Playwright: Lauren Gunderson. At: Theatre Seven of Chicago at The Greenhouse, 2257 N. Lincoln Ave. Tickets: 773-404-7336; www.theatreseven.org; $20-$30. Runs through: July 15
Nan is leaving Kyle. It's not so much his dead-end service-station job, but after six years of marriage he drinks and slaps her around, apparently repeating the pattern of his own parents. Meanwhile, Nan has discovered Jane Austen, National Geographic Magazine and Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex and wonders out loud, "Why isn't that my world?"
She and Kyle are former high school sweethearts who live in semi-rural Georgiawhere bears come out of the hillsand their world is limited to bowling and dinners at The Olive Garden. In order to tell Kyle a couple things on her way out, Nan has duct-taped him into a chair with the help of Sweetheart, a lap dancer from the local club, and her gay best friend, Simon.
From that description, try to figure out if this play is a comedy or a drama. The circumstances of dead-end lives, abusive relationships and spouses who find their independence are very serious and are happening around us every day. Yet there are comic possibilities in a wife, a lap dancer and a gay guy binding the brute. This is the line author Lauren Gunderson tries to walk without success. Promoted by Theatre Seven as a comedy, even "a gut-buster," Exit, Pursued by a Bear is only fitfully amusing. But even if taken seriously it's flat, relying on a cliché premiseno matter how true it may beand stereotypical characters.
I've seen and read literally dozens of plays over the years about under-educated couples, married too soon, in which the woman has had enough. Many have rural or redneck settings similar to Exit, Pursued by a Bear. However, a play can rise above the setting and basic situation if the characters are well-drawn and fully fleshed out, but that isn't the case here. Given no character development whatsoever, Sweetheart and Simon are one-dimensional and add no complexities to the plot. The only apparent reason for Simon to be gay is so he can appear in a cheerleader's skirt. Kyle is interesting only in flashback scenes which reveal him as an occasionally-tender and tentative wooer of Nan, but he isn't given character development, either. Nan alone has an arc of evolution, but that has all happened before the play actually begins. We are told about it, but we don't see it.
The four actors perform with energy and focus under director Cassy Sanders, on scenic designer John Wilson's detailed and dimensional set; but I can't understand what Theatre Seven saw in this play. This young troupe recently was honored as Chicago's emerging theater of the year, but Exit, Pursued by a Bear (a famous stage direction from Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale) won't show you why.