Playwright: Nathan Allen
At: House Productions at the Viaduct, 3111 N. Western Ave.
Phone: (773) 251-2195; $15
Runs through: March 6
Oh, they are a forlorn band of desperadoes, these cowboys driving their (stolen) cattle to fresh pastures in San Valentino: a Union Army chaplain haunted by wartime memories. A gunfighter legendary for his speed and accuracy. A fugitive wanted in Utah for killing five men in a quarrel over a—ahem!—lady. An outcast schoolteacher and an immigrant cook. They are joined by a young man calling himself only 'The Melancholy Kid' who vows revenge on the varmint who shot his father.
Only one of these misfits will be left alive at the end of the trail, but before we are done with them, we will have witnessed stampedes, Comanche attacks, and ghosts of loved ones (one of whom speaks to The Kid in the voice of a stray heifer). We will learn the secrets of these lonely men, see their hearts and spirits broken as they search for refuge in a harsh world. We will also see Schwinn bicycles ridden like horses (with an occasional spur snagging on the carrier), a romantic Flamenco duet conducted to the dulcet strains of mariachi guitars, and a preternaturally menacing bounty hunter stalking his quarry. And we will hear, with the onstage musical assistance of the Trick Hearts band, several songs in the rock-n-roll western mode popularized by The Eagles, as well as a beef stroganoff recipe recited to the accompaniment of a Flying Karamazov group-juggling exercise.
Well, what did you expect from the company that brought us Death And Harry Houdini and The Terrible Tragedy of Peter Pan? In the few years since its Chicago debut, House Productions has established a reputation for imaginative spectacle flowering from heroic myth. (Playwright Nathan Allen's claim to be a disciple of Joseph Campbell comes as small surprise.)
But if the literary details of San Valentino and The Melancholy Kid sometimes bespeak too many hasty revisions, its archetypes draw us in immediately. And if the individual stuntwork—including rope-spinning, whip-snapping, and slight-of-hand magic—has been performed more expertly elsewhere, its execution in this show by only a baker's dozen of multiple-skilled performers cannot fail to impress.