3-28-08
House Attempts Fall Short
The House has been around long enough to begin moving past the hot-new-thing label. They’ve built their reputation on pulp stories told in an epic style with enough theatrical legerdemain to pull in a young audience more accustomed to cinema-slickness than the raw acting Chicago is historically known for. And when they’ve failed, it’s generally been by aiming high and falling short.
That’s really what’s so disappointing about The Attempters. Instead of an epic story about youth—a la The Sparrow—we get a story about a youth who wants to be epic. But he simply isn’t. Director Marika Mashburn’s approach lacks the broad flourishes of much of House’s work, tending towards the spare. So take away the epic storytelling and the cool on stage effects and all that’s left are the words on the page and the actors on stage.
And, as critics of The House are generally quick to point out, these have never been the company’s strong point. Playwright Shawn Pfautsch has done strong work in the past as an actor and writer, but his efforts here are pedestrian. Nothing leaps off the page. And the acting lacks the honesty that House’s best work has attained. Chris Mathews as the self-absorbed Danny Hackles chooses an oddly broad style that never feels organic or honest. As a result, we never fully commit to Danny’s journey. The rest of the cast manages a more understated truth, particularly Johnny Arena and Mary Winn Heider as his best friend and girlfriend, respectively. Director Mashburn’s failure to stylistically integrate her central character, and Mathews’ inability to play the character’s broadness in a genuine manner strip the show of what resonance it might have attained.
Of course, The Attempters contains some of The House’s trademark theatricality. There’s the live rock band, who play decently. And the short film in the second act is probably the production’s high point. In the end, though, The Attempters doesn’t attempt very much that’s new or original. It may well be that this is just a blip on The House’s track record of success. Or perhaps the well of ideas has run a little dry, since most all of The House’s work has been written by an ensemble member. If that’s the case, next year’s slate, which includes two remounts (although one is a Christmas show remount and remounting holiday productions is a time-honored tradition), might provide a necessary breath. Or perhaps, as The House’s artists move closer to 30 than 20, high school storylines are just less fresh.
Despite a below average show, The House has retained their audience, at least based on the nearly full performance I attended. Doubtless it would take several under-whelming shows in a row to change that. But if you haven’t experienced a House production before now, I would wait for the next production. The Attempters doesn’t represent them well.
The Attempters, House Theatre of Chicago
Chris Jones, Tribune—“For at least the first 20 minutes at House’s temporary quarters at the Building Stage in the West Loop, the show is so loose and vague that it would fall off its bones if it had any bones. But hang in there. Pfautsch fleshes out some ultimately appealing characters with language that gets thicker as it goes. And by the end of the night, he comes up with something that genuinely approaches a theatrical depiction of the chaos that assaults the high school mind… But the current problem with both the script and Marika Mashburn’s imaginative but low-stakes direction is that they don’t set up sufficiently clear aesthetic rules for the audience to feel comfortable.”
Hedy Weiss, Sun-Times—“You sense the House is onto something cute and charming as soon as you enter the intimate Building Stage and find the audience seated at a few thrift-shop tables and in traditional seats. In addition, everyone is humming along to that old chestnut ‘I’m a Believer,’ while an actor intently homes in on a wrestling video. There is genuine wit, too, in Shawn Pfautsch’s script, with subjects as topical as the ongoing Democratic presidential campaign (though no names are dropped) and some House lore, too. After all, the show’s quirky ‘hero,’ Danny Hackles (the most engaging, high-energy Chris Mathews) is a young wannabe rocker, filmmaker, politician (something, anything), just trying to make his mark.”
Tony Adler, Reader—“On a purely generic level Shawn Pfautsch’s new play is a teen romantic comedy: the kind of thing actual teens disdain but 12-year-olds eat up. Since nothing The House Theatre does is ever quite generic, it’s possible to enjoy The Attempters even if you’re not 12. Marika Mashburn’s production is way clever, the leads are winning, and original rock music is played. But the rewards to be had don’t ultimately justify the indulgence required.”
Fabrizio O. Almeida, New City—“[F]rom the euphonious character names—Wayne Vane; Nola Charley; Sam Sommers—to the cliche-ridden, popular song-lyric seeping-dialogue that characterizes Hackles’ argot, Pfautsch’s writing has a visceral theatricality that never lets up. Smarty pants prolix? Yep. Self-consciously ingratiating at times? Absolutely. But also fun, fast and rhapsodically well-realized by Matthews, an actor of limitless energy who clearly relishes the opportunity to let it rip. I enjoyed the confidence with which The Attempters wore its sentimental heart on sleeve, even if it could have benefited from a little more Housian wistfulness.”
Kris Vire, Time Out—“The timing of Mashburn’s visually inert direction seems off throughout, and Mathews simply isn’t able to imbue Danny with the kind of charm and charisma the character needs. The rock songs and multimedia elements sprinkled throughout feel like obligatory ingredients of a House show, but Lucas Merino’s witty film segment is more engaging than anything that happens live. Too bad Pfautsch’s script calls for the film to be turned off midway—it told a stronger story in under five minutes than the rest of The Attempters does in two hours.”
Lawrence Bommer, Free Press—“Moving from the Viaduct Theatre, the vast home of spectacles like The Sparrow and Hatfield & McCoy, has proven retrograde for House Theatre of Chicago. Minus choreography (fight and dance), sprawling stage pictures and the splashy effects of earlier extravaganzas, The Attempters sacrifices flying ninjas for a familiar if stylized tale of a teenager’s coming of age. Played on the rear end of a loading dock in the Building Stage, Shawn Pfautsch’s script takes more scrutiny than it can bear. Director Marika Mashburn’s ensemble have a lot less to work with than in previous House-capades.”
Jonathan Abarbanel, Windy City—“The Attempters is presented and performed with great charm by the ensemble cast, lead by Chris Matthews as Danny. It’s a pleasant enough theatrical event, but it’s dramatically slight with a thin and repetitive storyline. Playwright Shawn Pfaustch turns plenty of clever phrases and seems to have a deadpan sense of adolescence (do 17-year-olds really have their own checking accounts?), but he offers so little exposition that it’s not until Act II that one realizes Danny’s shrink also is his father, or that Danny declares that finding fame is his life goal. The Attempters is a simple case of teenage puppy love meets situation comedy.”
The Caretaker, Mary-Arrchie Theatre Co.
Hedy Weiss, Sun-Times—“The theater itself—in a grimy old walkup loft—could easily serve as the backdrop for this play, though John Wilson’s fabulously atmospheric set (spookily lit by Matthew Gawryk) ratchets things up, as do Joe Court’s sound effects. But it is the combination of Pinter’s uncanny writing, the clockwork direction of Hans Fleischmann and the priceless performances by the show’s three precision-tuned actors—Todd Lahrman, Richard Cotovsky and Dan Kuhlman—that make this production so completely riveting. The actors act the stuffings out of their roles. They should not be missed.”
Justin Hayford, Reader—“In typical fashion Pinter offers almost no backstory to explain the brothers’ curious relationship, and director Hans Fleischmann’s thoughtful production never shows all its cards, allowing the play’s ambiguities to resonate. But Fleischmann creates tension only when Mick is on stage playing his mind games—in his absence, the underexplained interactions between Aston and Davies have to support the drama unaided, and the show wanders in a bit of a fog.”
Brian Nemtusak, Time Out—“Just watching Cotovsky carry a full-length play is a treat, but Cotovsky is masterful, evoking a hapless, hilarious Fagin. Lahrman is most moving as the damaged, depressive end of the bipolar brothers, and as his manic, proto-condo-flipping counterpart, Kuhlman personifies slick impotence. If this lacks a certain edge, it still more than lives up to its contrarian nature, ending with not even a whimper, but a small laugh.”
Carter’s Way, Steppenwolf Theatre Co.
Chris Jones, Tribune—“This is a show that never quite rises to the passion or the poetry it describes, requires you to see past an ending you long suspect is coming, and that demands a good spoonful of suspension of disbelief. Nonetheless, Eric Simonson’s self-penned, self-directed and mostly very pleasurable project succeeds magnificently in making the vital point that the Kansas City jazz scene of the 1930s revealed a town that wasn’t a pit of heartland homogeneity but a place where race, art, money, power and ethnicity all wrestled in the ambiguous urban mud.”
Hedy Weiss, Sun-Times—“There is some sassy writing in Carter’s Way, and some superb acting, particularly by the three black actors who are part of the Steppenwolf Theatre ensemble. And Darrell Leonard, the Grammy Award-winning trumpet player, arranger and composer, has devised a clever score (expertly faked by the actors) that channels the music of the time without directly quoting it. But the play, directed by the author, has nothing new to say. And the cliches often reverberate more loudly than the music.”
Albert Williams, Reader—“Attempting to explore the interplay of race and political corruption that made Kansas City a Depression-era jazz capital, writer-director Eric Simonson instead delivers a predictable melodrama that unravels completely in the second act. But Darrell Leonard’s score effectively charts the title character’s attempts to replace dance band formula with bebop experimentation, and K. Todd Freeman’s beautifully detailed performance as the club owner who narrates the tale lends needed authenticity.”
Christopher Piatt, Time Out—“If Charlie Trotter announced that his next enterprise were to be a theme restaurant—one in which the decor were mock 1930s gin joint, the staff dressing like penny-ante pimps and gun molls and speaking to the customers in Cagney slang, while a tribute band sat in the corner trying earnestly to recreate the authentic sounds of Depression-era jazz—everyone would fear the marquee-name chef had gone batty. Yet in the case of Carter’s Way, Eric Simonson’s play about an unlucky saxophonist who tangles with a gangster’s girl in 1935 Kansas City, all the aforementioned gaudy trappings that make theme-restaurant culture a joke find their way, in utter seriousness, onto the stage of Steppenwolf, the Trotters of our theater scene.”
Lawrence Bommer, Free Press—“The Planet Mars is definitely on the planet Earth, thanks to the author’s well-grounded staging and acting too strong for these stereotypes. Meredith is perversely pure in his frantic desire to keep his music untainted by his love life. Among the supporting roles, Robert Breuler reinvents quiet menace as a Kansas City mob boss who prefers peddling drugs to records, while the five musicians sizzle in every song.”
Mary Shen Barnidge, Windy City—“Apart from its poignant story, Carter’s Way provides an insightful glimpse into the world of popular music during the 1930s… Composer Darrell Leonard’s score reflects period accuracy commensurate with Simonson’s text. Amid the ghostly atmosphere of dim lights and (fake) cigarette smoke, its complex riffs and changes are so skillfully hand-synced by the actors that opening-night audiences cheered the solo turns as enthusiastically as if executed live on the spot.”
The House of Yes, Will Act For Food
Zac Thompson, Reader—“Will Act For Food tackles Wendy MacLeod’s darkly comic portrait of a wealthy, insular family with big secrets. The script’s manner is upper crust gothic: stylized depravity over cocktails. But Scott Pasko’s slapdash production is at odds with MacLeod’s controlled strangeness. Pasko’s staging has the feel of a rushed student production, from the uneven, imprecise performances right down to the set’s mismatched dorm-style furniture. Ultimately, the show needs more method, less madness.”
Solo Tu, Teatro Luna
Nina Metz, Tribune—“Solo Tu, directed by Tanya Saracho, is a return to the Sex and the City-type confessional, and that is by no means a bad thing. Smart theater about Latinas in their 30s is hard to come by, especially when it comes wrapped in such an appealing mascara-and-hoop-earrings pop sensibility. One of Teatro Luna’s strongest assets has always been the writing; the shows are all original, written by its members. I’m sorry to report this time out that there is something generic in the monologues… It’s not that these stories fail the truth test. But they lack the kind of specific individuality that Teatro Luna has perfected over the years.”
Kerry Reid, Reader—“Even those of us who’ve grown weary of the ‘to breed or not to breed’ conflicts afflicting postmillennial womanhood will find much to admire in this quartet of smart, searing autobiographical monologues from Teatro Luna. The authors (who don’t perform) open up with warmth, wit, and occasional rancor about the profound difficulties of confronting pregnancy, whether planned, unplanned, or unattainable. Director Tanya Saracho keeps self-pity from seeping into the performances, and the writing is as sharp as any solo work I’ve seen in years—a treasure trove of gutsy, riveting truth telling.”
Craig Keller, Time Out—“In its newest monologue-based exploration of Latina life and consciousness—this time the theme is motherhood, in all its ecstatic, anxious permutations—Teatro Luna delivers arguably its most focused and potent work to date. It might be refreshing to see the company wrestle with longer narrative pieces in the future, but after more than eight years of steadily honing this singular format, Solo Tu feels like its most perfectly realized cross-fertilization of cultural identity, universal themes and individualized expression.”
Quote of the Fortnight:
“Above all else (and there is plenty ‘else’), the sparkling, wonderfully animated revival of Sweet Charity now at the Drury Lane Theatre Oakbrook serves as final confirmation that this suburban musical theater has wholly transformed itself during the past year. It is now a major contender on the Chicago scene.”—Hedy Weiss reviewing Drury Lane Oakbrook’s production of Sweet Charity in the Sun-Times.