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Jan. 29--At 21, it's all about sex. Then a kid comes along -- and suddenly those old Bohemian ways just don't jell with the new responsibilities. A few years more and the parties to a stale marriage get an extracurricular itch. But with age comes a deeper understanding of love.
How you feel about "The Bed," the portentously sentimental new bedroom-across-time drama from Nikos Vlachos -- a physician turned playwright -- will turn on whether the above trajectory strikes you as indicative of marital truth or a collection of cliches that tell you nothing.
I go with the latter. If you are going to paint a progressive theatrical picture of an upper-middle-class marriage, there has to be something new to say. Simply put, this mattress is already worn out.
This commercial production from director Sandra Zielinksi looks reasonably classy (costumes from Lauren Lowell are lovely) and the scenes are interspersed with live cello solos passionately played by musician William Jason Raynovich. The two-actor show is anything but sleazy or lurid. But you get the sense that capable professionals found themselves stuck with a beginner's script.
An intermediate playwriting teacher would likely think there's some laudable humanism and compassion in a piece trying not to be as cynical about marriage as the rest of the mass media. Fine. But that wouldn't excuse the total lack of dramatic tension -- for most of this play, very little actually happens -- and the innumerable inauthentic moments. These aren't lines of dialog, they're truisms. "We've been a family of four," says the wife, with heavy import, "ignoring the family of two." Oy.
Vlachos has a bad habit of having his characters address the audience at the top of a scene with a pithy little epigram about love or marriage from Mark Twain or the like. One of these monologues even is delivered by Joe (Andy Luther) just as Sara (Madelon Guinazzo) is announcing her water has broken. Instead of sprinting for the hospital, this self-examinatorial pair keep on chatting.
The pace couldn't be more languid, what with the long interludes (accompanied by slides), the florid style, the soporific truths. Two great actors might have rescued some of this. This overpriced show doesn't have them. Guinazzo is competent but ill-at-ease, and Luther -- who alternates puppy dog with ill-motivated bursts of rage -- is so thoroughly unlikable as to make you want to wonder why anyone would ever spend time in his bed.
"The Bed"
When: Through Feb. 25
Where: Victory Gardens Greenhouse Theatre, 2257 N. Lincoln Ave.
Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes
Tickets: $35-45 at 773-871-3000
cjones5@tribune.com
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Copyright (c) 2007, Chicago Tribune
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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