Levi Holloway ( left ) and Lea Coco in The Little Dog Laughed. Photo by Michael Brosilow. Playwright: Douglas Carter Beane. At: About Face Theatre at Center on Halsted. Hoover-Leppen Theatre, 3656 N. Halsted. Phone: 773-784-8565; $20-$40. Through Feb. 17
Local theater fans should be sobbing about the departure of Eric Rosen, a playwright and co-founder of Chicago's gay-and-lesbian-focused About Face Theatre. But instead of tears, Rosen leaves the Windy City on a tidal wave of titters with his savvy directorial take The Little Dog Laughed, a catty 2006 comedy by out playwright Douglas Carter Beane.
The Little Dog Laughed is Beane's arch and scathingly sarcastic attack on the hypocrisy of Hollywood when it comes to homosexuality. Despite the gains made by the gay rights movement in other areas of the country, Beane underlines how Hollywood and many of the gays and lesbians who work in the industry are trapped in a paranoid and self-loathing closet.
Take, for instance, the hard-talking lesbian Hollywood agent Diane, played to neurotic shallow perfection by Mary Beth Fisher. She'll do anything to claw her way up to the top of Hollywood's power ladder, even if that means stifling romantic entanglements for herself and particularly those of Mitchell ( Lea Coco, who more than lives up to his role of being Diane's hot young actor client ) .
Problem is that Mitchell's flings with hustlers ruins his heterosexual marketability on a new property Diane has just acquired where ( ironically enough ) he has to play gay. So she goes catatonic when Mitchell says he's falling in love with a trick.
Like Mitchell, that 24-year-old hustler named Alex ( Levi Holloway ) initially thinks himself 'straight' and that the adjective of 'homosexual' applies only to the sexual acts he does for money. Complicating the situation is Alex's girlfriend, Ellen ( Heather Prete, who is quite adept at playing the party girl who tries live like a tabloid celebrity ) .
To some, Beane's comedy might be contrived, especially with the notion of a Hollywood celebrity falling in love with a hustler. Others might also be disappointed that the male nudity in the original New York production gets covered up in Chicago behind two pairs of boxer-briefs.
But the significance of having Alex be a hustler ( especially when he's played with so much honest emotion by Holloway ) , only drives home Beane's irony of gay and lesbian Hollywood types who are more beholden to money than to helping their queer brothers and sisters gain acceptance in society.
Rosen smartly keeps everything at a speedy clip pace around the enormous luxury hotel room set designed by Tom Burch. Aided by Christopher Ash's shifting lighting design, the whole show fits comfortably in the sometimes difficult Hoover-Leppen Theatre space.
About Face's The Little Dog Laughed is a glorious parting gift by Rosen before he takes up the artistic directorship of Kansas City Repertory Theatre. Here Chicago's loss is definitely Kansas City's gain.