Augusta. Playwright: Richard Dresser. At: American Theater Company,1909 W. Byron. Phone: 773-929-1031; $30, $35. Runs through: March 2
Edward Kross is a comedic actor whose eccentric charm could generate laughs reading the phone book. But even Kross can't redeem Augusta, Richard Dresser's tiresome attempt to tell us that—surprise!—it's tough going for the working poor in these United States. With laborious exposition and preposterous plotting, Augusta trots out ideas that are neither original nor originally presented. Directed by Nora Dunn, the piece is a singularly inauspicious beginning for American Theatre Company under the reign of new artistic director PJ Paparelli.
If Kross's talents are squandered, that goes double for Kate Buddeke, a powerhouse actor who radiates an unconventional, battle-scarred beauty. She's a master craftsman whose seen-it-all, world-weary expressiveness often seems to be barely containing an inner imp that, if unleashed, could turn a High Latin Mass into a Fat Tuesday bacchanal. Sadly for Chicago, Buddeke is now based in New York. It should be a joy to have Buddeke back and performing with the company she helped shape. But there is no joy in Augusta.
Augusta's best scene is its first, when cleaning lady Molly ( Buddeke ) must justify her position—and by extension, her very existence—to her new boss Jimmy ( Kross ) . Anyone who has suffered the insufferableness of a middle-management punk half his age and an eighth of his intelligence will empathize immediately with Molly's humiliation.
It's downhill from there, as Molly and twentysomething Claire ( Gwendolyn Whiteside ) scrub their way through the absent Mrs. Townshend's house and too much exposition. About 40 minutes into this 90-minute morass, the plot finally starts to show up. This is not an improvement.
There's some ludicrous nonsense about a set of 10 spoons Claire and Molly believe are so valuable they'd solve all their financial problems. When you realize you've been doing math in your head for the better part of a scene ( Let's see, 10 spoons = maybe $10,000 = maybe a year's bare survival ) , you know that the story at hand is less than engaging. Even if you buy the premise that a set of utensils will set you up for life, Dresser keeps piling inconsistencies upon unlikelihoods. There's Claire's shock when Jimmy makes a pass at her—after she checks into a single hotel room with him at a company conference. Her abrupt naivete is almost as patently unbelievable as the fact that she's certain that attending a conference of cleaning company mangers will usher her into the halls of power and a land of untold riches. There's Jimmy visiting Mrs. Townshend in the hospital. ( Having worked for a cleaning service during grad school, we can tell you that'd never happen. Had he done even a modicum of research, Dresser would have discovered likewise. )
And finally there is Grant Sabin's representational set, a sweep of pink marble that works beautifully—until Molly brings in a pair if silver candlesticks and inserts a glaringly inconsistent element of literal realism into the proceedings.
Polish though they might, even the most gifted actors can't save Augusta.