Weekend Comedy
Written by Jeanne and Sam Bobrick
Directed by Josh Johnson
at Oil Lamp Theater, Glenview (map)
thru Nov 18 | tickets: $25 | more info
A sitcom on stage
Oil Lamp Theater presents
Weekend Comedy
Review by Leah A. Zeldes
Chicago-born playwright Sam Bobrick, who wrote Weekend Comedy with his former wife, Jeanne, started out as a television writer, with credits including "Captain Kangaroo," "Get Smart," "The Andy Griffith Show," "Gomer Pyle, USMC" and "The Flintstones." It’s no wonder, then, that the romantic comedy seems as if it came right off a TV screen. One can imagine Fred and Betty Flintstone in the principal roles. Rob and Laura Petrie, Ricky and Lucy Ricardo, Ralph and Alice Kramden and other such cartoonlike TV couples would fit just as well.
They start out having a good time together, but the close quarters and the differences between the two couples lead to inevitable frictions. Frank and Peggy: long married, middle class, hard-working, taking each other for granted. She’s sarcastic and frustrated; he’s oblivious, irascible and complacent. Tony and Jill: mawkishly in love, well-to-do and living a free and easy life. She’s earnest and idealistic; he’s smug and spoiled.
The men, especially, have trouble reconciling each other’s point of view: Tony keeps referring to Frank as "old," and tells him, "You are a man without poetry…. It’s obvious to me that your life is shit." Frank, inclined to childish displays of one-upmanship, says Tony has no drive or ambition, and complains to Peggy, "I feel like they’re pushing us right off the earth."
First produced in 1985, Weekend Comedy now appears dated and trite. Lack of the internet seems a glaring omission in the catalog of the cabin’s deprivations. Frank is shocked by the unmarried status of the younger couple. Peggy is a housewife, and it doesn’t appear that Jill has a job, either. It all ends with a suitably predictable sitcom conclusion.
There’s enough humor in the one-liners and verbal jousting, though, to make the play reasonably entertaining, despite the shallowness of the plot, and Oil Lamp Theater has done an admirable job with its production. Director Josh Johnson keeps the pacing crisp and the four actors put in worthy performances.
Nicola Howard delivers a wry, smart Peggy with delightful comedic timing. The playwrights never make clear just why Peggy cares for her boring, male-chauvinist husband, but Howard makes us see that she does. Jay Cook stumbles over his lines a bit, but his expressive face helps us imagine that there’s more to stolid Frank than the script conveys. Lively Jasmine Ryan creates a sweet and adorable Jill, while Eric Bays is suitably cloddish as her spoiled, rich boy boyfriend.
This is Oil Lamp’s second show in their cozy new theater in Glenview, crafted out of a former restaurant. It features an intimate, 36-seat performance space and a comfortable lobby-bar area, where Executive and Artistic Director Keith Gerth serves his homemade cookies and hot apple cider, and patrons are welcome to enjoy their own wine.
Rating: ★★★
Weekend Comedy continues through November 18th at Oil Lamp Theater, 1723 Glenview Road, Glenview (map), with performances at 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays. Tickets are $25, which includes cookies and soft drinks before show and at intermission. BYOB. Tickets are available by phone (847-834-0738) or online through BrownPaperTickets.com. More information at oillamptheater.org. (Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes, includes an intermission)
artists
cast
Jay Cook, Nicola Howard, Jasmine Ryan, Eric Bays
behind the scenes
Josh Johnson (director); Angie Miller (stage manager); Keith Gerth (executive/artistic director)
