By Gillian of The Artistic Edges
Mr. Marmalade
The Chemically Imbalanced Theater Project (sic) has a new show up at the Cornservatory in Chicago that offers some interesting views on extreme behavior, it’s entrance into the mainstream, what happens when we ignore issues and behaviors that are outside the lines.
The show revolves around a 4 year’s play subject and patterns during one evening while her mother is on a date. She consistently paints vignettes of disturbing and dysfunctional behavior overlaid with her own character’s desparate desire for cookie cutter normalcy in the form of mother/father/child playing at ‘house’ and the introduction of structure where none is likely to occur naturally. The child’s characters are all grown, foul mouthed and desparately unhappy, with the startling exception of a truly suicidal 5 year old playmate who is coaxed into the standard, if depressed behavior of the typical American, sport loving, junk food eating male. Ok, I admit it, if the child characters were only about 4 years older, it would be more believable.
Oddly intriguing is the fact that another (not to be named) company is mounting this show in Chicago opening April 5. First, why do multiple companies want to do the same show? I think this is because they do not know who else is doing what else, and hot shows are always of interest. More to the point, the topics covered are truly gripping, universal, the subject has been handled well by the dramatist. This show made me (and other lunatics in the audience) laugh. Sounds callous. Well we weren’t, trust me.
Once again I am falling prey to the idea of being ambushed. The point of this show is that these kids are acting out the adult neediness around them. The adults pretend they have no angst so they can elude the guilt gripping them. The kids show us in the fourth wall section what’s real.