Playwright: Phillip C. Klapperich
At: House Theatre of Chicago
Phone: ( 773 ) 251-2195; $10-$19
Runs through: Nov. 5
The cheap but clever stage tricks are as amusing when you see how they're done as they are effective. Thus, skin-like latex pulled off an arm and a shoulder becomes a melting witch, and a face projected against a literal smoke screen—always swirling and dissolving—is the Wizard, and a Japanese-style kogan in full audience view operates the Toto puppet.
With these tricks and a strong story, the House Theatre indisputably assumes the mantel of the original Organic Theater Company. We critics previously have called House the heir apparent, and now the troupe definitively earns the title. Even House Theatre's raucous, devoted twenty-something followers echo the Organic's Lincoln Avenue crowd. Hell, it's where I spent my 20s.
So much for spirit and style. Does the story work? Well, of course it does: it's The Wizard of Oz; apparently an inexhaustible story, for this is the third Off-Loop production in two months. All three opportunistically trail in the much-ballyhooed wake of Wicked, the Oz mother ship from Broadway that's selling out downtown.
Of course, playwright Phillip C. Klapperich takes considerable liberties with the L. Frank Baum original. In this telling, the threat of death is everywhere and not just from the Wicked Witch; you should hear how the Tin Woodsman talks and see the giant scorpion. Indeed, Toto dies. And if you're looking for a happy ending, look elsewhere. Dorothy doesn't go home, although she still might after undergoing additional unspecified trials as a rite de passage to womanhood. Picking up on a Wicked riff, Klapperich introduces power politics between Wiz and the witches. Even Glinda the Good doesn't trust him. Although much of the House tale parallels the familiar MGM film, it's NOT the movie, the tone is far less sentimental and the literary style is completely contemporary with few smatterings of Baum's original prose. Dorothy is called 'Witch Slayer' and greeted with 'Heil,' and calls her time in Oz 'a crazy-ass dream.'
Perhaps because neither Klapperich nor director Tommy Rapley plays Dorothy for sentiment, she doesn't have much personality as interpreted by Paige Hoffman. She grows in strength but not in heart. The winning personalities are her strange companions: Cliff Chamberlain's acerbic, commanding Tin Man ( doubling as soft-rock balladeer ) , Jake Minton's puppy-like Cowardly Lion and—especially—Stephen Taylor's remarkably deft comic performance as the Scarecrow. Dennis Watkins ( a dapper Wizard ) , Carolyn Defrin ( an honest Glinda ) and Molly Brennan ( a glam Wicked Witch ) complete the principals.
Rapley's direction and dances are consistently inventive and sure, splitting the difference between sincerity and self-awareness. Technically, the production is a marvel of low-budget resourcefulness. Nonetheless, we really didn't need yet another Wizard of Oz; for all its amusement value, you won't really care about this one.