Playwright: Penn Jillette and Steven Banks. At: The Inconvenience at Angel Island, 735 W. Sheridan Rd. Tickets: 773-871-0442; www.theinconvenience.org; $20. Runs through: July 5
Once upon a time, there was a metal-rock band called Umlaut and, in it, a bass player named Kevin. We don't see much of Kevin in our story but, like Marley's ghost, his presence must be clearly acknowledged if anything wonderful is to happen.
Without this priapic icon, you see, mousy medical technician Melinda Meyer would never dress up to look like Anna Nicole Smith andfortified with quantities of vodkavideotape herself behaving in what she believes to be a seductive manner, including a bare-chested re-enactment of the performance that won her the hula-hoop state championship, and mail the results to her idol. Nor would Carl McIntosh, Kevin's shy personal assistant and fan-mail sorter, screen the aforementioned videotape and promptly reply with a missive representing himself as the kind of rocker he imagines will please Melinda, even to reproducingwith the assistance of a low-riding Fender guitarher favorite Kevin dream-fantasy.
"It's a modern mating ritual," Carl explains, but his assessment is only partly correct. Haven't besotted lovers always lied shamelessly to one another during the first stages of their acquaintance, leading to subsequent romantic tension arising from the fraudulent wooers' fear of their flawed humanity being discovered? The veneer of intimacy promised by technological advances does nothing to diminish the awkwardness of their initial face-to-face meeting. ( "I know what your dick looks like, but I don't know your dog's name," Melinda laments. ) True love, however, sees past artifice to the sincerity motivating the creation of the mask, andonce the cameras are discarded, and the value of experience cherished above that of recording experienceCupid triumphs.
The Inconvenience aesthetic mandates our would-be sweethearts soliciting audience members to operate the photo-equipment for their home movies, the lens's view projected on a monitor screen at stage center, while smaller screens display Umlaut music videos ( one featuring naughty nymphets in school uniforms ). What distinguishes this techno-smoochie from the common run of romcoms is director Shade Murray's fortuitous casting of Mary Williamson and Chris Chmelik as Melinda and Carl. Both actors endow their potentially shallow characters with a depth and seriousness to generate a charismatic presence heralding ( or so we can hope ) the long-overdue breakout for these two inexplicably underrated actors. Don't miss it.