Playwright: Keith Reddin
At: Pine Box Theatre at the Athenaeum, 2936 N. Southport Ave.
Phone: ( 773 ) 935-6860; $15
Runs through: Feb. 12
No one can accuse Keith Reddin of pulling his punches. Most playwrights might have contended themselves with declaring War to be Hell, but Reddin, in his debut 1984 play, keeps the sulphur and brimstone coming all the way into civilian life and even the AFTERlife.
We first meet Franklin Roosevelt Clagg and his future wife, Effie, on the eve of his deployment to Korea. At the battle of Pork Chop Hill, he sustains injuries that will result in the loss of his right arm. That's not the worst of it, however. Despite his honorable discharge and an economic boom, he cannot find a job, his humiliation causing him to grow ever more resentful of others—particularly former fellow-GI Tod Cartmill, whose early success peddling surplus military supplies on the black market has spurred him to become the quintessential capitalist greedhead. The Claggs persevere, but just when it looks like their fortunes may take a turn for the better, Effie dies when a movie-theatre balcony collapses, and for a trifling sin committed long ago, is condemned to the inferno—which turns out to be little different from the world left behind.
It's hard to believe that Reddin wasn't himself the product of a military family, nor that he never served in uniform, so accurate is his savage portrait of the hardships faced by veterans and their kin. Small surprise that so many young actors shrink from his vehemence, preferring to highlight the text's comically absurd elements—Effie's LITERALLY diabolical supervisor in Beelzebub's textile factory, for example, or Tod's blandly amoral pronouncements.
Not so the Pine Box ensemble, however. For this inaugural production, director Audrey Francis and her company refuse to stand safely outside of their characters, instead zeroing in on the humanity of these humble lovers forced to suffer compromise in their faltering search for happiness. A wise choice, for life-sized demons are far more disturbing than cartoon-monsters. Anne Adams' dramaturgy makes for on-target replication of period detail, down to Lisa Stevens' dior-style gowns and Chris Trejo's enhanced score of innocent 50s ditties, but see if you don't spot Franklins and Effies and Tods today, still gamely making their way in a jungle of indifference.