Playwright: Patrick Marber
At: Shattered Globe Theatre Company at Victory Gardens, 2259 N. Lincoln
Phone: ( 773 ) 871-3000; $26-$35
Runs through: May 14
BY MARY SHEN BARNIDGE
Downstairs at Victory Gardens right now, Irish playwright Tom Murphy shows us how a father's frustration at his own choices can move him to seek his sons' destruction. But upstairs, British author Patrick Marber presents us with two patriarchal mentors, one drawing solace from the companionship of his young pupil and the other determined to rescue the boy from a life of addiction.
Stephen is the owner of a modest bar-restaurant in London, its staff composed of two waiters and a cook who, each Sunday night, join their boss in a game of poker. The lads have their personal plans—Mugsy wants to open his own dining establishment, Frankie wants to go professional in Las Vegas and Sweeney just wants to patch things up with his estranged wife and child. But since none of them can resist the call of the chips, the poker party keeps them eternally in debt to their employer. His agenda is more than simple plantation politics, however; only through gambling can he exercise influence over his alienated son, who has lately fallen under the spell of a high-roller named Ash. As the stakes in the evening's game escalate, we discover how Stephen comes to know so much about his rival's weaknesses.
A group of men seated at a tableful of cards sparks instantaneous tension that is competitive to the participants and dramatic to the kibitzers. In setting up his field for the ensuing battle of nerves, Marber relies on comradely banter, swapped at a pace that, in less disciplined ensembles than that assembled for this Shattered Globe production, tends to promote a hyperspeed delivery that leaves psychological dynamics in the dust.
However, director Steve Scott refuses to let his actors surrender to the wordplay associated with their particular pastime's arcane variants, instead tracking every step in the progress of the characters' defeats—or victories. By the final showdown ( a gambling term, by the way ) , when our two unlikely champions prepare to risk everything on, literally, the toss of a coin, our attention is so intensely focused you'd think it was OUR money riding on the verdict.