Were there a dictionary where one could find the definitive description of Chicago-style theater, there would surely be a photo of Mary-Arrchie Theatre by the entry. With the scruffy, storied Uptown space closing in March, it's tempting to wax eulogistic about the House that Richard Cotovsky built. Over the past 30 years, Cotovsky turned the unlikely space above a sketchy liquor store and a stone's throw from one of the city's more notorious SRO's into a theatrical wonderland where huge heart more than made up for small budgets.
Mamet's plot unfurls in the staccato, profanity-laced, contraction-free lingo of three down-and-out men teetering just this side of the dispossessed. The story spins around a potentially valuable coin, and a scheme to liberate that coin from its owner. It's clear from the get-go that the get-rich-quick plan to obtain the coin is all but certain to fail.
The beauty of the thing lies in watching junk shop proprietor Donny (Cotovsky), Bobby (Rudy Galvan) and Teach (Stephen Walker) fumblingly try to grab hold of their own fractured version of the American Dream. Their optimism and energy is bittersweet: Donny, Bobby and Teach don't stand a chance of grasping that elusive All-American brass ring. It's slippery as a greased pig iron and most likely rotted and rusty to the core.
Cotovsky's Donny is both sad and shifty, the latter readily apparent even though Donny is a genuinely good-hearted soul. When he's silent, you can practically see the wheels clicking and turning in Donny's brain: He's forever figuring the angles and sizing up situations, a man to whom trust doesn't come easy. He also has no problem engaging in a bit of breaking and entering if that's what it takes to level the playing field between the privileged haves and the hand-to-mouth have-nots. In Cotovsky's performance, Donny's a man you're rooting for, even while he's planning to rip somebody off.
Donny's apprentice of sorts is Bobby, a recovering junkie (well, maybe recovering) who's both a naïf and a hustler. Galvan makes Bobby's duality fascinating. On the one hand, Bobby's just a kid, and a heartbreaking one at that. Galvan gives him the palpable neediness of somebody who's been kicked into a corner and dismissed as a loser since birth. He's got the yearning eyes of somebody who just wants to prove his worth, even if only to a couple of down-on-their-luck con men. Galvan nails the childishness of an addict whose emotional growth stopped the first time they picked up a needle, but he also gives Bobby the guile of an addict. Bobby understands the value of sneakiness, even if he's not smart enough to be any good at it.
It's in Walker's Teach that Garcia's direction falters, most noticeably in the drama's first act. Teach enters in an explosive mood, steam all but rising from his eyeballs over an incident involving a lesbian named Ruthie and a piece of toast. Teach's opening volley is a classic, misogynistic rant instilled with a ferocity that could only come from a guy who Is dead certain that ladies of the world are hellbent on cutting his beloved balls off.
Teach's perception that he's been slighted by a woman (and a lesbian at that) is something he simply cannot abide. Walker overplays the rage in Teach's opening moment, literally screaming and kicking until you're left with the impression that the character is no more than a toddler having a tantrum. Teach is more complicated than that, but you wouldn't know it to watch that initial scene. The nuances of the character vanish, and we're left with a big, fat over-the-top slab of ham hock. Walker gets better as the show progresses, but that opening gambit leeches the role of some of its power.
The fourth character in American Buffalo is set designer 's deliciously seedy junk shop. It's a place that exudes an air of sadness tinged with the faintest whiff of salvation, a place where useless relics go to decay or maybe - every once in a great, great while, to find new life under new ownership. You'll want to spend intermission staring into the dust and the grime - amid all the junk there's a whisper of a possibility that something of real value is lurking in the shadows.
The true treasure here? That would be the production itself. It's down and dirty and fascinating from start to finish. And it is a grand sendoff for a space steeped in the hard work and heroics that define the best of Off Loop theater.
American Buffalo continues through March 6th March 20th at Angel Island Theatre, 735 W. Sheridan (map), with performances Thursdays-Saturdays at 8pm, Sundays 7pm. Tickets are $20-$30, and are available online through TicketWeb.com (check for half-price tickets at Goldstar.com ). More information at MaryArrchie.com. (Running time: 1 hour 50 minutes, includes an intermission)
behind the scenes
Carlo Lorenzo Garcia (director), (scenic design), Sara Jo White (costume design), Claire Sangster (lighting design), Michael J. Sanow (technical director), Rick Keeley (stage manager), (sound design), David Woolley (fight design), Little Howlin' Wolf (original music), Jake Fruend (design), Michael Brosilow (photos)
Tags: 16-0210, Angel Island, Angel Island Theatre, Carlo Lorenzo Garcia, Catey Sullivan, Chicago Theater, Claire Sangster, David Mamet, David Woolley, Jake Fruend, Joe Court, John Holt, Little Howlin' Wolf, Mary-Arrchie Theatre, Michael Brosilow, Michael J. Sanow, post, Richard Cotovsky, Rick Keeley, Rudy Galvan, Sara Jo White, Spenser Davis, Stephen Walker
Category: 2016 Reviews, Angel Island Theatre, Catey Sullivan, David Mamet, Mary-Arrchie Theatre
