Playwright: Joel Drake Johnson
At: Victory Gardens, 2257 N. Lincoln
Phone: (773) 871-3000; $30
Runs through: July 6
Insomnia? Throw away that Sominex! Ambien? Perish the thought! And put that bottle of Fat Bastard Shiraz back on the shelf.
Victory Gardens latest mainstage foray into sub-TV movie slickness has premiered … and it's a sure-fire remedy for sleeplessness.
The End of the Tour, penned by Chicago Dramatist-nurtured scribe Joel Drake Johnson, gives us a tour of the lives of six connected
denizens (both past and present) of Dixon, Ill., that downstate burg whose chief claim to fame is that it's from where Ronald Reagan
hailed. The problem with a tour is that it lacks one essential element of most staged entertainment: a story. Without a story, and
characters with whom one can empathize, you end up with, well, a snooze.
Johnson forces us to act as witnesses to the lives that revolve around (literally—the show is set on a rotating disk) sassy mother,
Mae (Mary Ann Thebus, who delivers the only comic relief in the production) who has been confined to a nursing home after breaking
her ankle. Mousy, dissatisfied daughter, Jan (the always on-target Annabel Armour) is stuck with the paradoxical task of resenting
and caring for her cranky, desperate-for-attention mother. Naturally, she seeks a little help from her gay brother, Andrew (Timothy
Hendrickson) who lives in Chicago and hasn't set foot in Dixon for years. Andrew has his own issues, including not being fully
demonstrative of his relationship with his lover, David (Andrew Rothenberg) and the typical small-town demons of being tortured for
who he really was while growing up. Jan's recently estranged ex-husband, Chuck (Rob Riley) and his best buddy (Marc Silvia) make
up the remainder of the revolving sextet and add a tale of loss to the story—Chuck has not only lost Jan, but is about to lose Smiley,
the cat he's owned for 17 years.
Unfortunately, it's all pretty weak stuff, varying from the somewhat strong: Armour and Thebus' nursing home scenes crackle; to
the largely superfluous: Chuck and his buddy's relationship which makes one wonder: why are we being forced to eavesdrop on
such boring conversation? The addition of a thieving Alzheimer's patient (Kitty Taber) makes for some additional largely unexplored
sentiment and conflict.
Victory Gardens' resident director Sandy Shiner moves her talented ensemble through this fundamentally halting and unfocused
story with as much energy as the script allows. But it's a tired affair, and one that tires us as we await for things to kick into gear and
the story to begin. Sadly, this never happens.
The End of the Tour might have some potential if it sharpened its focus and winnowed out the unnecessary. By attempting to give
us too much, the End of the Tour leaves us, at the end, with far too little.
