in Iraq have "looked down the barrel and shot at people, and many have killed," and these veterans are returning to the States with a whole host of psychological problems because of it…Playwright Steven Dietz addresses something similar in his 1987 pseudo-satire about a pair of military men stationed a quarter-mile beneath the sands of Utah in a nuclear missile silo. The long hours of isolating boredom and the knowledge that they may, at some point, be responsible for the annihilation of an entire population, has made them more than a little batty—but to what end? The production, a first-time effort from Phalanx Theater, is solid enough in its execution, but the play itself leaves you empty-handed."

Web Behrens, Free Press—"With a complex structure defined by rapidly shifting realities and a decidedly non-linear approach to chronology, this is clearly a very tricky show. The brand-new Phalanx Theater Company gives it the old post-college try. Co-found Jenny Connell does an outstanding job as Luke, projecting the right amount of gravitas for the play and drawing the audience in with her many musings…Although the subject matter is compelling, this unwieldy script is likely to leave you scratching your head—especially after it fails to tie together during the predictable climax, which could use a more urgent rhythm from director Luke Hatton."

Takeout to the Ballgame—Stir-Friday Night!

Chris Jones, Tribune—"Stir-Friday Night! has a lot of very snappy performers, many of whom have been with the group for years. The exceptionally sharp Jennifer Liu, who has been doing Stir-Friday for its entire existence, is an example. So is Harrison Pak, a very smart, droll, fellow. And newcomer Aimee Shyn is a splendid, versatile addition. But the material looks as if it were thrown together quickly without the service of an editor. There are some real stinkers in a loose show so short that it cannot afford stinkers."

Brian Nemtusak, Reader—"For all its ethnocentrism, this revue by pan-Asian troupe Stir-Friday Night! at heart transcends ethnicity, employing a focused, mostly silent pratfall-based slapstick. The style is problematic, frequently detracting from the intended cultural thrust of the humor, but it also rescues some of the borderline "incorrect" or overly instructional moments…Most of the show doesn't strike quite so perfect a balance: either the comedy of cultural difference predominates, leading to well-drawn but faintly stale riffs, or the crazed, bewildering vaudeville does. Then again, some of these full-ensemble free-for-alls really shine—they may be somewhat off topic, but they're also the best of a mixed bag."

Quote of the Fortnight

"Chicago's Off-Loop theater scene is full of people who would sell their souls to be Nathan Allen."—Kevin Nance in a Sun-Times feature on House Theatre of Chicago.