Playwright: Penny Penniston. At: Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont. Phone: 773-975-8150; $25. Runs through: June 5
The late-20th-century American romantic comedy typically includes: 1 ) a fundamentally nice, usually young, man whose life is at an impasse, 2 ) an attractive, likewise young, woman wiser than she appears, 3 ) at least one extreme personality, often based on popular stereotypes, 4 ) a squad of amoral facilitators determined to achieve their noble or knavish goals at any cost, 5 ) copious alcoholic beverages, scant food, and mostly unlocked doors, 6 ) one or more threatening, but ultimately harmless, devices ( e.g., swords, firearms and explosives ) , and 7 ) an intricate web of complications ending in a resolution leaving everybody content.
The formal structure of this familiar genre is what makes it the perfect camouflage for Penny Penniston's smart and funny symposium on the achievement of personal serenity through Zen-Buddhist surrender of self-conscious ego. Our hero is former ad man Brent Parrish, currently divorced and unemployed. His recent partners, high-energy Redge and low-energy Jack, come seeking his creative talents for a beer campaign featuring charismatic tennis champion "Ruby" Jones. Unfortunately, Brent has chosen this time to adopt a teenaged street waif who arrives with a politically-radical boy friend in tow. As the screwball hijinks escalate, each of these pilgrims confronts their moment of enlightenment. Some are prepared to receive it, some not.
Spin is a play first, of course, produced by Theater Witbut it also inaugurates its sponsors' spacious three-auditorium odeoplex, reconfigured from the barnlike Bailiwick Arts Center in East Lakeview. Jack Magaw's scenic design proposes a set ( which becomes a set-within-a-set in the course of the play ) echoing architect Richard Kasemsarn's warehouse-chic decor, upon which Jeremy Wechsler directs a heavy-lifting cast led by Coburn Goss doing his reliable yuppie-nebbish turn in the role of Brent, spurred on by tag-team Lance Baker and Joe Foust as his dubious comforters, with further illuminative support provided by Alice Wedoff's pragmatic nymphet, Michael Kessler's hotheaded insurrectionist-wannabe and Austin Talley's unpretentious athlete.
So what is the secret of inner peace? Devotees of Alan Watts or Joseph Campbell already know the answer to that one, but for astute playgoers willing to look past their narrative's deceptively frivolous facade, Spin emerges as a briskly-paced cleverly-crafted parable needing only minor finessingchiefly, an insufficiently-isolated flashback sceneto herald, in a decade beset by adversity, the fresh artistic opportunities offered by its snazzy new home.