SR review: “Take Me” at Strawdog Theatre Company
Strawdog’s inscrutable new musical is out-there, but doesn’t find much truth
Theater review by Kris Vire
Nicole Bloomsmith, front, and the ensemble of Take Me
A decade ago, local journalist and playwright Mark Guarino wrote a Western fantasia incorporating songs from the catalog of Mekons and Waco Bros frontman Jon Langford. The resulting play, All the Fame of Lofty Deeds, was produced by the House Theatre of Chicago; I found it messy but rather charming.
Now Guarino and Langford have teamed for this fully original musical about a woman who comes to believe her husband and son have been abducted by aliens. There are charms to be found, but messiness rules the day.
Shelly (Nicole Bloomsmith) is a former architect who’s lost her way in the wake of a one-two punch of tragedy. Her husband Matt (Michael Reyes), an airline pilot, was the only survivor of a plane crash but remains comatose. And the couple’s young son has gone missing. Shelly, who now works in customer support for a shitty cellular service provider, starts to receive mysterious calls at work that suggest they’re coming from outer space.
But before anyone can beam her up, she’s visited by a passel of more earthbound weirdos. First up are her Father (Matt Rosin) and Mother (Loretta Rezos); the former is a mute anti-scientist obsessed with proving the Earth is flat, the latter is an ill-defined ice queen.
Carmine Grisolia and Nicole Bloomsmith in Take Me
Next is Doggie (Kamille Dawkins), a human-sized embodiment of Shelly’s childhood stuffed animal who drops guilt trips on her former owner for forgetting her imagination. And then there’s Travis Cooper (Carmine Grisolia), “intergalactic space explorer and three-time Country Music Award finalist,” who beams in claiming to be an alien abductee himself and guides Shelly to an abductee support group, where she talks herself into believing that her husband and son are actually safe in the care of extraterrestrials, who will surely come for her at any moment.
Grisolia and Dawkins actually give the two most winning performances here, and costume designer Rachel M. Sypniewski has great fun with their looks. But it’s a serious problem that we have no way to contextualize their characters in the mixed-up world of this play. Are they all in Shelly’s head? Is everything we’re seeing in Shelly’s head?
It would be all right if that remained somewhat ambiguous for those of us in the audience, but you don’t even get the sense that Guarino, Langford and director Anderson Lawfer have figured it out for themselves.
Langford has a long history of writing songs from the point of view of eccentric characters. But in Take Me he seems to struggle with writing for different characters, and in different voices, in a shared context. His songs here are more atmospheric than propulsive.
And Guarino’s book comprises such a confusing jumble of tones that it’s impossible to really immerse yourself in it. Every few minutes I found myself floating outside of the play as if from orbit, trying to make narrative sense of the unfathomable events playing out before me.
Take Me
Strawdog Theatre Company (1802 W Berenice Ave). Book by Mark Guarino. Music by Jon Langford. Directed by Anderson Lawfer.
Cast: Nicole Bloomsmith (Shelly), Carmine Grisolia (Travis), Kamille Dawkins (Doggie), Michael Reyes (Matt), Loretta Rezos (Mother), Matt Rosin (Father), David Gordon-Johnson (Doctor), Megan DeLay (Noruse), Kristen Alesia (ensemble).
Designers: John Ross Wilson (scenic), Rachel M. Sypniewski (costumes), John Kelly (lighting), Lacie Hexom (properties), Heath Hays (sound), Anthony Churchill (projections). Music direction by Chuck Evans. Orchestrations and arrangements by Annabelle Lee Revak. Choreographer/dramaturg/assistant director: Becca Braun.
Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes; one intermission. Through June 22. Tickets ($35, seniors $26) at strawdog.org.
Photographs by KBH Media
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