Year of the Rooster
Written by Eric Dufault
at The Frontier, 1106 W. Thorndale (map)
thru Feb 6 | tix: free | more info
Lazy script overwhelms all
Red Theater Chicago presents
Year of the Rooster
Review by Lauren Whalen
Late last year, Red Theater Chicago broke ground. R+J: The Vineyard was a stunning version of the Shakespearean tragedy using a blend of hearing, hard of hearing and deaf actors while highlighting a little-known part of history. In fact, the show made Chicago Theater Beat’s top 10 shows of 2015, and will be remounted at the Den
The play opens with Dickie Thimble (Daniel Dauphin), resident rich guy and hot shot in an unnamed small town, welcoming the audience to a cockfight. That’s right, a cockfight: where roosters who’ve been starved and tortured in the name of “training” are forced to fight one another. In the next scene we meet Gil Pepper (Gage Wallace), a loser who works at McDonalds and lives with his widowed mother at their crumbling homestead. Gil endures constant emasculation from his much younger coworker, manager-in-training Philipa (Emma Ladji) and faithfully sneaks honey mustard packets home to his mother. Gil’s got an advantage, though: his rooster Odysseus (Jeff Kurysz) seems to have what it takes to beat Dickie’s entry in this year’s cockfight championship. But what happens when the cocks go head-to-head?
Year of the Rooster seems to want to be a dark comedy, exposing the underbelly of small-town secrets. There are two main issues with Eric Dufault’s intensely terrible script. First, dark comedy is incredibly hard to write and Dufault completely fails. The jokes, many of which center on animal abuse and violence, don’t land at all. Small-town characters can also be difficult, which leads to the second issue: absolutely no one in Year of the Rooster is likable or interesting in any way. Dufault doesn’t give anyone nuance (and no, having Odysseus drop the F-bomb in every sentence doesn’t count as nuance when there’s no real reason given for his foul beak) and reduces every single character to the worst of small-town caricatures (predictably, Dickie’s a complete jerk, Gil’s mother never leaves the house or takes a shower, and Gil is the aforementioned underachiever with bonus daddy issues). Additionally, Year of the Rooster isn’t a long play but the hour and 45 minutes feel twice that, despite director Carrie Lee Patterson’s best efforts to keep up the pacing. Besides Patterson’s valiant attempts, the only bright spots are Will Bennett’s exciting yet intimate fight choreography, and actor Ladji. The latter was given a completely superfluous and ridiculous character – Philipa has a bizarre obsession with Disney World and an ever-changing, never-motivated relationship with Gil – but manages to completely commit in a way that’s very refreshing.
That’s not to say this kind of story is impossible: “Fargo” has fared well as a movie and television series, as did “Friday Night Lights,” “Breaking Bad” and “The Wire.” However, these stories give nuance to even the most stereotypical-at-a-glance character. A bad script can overwhelm even the best of productions, which is the case for Year of the Rooster. It’s lazy and completely unnecessary: a far departure from the overwhelming brilliance of R+J: The Vineyard.
Rating: ★½
Year of the Rooster continues through February 6th at The Frontier, 1106 W. Thorndale (map), with performances Thursdays-Saturdays at 7:30pm, Sundays 7pm. Tickets are free – reservations strongly recommended. More information at RedTheater.org. (Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes, includes an intermission)
Photos by Austin D. Oie
artists
cast
Gage Wallace (Gil Pepper), Jeff Kurysz (Odysseus), Emma Ladji (Philipa), Daniel Dauphin (Dickie Thimble), Barbara Button (Lou Pepper), Nathan Wainwright (understudy – Gil), Will Bennett (understudy – Odysseus)
behind the scenes
Carrie Lee Patterson (director), Janette Bauer (producer), Kirstie Smith (stage manager), Greg Culley (scenic design), Kate Setzer-Kamphausen (costume design), Chazz Mallott (lighting design), Eric Backus (sound design, original music), Victoria Alvarez-Chacon (properties design), Jenifer Dorman (resident designer), Matthew Freer (trailer director), Will Bennett (fight choreographer), Simone Zebot, Anni Pape (directors of accessibility), Giordon Stark (accessibility engineer), Austin D. Oie (photos)
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