Playwright: Joe Mantegna et al.
At: Royal George Theatre,
1641 N. Halsted St.
Phone: (312) 988-9000; $36.50-$44.50
Runs through: open run
It's not just a baseball game, you know, any more than a Grateful Dead concert is just music or The Rocky Horror Picture Show is just a movie. Since its premiere in 1977, this Organic Theater Company production has provided audiences the world over (via the videotaped PBS version) with a glimpse of the Windy City. And if the initial goal was only an opportunity for the original ensemble to display their proletariat shtick, its story now is revealed to reflect all the elements of full-fledged heroic myth.
What distinguishes the Cubs? Well, they haven't won a World Series since 1908. But more than that, their ball park is an open-air coliseum immediately flanked, not by parking lots or commercial businesses, but residential buildings where neighboring citizens seated on the rooftops can view the game, literally, from their own homes. Inside the arena, the low-tech ambiance endows the 'baseball in sunshine' team—a few artificially-lit night games per season notwithstanding—with the nostalgia that so endears them to their loyal fans.
At the game depicted in the play, these will include a pair of high-rolling gamblers, one of them equipped with a nerdy assistant. Also a blue-collar low-roller and his disgruntled wife, a boisterous pep-clubber, a sun-babe looking to catch some UVs, and a blind lad who follows the game on his portable radio (thus keeping us apprised of the action on the field). They are a diverse band of individuals, each with their own agenda and territorial issues, but slowly their faith unites them into a phalanx ready to risk humiliation, bodily harm and financial ruin in support of their champions.
The text has been updated somewhat—the team rosters, of course, and the inclusion of the 'Woo' and a 'Don't touch the ball!' (but the 'clap-clap' heckle remains intact). The cast assembled by director Jeff Lee do not attempt to recreate the Hogarthian grotesques of the Stuart Gordon era, however, instead gradually amplifying their allegorical aspects to contrast the villains corrupt in soul with the heroes pure in heart. So who YOU gonna cheer for?
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