| Review from The Chicago Reader August 1st, 2002 JACK O'SHEA IN CAS O'BLANCA. Hairy Calahan Productions, at the Chicago Actors Studio. The third installment in the O'Shea series centers on a WWII-era Nazi plot to feminize the American GI. Needing a truly butch test subject, the evil Dr. Schnausinger naturally selects cartoon-noir hero Jack, who's down-and-out in north Africa. Amid the riot of overdone accents, sodomy jokes, and slapstick brutality that ensues, writer-star James Cook manages to fit in an appealingly crude parody of Casablanca. The cast sell the script's humor with sick determination, led by two excellent actors in big supporting roles: Tony Janning (the somewhat Renault-like Pierre LeBeaujalais) and Benjamin Capps (Schnausinger). Cook, channeling Bogart by way of Norm McDonald, is more one-note but pulls off his second-act transformations with surprising grace. The rest generally make up in energy what they lack in technique. On the whole, though, it's a show too stupid and sophomoric to recommend--which seems here a point of giddy pride. The best moments result from liberal application of the no-gag-too-cheap principle to conventions like flashbacks (via projected stock and "dramatized" footage, riddled with clues to its phoniness), blackouts (seven or eight of them close act one), and death scenes (it's a looong one). Director Andy Lawfer ably plays this jackassery off the reverence often accorded the classic original, and through the magic of repetition, most bits that don't work pay off in one that does. Whether you've got the patience to wade through them is another matter. --Brian Nemtusak |
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| Review of The Messiah Box, by Robin Stone. Performed by The Loose Change Players in 1998 on the campus of The University of Missouri, Columbia. Review from The Maneater, 1998. "The fourth play, "The Messiah Box", returned Loose Change to the realm of the incomprehensible. Person Sitting (Brian Stuhlman) forced Person Standing (Benjamin Capps) to perform several demeaning tasks while on his hands and knees. Finally, Person Standing killed Person Sitting. Although esoteric analysis could reveal a point, some additional clues would have helped a befuddled-but-delighted audience..."--Jennie Coughlin |
| From the Chicago Reader, July 17th 2003 : http://www.chireader.com JACK O'SHEA: THE SAGA BEGINS Hairy Calahan Productions, at the Breadline Theatre. "You see some crazy things on the street," confides the hard-boiled cop in this James Cook comedy--which also confirms that crazy things can be seen in late-night theater. But it's the audacious nonsense in this loosely plotted Jack O'Shea installment that makes the show work. O'Shea is an alcoholic with an anger management problem. You know this isn't going to be the typical police detective tale when he addresses the audience in conventional gumshoe fashion but with booze in hand, no pants (they've been stolen by prostitutes), and his gun still smoking from shooting a dog. There's also a crime lord with a Gary Numan cover band, a secret-agent gorilla who becomes a crack whore, and a lecherous police captain who can't keep his pants on either. Firmly planted in the 80s, with a rich sound track from the era and ongoing scoffing at Nancy Reagan's "just say no" campaign, this is a bizarre story of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll, with crime shoehorned in. Under Bruno De Souza's direction, cast standouts are Cook's simmering O'Shea, Benjamin Capps's insane drug lord, and Guy Schingoethe as the grizzled police chief. The opening-night glitches will surely be worked out, but the (uncredited) fight choreography needs more finesse. Still, this is a great, brassy 70-minute show for those who think they've seen everything. --Jenn Goddu |