8-29-08
Pitch Perfect Pinter at Signal
Harold Pinter may be the maestro of menace. In play after play, ineffective characters find themselves threatened by the beast that lurks beneath our civilized exteriors. By the end of his tortured vignettes, that beast is revealed, particularly in the most domesticated.
The Birthday Party is no exception. A compulsive layabout, Stanley (Joseph Stearns), has resided at a boarding house for a couple of years that is run by Meg (Mary O’Dowd) and Petey (Vincent L. Lonergan). Meg, a bit off the edge, dotes on Stanley, with an affection that occasionally hints at something more going on along with the morning cup of tea she brings him. Stanley despises her nearly as much as he does himself, but his predictable existence shatters when two men show up to take rooms as well: the jovial Goldberg (Will Schutz) and the glowering McCann (Philip Winston). Goldberg and McCann have tracked down Stanley to bring him back into the Organization, and their efforts, if unusual, drip with threat.
Like most Pinter, The Birthday Party can easily go wrong. Err too much on the realism side and the play slows, Pinter’s carefully crafted pauses no longer play, and boredom creeps in. Push the comedy too hard and the menace drops away, which is at the root of the comedy in the first place. Signal Ensemble’s production walks the careful line very nicely. O’Dowd’s loony Meg—a role that could easily become a caricature—is rooted so firmly in her desperation for affection that we genuinely fear for her survival when Stanley is taken away. Schutz’ Goldberg is particularly effective, switching gears between friendly storytelling and glowering threats on the turn of a hat. As the entrapped Stanley, Stearns is at his best early on as he plays out his power games with Meg.
On the design side, Melania Lancy’s scenic design takes advantage of the Chopin basement, using the existing columns to extend the illusion of a fourth wall. Julie Ballard’s sharp lighting changes are effective, and together Ballard and Lancy make literal Stanley’s fragmenting world.
If director Aaron Snook’s production has any fault, it’s only that it goes no further than what Pinter offers. Of course The Birthday Party is a classic, so successfully taking what Pinter offers will be successful. Not every performance goes as deep as it could, but particularly for a young production, Signal’s The Birthday Party does very well.
The Birthday Party, Signal Ensemble Theatre
Kerry Reid, Tribune—“Early critics were mystified by Pinter’s refusal to spell out the reasons that McCann and Goldberg, two menacing men in black, show up at the seedy boarding house where Stanley is the sole lodger and proceed to terrorize him. It can still be a puzzler for those who like their mysteries with tidy endings. But Aaron Snook’s intelligent and pitiless staging for Signal Ensemble clues us in early on, and never lets us off the hook. The claustrophobic basement of the Chopin Theatre has never been put to better use than in Melania Lancy’s crepuscular kitchen with mossy yellow-green walls, set off by the sickish lighting of Julie E. Ballard.”
Hedy Weiss, Sun-Times—“Whether or not you find Pinter’s current political stance problematic in many ways, this play continues to grab hold of the imagination. And Snook and his precision-tuned cast of six handles its very tricky landscape with exceptional finesse, illuminating several passages that even the most devoted Pinter fan might have missed in earlier productions. The actors skillfully conjure the banality (or willed blindness) of their characters, as well as their more manipulative and vicious aspects. And under Snook’s direction, the cast taps into the striking poetry and deftly expressive music of Pinter’s writing.”
Zac Thompson, Reader—“Fifty years after the premiere of Harold Pinter’s first full-length work it’s still unsettling. Set in a seaside cottage, the play revolves around haunted Stanley, pursued for mysterious reasons by a pair of thugs whose chief weapon is a kind of psychological bombardment. Stagings of Pinter can seem mannered and stiff nowadays, so it’s refreshing to see that Aaron Snook’s Signal Ensemble Theatre production taps into the play’s dark humor. Some of the levity comes at the expense of the script’s carefully calibrated sense of dread, but it’s at least a valuable reminder that Pinter can be funny.”
Kris Vire, Time Out—“Director Snook’s well-managed, disturbingly funny revival conveys the proper sense of benighted dread, thanks in large part to Stearns, who makes clear the oppressive weight of Stanley’s burden without the benefit of being able to name it. Equally but much more oddly impressive is O’Dowd as the matron of the house; whether attempting to seduce Stanley over cornflakes or displaying an irrational fear of wheelbarrows (or is it perfectly rational—in this world, who can tell?), she maintains a childlike certitude. Meg arguably fares better than Stanley, who cracks not under the hooligans’ thumbs, but their words. In a slippery age when it’s argued that torture isn’t torture, that’s chillingly relatable.”
Brian Kirst, Free Press—“Director Aaron Snook embellishes Pinter’s world with whip-smart fluidity. He engages his cast in a hostile dance that reveals both the savage bite and the crackling poetry of Pinter’s work. Snook is also measurably assisted by Elsa Hinter’s elegiac costuming, Melania Lucey’s quaint set and Julie Ballard’s moody lighting. All three elements add up to create a world of lyrical realism.”
Mary Shen Barnidge, Windy City—“It is to the credit of director Aaron Snook that we go home satisfied that we have seen a bona fide story, however ambiguous its imagery. To English playgoers, the sinister Goldberg and McCann could be hostile government agents or meddling social workers, but since this is America, we recognize them immediately as gangsters, and their business with Stanley as a vendetta for some long-ago betrayal of underworld loyalties. And at the play’s premiere in 1958, landlady Meg was played as a dotty old harridan, but in this production, her maternal cosseting of her sullen boy has a flirtatious edge, as does the neighbor lassie’s sexually provocative behavior toward the smooth-spoken strangers.”
Election Day, Theatre Seven
Nina Metz, Tribune—“Every cliche gets it in the groin, from the slimy candidate to the environmentalist jerk. It’s the performances that make this production work, loaded with specificity and spark that elevates the obvious into the unexpected. Take note of Sue Redman as the flighty, nubile gal in a clingy yellow T-shirt with the words ‘Tree Hugger’ splayed across her bust line—her delivery has just the right blend of edge and stupidity. Her instincts are dead-on, and that goes for the rest of the cast, which also includes a very funny James Kinney as the aforementioned activist—all beard and love beads and smooth moves.”
Albert Williams, Reader—“Josh Tobiessen’s intermittently amusing one-act concerns two undecided voters and their respective lovers, a zealous campaign volunteer, and a pot-smoking ecoterrorist. Add to the mix an oily mayoral candidate who will do anything—anything—to win the support of the undecideds, and you’ve got the potential for sharp political satire. But Tobiessen’s script is at once too far-fetched for effective satire and not zany enough for good farce. Though it has its funny moments, Theatre Seven of Chicago’s production fails to generate the mad pace needed to support the action’s escalating absurdity.”
Kris Vire, Time Out—“Early on, Tobiessen drops hints that he has something to say about our uninformed populace making decisions for superficial reasons, but that doesn’t really go anywhere. Instead, Election Day slopes toward pure farce, yet both playwright and director fall victim to poor timing. There are some good, mostly stand-alone gags and two appealing performances from Jeremy Fisher and Sue Redman as the siblings (one understated and grounded, the other enjoyably crazytown), but Adam Rubin’s scenery-chewing politician is out of sync to the point of distraction.”
Web Behrens, Free Press—“Material like this requires a light touch, which director Brant Russell and his cast manage most of the time. They lose their course near the end, as Tobiessen’s script sails completely off the edge of believability; what the show really needs is a lighter, faster rhythm for the final 20 minutes to help keep the audience from thinking too hard about how preposterous it’s all become. But that confident pace might yet emerge, as this five-person ensemble has some fine comedic chops.”
Catey Sullivan, Windy City—“Directed for Theatre Seven by Brant Russell, Election Day is loud, tiresome and poorly written. The best part of this show? It’s not actually in the show. Check out the campaign video at www.voteclark.org—it’s a pitch-perfect, dead-pan send-up of every blow-dried, oil-slick politico who ever glad-handed his way to power. (Watch for the cameo by playwright Marisa Wegryzn.) Would that Election Day were as good. It’s not. For farce or satire to work, it has to be grounded in characters and situations anchored in fundamental believability. Tobiessen doesn’t write a shred of believability into Election Day.”
On An Average Day, Route 66 Theatre Company
Chris Jones, Tribune—“Articulate, handsome and weirdly vulnerable, Johnny Clark plays the low-status-bro, Robert. Clark, who has been in L.A., has acquired some of that designer-stubble, edgy-actor stuff, which Chicago will need to excise. But he’s got the chops. No question. Clark’s Robert finds his squalid little world invaded by Stef Tovar’s Jack, who seems to have acquired a white collar but otherwise failed to escape. Tovar is in fine fettle, powering his way through the scenes and managing an intense investment even while standing slightly outside the torrid combat. By the end, the two men climb inside your skin.”
Hedy Weiss, Sun-Times—“To be sure, Johnny Clark and Stef Tovar—the two actors who play the fatherless sons in this story—beat the stuffings out of the play. And along the way these seemingly fearless actors, directed by Ron Klier, engage in a protracted stage fight (choreographed to the outer limits of safety by Ned Mochel) that might well have you fingering your cell phone in case an ambulance is needed. But there is something hollow and artificial feeling about Kolvenbach’s work. It’s as if you can feel the writer continually grasping for straws as he tries to keep the story moving —building up just enough distracting hints and suppressed tension to generate a final roiling boil. Unfortunately, the contrivance outstrips the believability.”
Justin Hayford, Reader—“If it weren’t for the dutiful, implausible conclusion, this persuasively acted, meticulously designed, and expertly directed play would be a spectacular debut for Route 66 Theatre Company. Instead it’s merely terrific. John Kolvenbach’s two-hander, about estranged brothers holed up in their crumbling boyhood home after one finds himself facing serious jail time, bears strong resemblance to Sam Shepard’s True West, but Kolvenbach replaces Shepard’s pulp mysticism with Mametian syncopation and muscularity. The result is by turns hilarious and harrowing.”
Lisa Buscani, New City—“With equal doses humor and pathos, the plot’s onion layers peel back to reveal just how much trouble both men are in. John Kolvenbach’s tragic, hopeful script is full of Mametesque rhythms and relationships. Clark’s vulnerability is heartbreaking; his character’s man-child never had a chance. Tovar poignantly captures Jack’s deceptive strength, giving us a hard look at a man on the edge. Alternating between bonding beers and fisticuffs, the two successfully explore the bind of family ties, painting a very human portrait of brotherly love. Welcome to Chicago, Route 66.”
Brian Nemtusak, Time Out—“But in a nutshell, while intermittently convincing in its characterizations, the story is a deadly combination of predictable and implausible, steeped in a weirdly anachronistic sort of paternal disappointment that’s straight out of Arthur Miller. Director Klier brings some solid atmospherics, in particular Ned Mochel’s tooth-loosening stage combat and Danny Cistone’s marvelously decrepit scenic design. Dodging the worst of the melodrama with a counterintuitively downplayed performance, Clark mostly sells the better-crafted if hard-to-buy role of Robert; Tovar flexes more muscle groups as Jack but doesn’t have all the answers for a character who’s just problematic as written.”
Lawrence Bommer, Free Press—“That these actors can make so much emotional sense out of the play’s unfinished business, unpacked baggage and dirty laundry is far more to their credit than the author’s. This is the kind of play that’s riveting while you see it but falls apart later, when you realize how often Kolvenbach substitutes grand gesture and improbable acting-out for the moments of truth that linger longer. But for two hours it’s the center of the universe.”
Catey Sullivan, Windy City—“Sub-Sam Shepard-lite or poor man’s Mamet? You could take your pick to describe John Kolvenbach’s On An Average Day. A two-hander getting a far better production than it deserves from the Route 66 Theatre Company, the piece boasts a pair of brutally authentic performances from Stef Tovar and Johnny Clark. Unfortunately, the mostly superior performances can’t justify a script that substitutes coherence and context with fisticuffs and more impassioned, nonsequiturial monologues than an Equity general audition.”
Torch Song Trilogy, Hubris Productions
Kerry Reid, Tribune—“(Ryan) Jarosch manages to channel that familiar gravelly voiced self-deprecation and imbue Arnold with a surprising childlike vulnerability. Watching Jarosch land one intricate bon mot after another is pure poetry. Add in surprisingly sympathetic and layered performances by Mary Hollis Inboden’s well-meaning but self-deceiving Laurel and Susan Veronika Adler’s vinegary but wounded “Ma” Beckoff and you realize that two-thirds of a pretty good (and, sadly, still relevant) story isn’t chopped liver.”
Albert Williams, Reader—“A breakthrough in its time, Harvey Fierstein’s cycle about a New York drag queen’s domestic travails remains a triumphant mix of hilarity, sentimentality, anger, and passion. Hubris Productions’ new revival only offers two-thirds of the trilogy—and even without it, the evening runs nearly three hours. Crucial to the show’s success is Ryan Jarosch’s commanding performance as Arnold Beckoff. He captures Arnold’s comic bravado and the vulnerability it veils, conveying an awkward effeminacy that’s endearing and even sexy.”
Web Behrens, Free Press—“Fierstein’s smart and intricate cross-cutting dialogue is well handled by the cast, while director Andrew Hobgood stages this pas de quatre around a giant bed, which symbolically sleeps all four. Both funny and bittersweet, this enjoyable act unfortunately ends on a most confusing note: Back in the city, Alan gets gay-bashed, but you’d never figure that out from the odd clues in the sound design unless you already know the story. That awkward transition signals the difficulty Hubris has in pulling off the final, most difficult act.”
Scott C. Morgan, Windy City—“As Arnold, Ryan Jarosch can’t seem to escape Fierstein’s raspy shadow and make the character fully his own. Of course being stripped of his act one exposition leaves Jarosch’s New Yorker accent and defiant effeminancy to stick out like a sore caricature among the rest of the cast. Ben Osbun’s characterization as Arnold’s bisexual lover, Ed, also seems to suffer from the missing act. Osbun does what is necessary, but we miss Ed’s turmoil between his desires and what he thinks society expects of him. As Laurel, the woman who keeps ending up in relationships with bisexual men, Mary Hollis Inboden emotionally straddled the mix of sympathy and contempt you feel for her confused character.”
Quote of the Fortnight:
“Frankly, I have never encountered a production of The Comedy of Errors—in whatever form—that didn’t grow tiresome long before it was over.”—Hedy Weiss reviewing Drury Lane Oakbrook’s production of The Boys From Syracuse.”