Playwright: Simon Gray
At: Actors Workshop Theatre, 1044 W. Bryn Mawr
Phone: 773-728-7529; $20-$25
Through March 4
Also
At: Steep Theatre, 3902 N. Sheridan
Phone: 312-458-0722; $18
Through March 28
BY SCOTT C. MORGAN
Situations like this confuse audiences and drive theater administrators batty: Two theaters in close proximity produce the same play. The scenario is playing out now with two Chicago productions of Otherwise Engaged running simultaneously at Actors Workshop Theatre and Steep Theatre, less than three miles apart.
Why all this attention for Simon Gray's 1975 acidic black comedy now? More importantly, which production is the one to see?
Though he says he's a confirmed heterosexual, British playwright Gray is perhaps best known for Butley, a 1971 drama with a leading gay character. ( Butley was revived on Broadway this season as a star vehicle for Nathan Lane. ) Otherwise, Engaged is from Gray's most productive and successful writing period as a dramatist, and it's easy to see why.
The play centers around the snobbish Simon Hench, a wealthy book editor who wants things just so in all matters of his life. Cloistered in his stylish apartment, Simon tries to listen to a recording of the Wagner opera Parsifal, only to have the facades around his well-ordered life crumble one fateful afternoon.
Gray stuffs Otherwise Engaged with class resentment and plenty of skirmishes between the sexes, making a cracking good piece of theater as various people keep on interrupting Simon's afternoon. Even with a less-than-stellar cast, Otherwise Engaged still can pull you into the high and mighty world of his contemptible nihilism.
The two Chicago storefront productions waging battle now both have their plusses and minuses. And though it's clear one production is more fully realized than the other, both are marred because of casting inconsistencies.
Actors Workshop Theatre's production was the first one out of the gate, opening in late January. Its production features a cast that is much more age-appropriate to the roles, giving it a certain authenticity missing from the upstarts of Steep.
Actors Workshop also updates the production to somewhere starting in the 1980s. ( Simon's copy of Parsifal is on CD instead of vinyl. ) It really doesn't affect the drama, except for the excision of one character's speech nostalgically longing for things from childhood ( perhaps a symbolic nod to Britain's long-gone glory days as an Empire ) .
There are many good turns from actors in minor roles, including Brian Dongarra as the overexcited student loafer Dave; Laura Shatkus as the mercenary girlfriend Davina; and Lauren N. Goode as Simon's lovely wife with a secret.
What's lacking from the Actors Workshop's production is an overall cohesive aesthetic. The minimal set, by Bryan Pray, looks sparse and tatty, which doesn't really reflect Simon's surface approach to life nor his uppity taste for the finer things.
Directors E. Malcolm Martinez and Michael Colucci also don't seem to have confidence with their actors' abilities, since they often have them run out into the audience. This makes confrontational altercations into weakened and lonely monologues.
Most crucially missing from Actors Workshop is a believable acting center. Getting down a proper British accent is hard enough, but Jim Poole doesn't hammer down the above-it-all diffidence needed for Simon's overeducated Englishman.
Without that center, Otherwise Engaged doesn't live up to its fullest potential. It's still entertaining, but you feel it could be much more.
Steep Theatre also has problems with its leading man, though there is more emotional depth to be found in Peter Moore's performance as Simon than his Actors Workshop counterpart. And, though most of the young actors have to don make-up to look older, Steep's actors have a more defined connection with their jaded characters.
Steep Theatre also goes the distance with keeping Otherwise Engaged as a 1970s period piece. Steep director Michael Rice sticks closer to the script, which means certain details tend to stick out ( especially when a very 1970s stylish Lauren Ludwig, as Davina, bears her breasts in a blatant attempt to seduce Simon ) .
Set designer Brad Akin's 1970s in-the-round set gets it pretty much right, with pretentious modern black leather furniture that truly reflects the rarified stuck up life of Simon ( though the plywood lid of the specially built record turntable looks out of place ) . Morgan Steinberg's period outfits are also a delight, rightfully grounding the characters in pre-Margaret Thatcher Britain.
Steep Theatre also does a better job of getting most of the laughs out of the piece, from James Allen's lovably boorish chauvinistic friend Jeff to Levi Petree's laid-back approach to the mooching student Dave. Kevin Gladish also makes a much more disturbingly nebbish Bernard Wood, Simon's old school acquaintance who has unhealthily fixated on him and his easy way with the other boys.
The major wrong note in Steep's strong ensemble is Alex Gillmor's miscast turn as Simon's older brother, Stephen. His British accent is the weakest of the cast and he also just looks far too young to be the father of six children.
So both Otherwise Engaged productions now playing in Chicago are far from perfect. But for your money's worth, pick Steep Theatre for its better production values, its stronger acting ensemble and its less-expensive ticket price.
Or you can see both if you don't want to take sides. Having two productions of Otherwise Engaged playing simultaneously gives audiences the ability to see how different theaters approach the same material.
