July 2010 Theatre Review by Lawrence Bommer
A Guide for the Perplexed
In “Marvin’s Room,” the late Scott McPherson pioneered the formula for families in free fall who manage to fix themselves just before they crash and burn. Throw in some badly estranged relations who shake up the dysfunctional family dynamics. These valuable intruders finally force once-loved ones to connect more honestly. Right up until opening night at Goodman Theatre, however, McPherson actually rejected the recipe, making his bad-boy nephew (Leo DiCaprio in the film version) run off before he could give his beloved aunt the bone marrow transplant she desperately needed. But, hearing from audience members that the ending was too bleak, McPherson relented. Alas, AIDS was much less kind to him than bone cancer was to his character.
Joel Drake Johnson may imagine he’s pulled off the same successful scheme of presenting dovetailing crises, then in the final scene suggesting that years of guilt and pain can be overcome with tough love from unexpectedly good relations (meaning both characters and situations). But something backfires badly here. When a press release calls a play “hopeful,” well, we’d better see proof of it or it just ain’t so.
Chicago
veteran Kevin Anderson doggedly and thanklessly plays Doug, a
bad-boy brother who, released from prison for almost beating a man to
death, has nowhere to go but to seek shelter from the upwardly mobile
sister he hasn’t seen in years. As it is, we hardly see
Meg Thalken as the sister, a role that’s outrageously
underdeveloped. Doug is coldly greeted by his brother-in-law
Phillip (Steppenwolf stalwart Francis Guinan), who’s helping him
only because he fears his wife if he doesn’t. In complete
contrast to slovenly, suicidal, insomniac, self-hating Doug,
Jewish-born Phillip is controlled, precise, and, in the eyes of
his seething teenage son Andrew (Bubba Weiler), a repressive and
uncaring dad. He was recently fired for stealing from his
employers, one of many background revelations that explain absolutely nothing.
In fact, Phillip is, if only by default, the most compassionate character, however much abuse he endures. Perversely, that makes poor Phillip the playwright’s particular scapegoat for the family’s love’s labors lost. Guinan even gets to recite an endless and unmotivated speech when, after having his house trashed by his brutish brother-in-law, he invites him to go shopping, which is the only time when Phillip feels truly at home. Say what?
The fifth character, as gratuitous as the mother is neglected, is hapless Sheila (a wasted Cynthia Baker), a rich lady and pen pal to prisoners who’s fallen in love with Doug. She’s there to take care of him and give him some really appropriate gifts. When he cruelly rejects and almost hurts her, it tells us what we knew only too well: Doug hates himself and anyone who tries to love him. The only creature he ever loved was the seeing-eye Labrador bitch he cared for in his prison cell. But “Lucy” was given away to some “lucky blind woman.”
That’s what makes it so hard to swallow the final tableau in which Doug seems to be strangling his troubled nephew while he promises to be there for Andrew. Nothing we’ve seen over two mean and nasty hours gives us any hope he can help himself, let alone a complex and possibly dangerous kid who kills his father’s tropical fish because he doesn’t think animals are smart enough to feel pain or, in any case, deserve to live.
The title is based on the Jewish writer Maimonides’ counsel to open the soul up so it feels empathy with others. That’s advice that this play can only pretend to adopt. But Sandy Shinner’s staging only offers us an unprocessed inventory of one clan’s recriminations and belittlement. Family members can be hurtful and hateful, Johnson declares, a truth I believe in Tennessee Williams and Eugene O’Neill but not from this mutual detestation society.
It’s a shame because the first act is rich with fascinating character quirks and potentially interesting plot developments. Alas, the second act fritters away our patience with unearned mood swings and a torrent of unhelpful anecdotes that are blabbed forth because, well, the playwright thinks they’re cool. "A Guide for the Perplexed" plays through August 15, 2010 at the Victory Gardens Biograph Theater. For more information on this show, please visit the Theatre In Chicago A Guide for the Perplexed page.
About Lawrence Bommer
A
native Chicagoan, Lawrence Bommer has been an active free-lance
writer and playwright since 1975. For twenty years he wrote a
weekly column, "Opening Nights" for the Friday section of
the Chicago Tribune, where he also regularly contributed theater
criticism and feature writing. His work has appeared in
Stagebill, the Pulitzer-Lerner newspapers and The Advocate.
Mr. Bommer was theater editor for the Windy City Times since its founding until 1999; from 1986 a theater critic for the Chicago Reader (where he has also written for the "Calendar" and "Our Town" sections); Chicago Free Press, where he was contributing editor until the paper’s demise in spring 2010; Chicago Footlights, where he has been a regular contributor; and Plays International, where he is the Chicago correspondent. He has also contributed to the Hollywood Reporter, PerformInk, Screen Magazine, CitySearch, the Chicago Illini, Inside Chicago, Illinois Entertainer, the International Theatre Festival of Chicago newsletter, Plays International, CitySearch, Playbill Online, TheatreMania, CurtainUp.com and Chicago Enterprise. Mr. Bommer is a three-time finalist for a Peter Lisagor Award for Exemplary Journalism in the "arts criticism" category. In 1991 he became a regular theater and, dance critic and arts writer for the Chicago Tribune. His commentary has also aired on LesBiGay Radio, WGN and on Milwaukee Public Radio.
As a playwright, Mr. Bommer's work has been produced in Los Angeles, New Orleans, and Madison and, in Chicago, by the Organic Theater Company (Jonathan Wild [1979], Poe [1980]. Gulliver's Last Travels [1993] and by Lionheart Gay Theatre (Gunsel, The Tyrannicides, Killers and Comrades). Since 1976 Mr. Bommer has taught at the Francis W. Parker School and was a lecturer at the University of Illinois at Chicago from 1969 to 1975 (where he received his Master's degree in English), as well as a guest lecturer at the College of DuPage, Roosevelt University, DePaul University and the University of Chicago. Mr. Bommer is a member of the American Theater Critics Association and has been a member of the National Writers Union and the Dramatists Guild.