“Things With Friends” by American Blues Theater
The George Washington bridge collapsed in the Hudson river. One of Manhattan’s tunnels fled and filled with water. And the typical luxury condo of the island of Manhattan is now less than $ 50,000.
Urban characters and well -wasnoit of the absurd black comedy of Kristoffer Diaz “Things With Friends”, now in his world premiere at the American Blues Theater under the direction of Dexter Bullard, say that they do not live through the apocalypse, but it is clear that something quite drastic has happened, given that New Jersey apparently made the footbridge, self-employment of the universe now and the bridge with the old powerless auto-apope center.
A notion that always plays well in Chicago.
People can still get wine, cook steak and listen to Sonos in this satirical world imagined, but there is a new fragility in their lives. The people of Ponts and Tunnel dangerous for a long time, represented here by an aggressive couple played by Jon Hudson Odom and Cruz Gonzalez-Cadel, who came to dinner in Manhattan at the home of the characters played by Audrey Billings and Casey Campbell, now hold all the cards. As our narrator (Nate Santana) tells the story, the adults of this new world order even argue their young people, represented by the besides Jony (Maya Lou Hlava), a young woman whose allegiances are as questionable as her future.
Climate change is never explicitly mentioned in the Diaz drama, or at least not that I heard in a first production which could use less swallowed words and more crisp and clarity of language. But this is the obvious hypothesis and, of course, an intriguing premise for a play by the author of The Knockout Made-In-Chicago “The elaborate entry of Chad Deity” and now book writer for “Hell’s Kitchen” by Broadway. Diaz reaches the territory of Edward Albee here, creating a living and confident black comedy if, in the end, too impenetrable with some echoes of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” and “a delicate balance”.
The show is certainly a welcome return to what I would consider as important theatrical events at American Blues, a company that always finds its place in its new Lincoln Avenue space. Bullard is what you could call an old-fashioned chicago director and the show has the sardonic style signature of the city and its famous intense mode of action from a group of all-in artists.
But it is also a piece which ultimately disappears in a dish of sweet potatoes, because an episode involving this particular vegetable takes over on the entire shebang to the detriment of a very won complexity previously. Alas, said that sweet potatoes are neither funny nor particularly revealing the theme. Not when he has given so many objectives anyway.
No criticism wants to call the literal in a room like this, but Diaz could certainly take a soft step or two away from the abyss of oblicity, especially in the subsequent sections of a room that begins a lot, much better than it ends. This late sparkling must be fixed, lest the metaphor will collapse on itself. And although he works on what is clearly a first project that needs work, Diaz could also inject more time tension at times that works so well when it is skillfully used, from the start.
The distribution of Bullard has fun on a spiritual set of spiritual subsidy and zoo cage, filled with the type of art bought by Manhattanites “Who has a budget for art”, strikes the narrator of Santana, dressed in a hat of manual Miranda, mocking the underwater urban professionals of a cries.
But “Things With Friends” is a satire that lives and dies according to its language and in its ways and the whole has not yet conveyed the pleasure of words, snark and hypocrisy. I would give him a few more days before leaving, but it is already the kind of show – a new intelligent and unpredictable work with promise! – to which the city theater should hasten to come back.
Chris Jones is a tribune critic.
cjones5@chicagogne.com
Review: “Things with friends” (3 stars)
When: until October 5
Where: American Blues Theater, 5627 N. Lincoln Ave.
Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes
Tickets: $ 34.50-$ 64.50 at 773-654-3103 and Americanblustheater.com
