Lakeboat (Steep Theatre)

Have you ever heard of Mamet-Speak? It's a style of dialogue made popular by a famous playwright named David Mamet. He writes lines in the way people really talk. Some people. Not ALL people.
Most of his plays are about dudes who drink a lot and worry about bitches and have nothing on the horizon and have blown all their chances for happiness years ago at the OTB. They say lines like, "I fucking love sandwiches" and "I was fucking this girl with a broadsword" and then their lines get cut off because they are thinking of something else.
Well, the drinkinest theatre company in town, Steep Theatre, is busy doing a version of a Mamet classic called Lakeboat.

Lakeboat is about this kid named Dale (the sweet-skinned Nick Horst) who gets hired for the summer to work on a boat that goes between the Great Lakes and delivers steel or something. You soon find out that this kid is Jewish and has no business being on a boat so he gets made the cook, because the last cook died in a bank robbery the night before. Dale spends all day peeling potatoes and having homosexual undertones with other men on the boat, and talks about what he has to look forward to back in college.
The only problem is, he doesn't know that he is in a Mamet play and so his future is not looking very good.

You will also meet a jerk named Collins, who is basically the bitch of the Captain. He spends almost every scene trying to get a sandwich for him. It is played with robust gusto by the always impressive Alex Gillmor.

There's also Stan, brought to cold, stark reality by Peter Moore. Stan is a guy on the boat who drinks all day and is complaining about having a hangover all the time. He has nothing to look forward to, nor does he have a home. He pretty much just lives at the lake and eats sandwiches and drinks whiskey all day.

Let's talk for a second about these two guys, Alex Gillmor and Peter Moore. These dudes are some of the very finest actors in the city, but you have never heard of them before. Know why? Because they only work at Steep. They are the Co-Founders and Artistic Directors and don't wanna have anything to do with you or your lousy theatre so don't even bother asking them. They have made quite a nice little home for themselves over the years and continue to do vaguely homoerotic theatre for the masses.

Well, the day on the boat is going by great and everyone is doing a great job, but for some reason, nobody can be happy! There's a fireman in the galleys played by the always remarkable and rakish Jim Poole and a dude named Joe (played by the handsome Sean Bolger) that doesn't seem to do anything besides talk to Dale about ballet dancing.

FYI: This is my first time seeing Sean Bolger, but now I see what all the fuss is about, ladies.

Now let's quit beating around the bush and talk about a guy in this play named Eric Roach. Maybe you've heard of him, because he is the highlight of the show. Now I'm sure you all realize that Eric is my work husband, but that doesn't make what I'm saying less true.
He plays this guy named Fred that has had a rough string of luck lately with the ponies and the dames but has high hopes of getting it all straightened out.

Roach has this monologue where he talks about his first date with some skirt and he's humping her and punching her in the face or something, I wasn't totally paying attention, but the emotional investment he put in made the audience stop and cheer for him when he finished. It was truly a moment of unrivaled grace yet to be seen on any American stage this century.

Lakeboat was directed by a man named G.J. Cederquist. I've never met this dude before but he must know a lot about lakeboats because this set had me thinking that I was right there, on this lakeboat.

The only criticism worthy of mentioning is that lack of sub textual work done. There are lots of opportunities passed up where somebody could be saying one thing, and really mean something else. I don't know if it would help the play or not, but I really like to read between the lines from time to time, gang!

Go see Lakeboat and have a slice of Harsh-reality-of-men-everywhere-in-80-minutes Pie for dinner!

A+


-Anderson Lawfer, Eric Roach

The Odd Couple- Raven Theatre (Theatre Review)

It's 1965.
Martin Luther King Jr. makes his historical march to the Alabama capitol. The first wave of US troops are ordered into Vietnam. Joe Namath becomes the Jets quarterback. The Who release their first album. The Palestinian al-Fatah Organization forms...
THE WORLD IS IN PERIL.
With the world on the brink of turmoil and the United States turning the page from a simpler time to an era of upheaval and disobedience, playwright Neil Simon wrote a ground breaking play about two Jews in a Manhattan apartment who argue over dirty socks.
Timeless dirty socks.

The play concerns a man named Oscar (an amazingly beautiful Eric Roach) who loves sandwiches and scotch and hates to clean up. He has recently gone through a divorce, and told his family to move to California. He plays poker with some dudes, one guy is a cop (Larry Cirani, a brilliant actor that may or may not have had a stroke before because I thought he kept winking at my wife, but maybe it was just that he had a stroke before, or maybe it was a character choice. But who would make the choice for a police officer with a firearm to have suffered a crippling stroke? That's why you get Larry Cirani, because he blows the lid off of expectations.)
Speed, a disco guy in 1965, I guess (played with great abandon and hair by Anthony Tournis). Edward Grimly (Greg Kolack as himself) and a guy that looks like he molests his students at the University (a hungry-for-more Greg Caldwell).
Well these guys play poker all the time with their friend Felix Unger (a John Stienhagen-esque Nathan Lane) who has just been kicked out of his house by his wife for acting too effeminate.
So he moves in with Oscar and still acts like a big lady all the time, always cleaning and cooking and maybe giving hand jobs to his buddies because once you walk through that doorway you jump right in to all sorts of weird shit.
"Felix, I'd like a sandwich please, and a back rub, and knit me a sweater."
What do you think is going to happen next?

Anyway, they learn all about each other, and have a date with some broads from England that are divorced and slutty but Felix starts crying in the middle of the date and Oscar fucking loses his mind because these were the last two girls on the planet or something, and can't cut his friend a break even though he is going through a horrible divorce and all he needs is a friend.
But NO! Oscar has his own agenda. He wants to eat garbage and sleep in filth and his friend is getting in the way of this by cleaning all the time and being respectable.
In the end, Oscar kicks out Felix and somehow it's ok because Felix is homeless now and doesn't hold grudges, even though Oscar has a huge apartment, and now his best friend is living on the street and will probably get robbed and raped since he is sleeping in Central Park in the 60's.
Raven Theatre does a great job with this timeless script, and uses props and the Assistant Stage Managers look like maids.
This timeless piece shows no sign of growing into an outdated sitcom script, and Raven Theatre's upcoming season suggests that they remain on the cutting edge of Chicago experimental theatre culture.
In the end, if you want to see a play where two very large men are unreasonably sweaty for such a chilly room, or you like to laugh, then Neil Simon's "The Odd Couple" is the show for you!

The Odd Couple
B+


-Anderson Lawfer, Eric Roach

1985 -Factory Theater (Play)

Since Eric Roach and I have started our little reviewing blog, we have become staples in the Chicago theatre and restaurant communities and heroes on the discussion panel circuit. Benefits include not paying for meals, getting backrubs from lead actors and handshakes with the greatest other minds of our time.
So when I was asked to pay $5 to attend Eric Roach's new opus, he received his first strike.
"Strike one!" I exclaimed.
"Just shut up already" Eric protested.
"Whatever" I retorted, in vain.

Now an important part of my reviews are the overall audience experience, since how else can you separate one stupid gay play from the other?
This experience was nothing short of oppulent.
When I arrived, I was greeted by a "hello" from a nice, fair chested, young woman. Then, when asked for my billing information, I refused, sending her into a great deal of apologies, the likes of which I haven't seen before from someone with breasts of that caliber.
I forgave her, much to my wife's dismay.
Upon entering the theatre, turned football mosque (an incredible shrine to football and some guys face by Angelina Martinez) I grabbed my seat in the front pew.
I was ready to believe in something bigger than me. Something that unites us all over the civilized world. A game of peace and credibility immortalized by role models for our children and friends for our men. A game of SUCCESS that touches the very heart of America with it's glove covered fingers and AX body-sprayed biceps.
Now I was just about to finish saying this out loud when the same breasted lady from before asked me to keep my voice down as the play was about to begin.
Strike 2.
1985, written by Chas Vrba, achieves a lot before intermission. As any real American has, I read the great british novel 1984 in high school.
So the material was fresh in my mind as we began our journey together.
The play begins with our hero Winston (a charmed Chas Vrba) doubting his loyalty to Big Brother. In this case though, and it being 1985 Chicago, the bears have taken hold of the city and are watching our every move. The gang of friends he has collected to live in this hellish prison are wonderful and care about him very much.
There is Rachel (played with fresh verocity by Stacy Barra) that loves her hair and bears and cares about Winston but is married to the controlling Ross (a drug fueled performance by Manny Tammayo). Phoebe (an angsty Christy Arrington that seemed stuck in time, much to my delight!) a youngish lady with a penchant for cursing and beer guzzling. Chandler (a mighty Scott Oken who rides the show up and down like an oil covered horse that does not want him to be on top of it) a policeman with the right attitude, Joey ( a tight lipped Tim Amos, just right for this mix of despair and nutty perfunctory glee) as a Nascar loving member who is eventually sent to fix his sports favorites in "Room 101". Gunther ( Mike Ooi in his finest performance to date) as a homosexual guzzling Beef Store Magnate.
WEith his friends, Winston carries along, finishing his responsibilities and loving his glorious Chicago Bears until a young lady arrives named Monica (Laura MacKenzie in the sexiest of all womens roles), a Howard Jones loving sparkplug with all the right moves to make Winston rethink his loyalties.
Now, as far as drama goes, you'd be hard pressed to find another piece with this kind of momentum just from the yelling alone.
Not to mention the comedy chops you couldn't find anywhere else in town.
Well, it all leads up to the moment of decision, when the lights come up, and they tell you it's only half over.
Not to worry, I have brought cigarettes and many conversation starters.
Well, after not bringing a lighter and no one to talk to, I returned to my seat, and sat back, clinging to my money (it's very dark in there) ready to enjoy the second act of this epic play.
And I did.
I enjoyed the hell out of it.
Now there's not much I can tell you without giving away the ending, but Ernie Deak was wonderful as a television screen, there is snow and everybody dies at the end.
Eric Roach, my good friend, has outdone himself this time, and should take a break, because raising the bar again so fast could literally shut down the theater scene in Chicago.
BEAR DOWN AND SEE THIS MONSTER OF THE MIDWAY!!


A+

-Anderson Lawfer, Eric Roach