Playwright: Eric Simonson, adapted from the novel by Mark Harris
At: Steep Theatre, 3902 N. Sheridan Rd.
Phone: ( 312 ) 458-0722; $15
Runs through: July 1
BY MARY SHEN BARNIDGE
In the New York Mammoths' clubhouse, the showers are offstage; the athletes quickly dry off and cover up; and the word 'gay' hasn't yet been invented. But audiences who can only tolerate baseball plays of the Take Me Out variety will not be wholly disappointed in this celebration of male friendship. As the team owner remarks, 'Such a thing can be also love,' albeit hastily adding—this is 1955, after all—'I do not mean fairy love.'
Mark Harris' story, adapted for the stage by Eric Simonson and premiering at Chicago's Next Theatre in 1992, poses a dramatic question first asked circa 1529, to wit, 'Who will go to the grave with Everyman?' This is true especially when the grim reaper's pick is a sad-sack catcher diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease whose only confidante is his teammate/insurance agent—a star pitcher who then applies his resources to keeping his client's condition a secret from the coach, entreating their peers to be kind, foiling a gold-digging girlfriend and generally seeing to it that the doomed man lives a little better before he must die.
For this Steep Theatre production, director Tony Adams dispenses with Harris' Damon Runyon-styled speech, while Brad Akin's scenic design skirts the hazards associated with arranging 16 actors in a tiny storefront space where latecomers at the final preview performance narrowly avoided cameo appearances in the Mammoths' locker room.
Despite the obstacles inherent in this well-crafted, if too-rarely-staged, script, however, Peter Moore and Alex Gillmor, along with a sturdy ensemble ( featuring a standout character turn by Jim Poole as the irate manager ) , forge an argument for being one's brother's keeper with enough stoical poignancy to elevate masculine values to the level of heroic myth. What more could Cubs fans ask, passing the playhouse as they depart from Wrigley Field for the Sheridan el station, than the opportunity for a good guy-cry?
