2006-05-31

BY MARY SHEN BARNIDGE

In the New York Mammoths' clubhouse, the showers are offstage; the athletes quickly dry off and cover up; and the word "gay" hasn't yet been invented. But audiences who can only tolerate baseball plays of the Take Me Out variety will not be wholly disappointed in this celebration of male friendship. As the team owner remarks, "Such a thing can be also love," albeit hastily adding—this is 1955, after all—"I do not mean fairy love."

Mark Harris' story, adapted for the stage by Eric Simonson and premiering at Chicago's Next Theatre in 1992, poses a dramatic question first asked circa 1529, to wit, "Who will go to the grave with Everyman?" This is true especially when the grim reaper's pick is a sad-sack catcher diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease whose only confidante is his teammate/insurance agent—a star pitcher who then applies his resources to keeping his client's condition a secret from the coach, entreating their peers to be kind, foiling a gold-digging girlfriend and generally seeing to it that the doomed man lives a little better before he must die.

For this Steep Theatre production, director Tony Adams dispenses with Harris' Damon Runyon-styled speech, while Brad Akin's scenic design skirts the hazards associated with arranging 16 actors in a tiny storefront space where latecomers at the final preview performance narrowly avoided cameo appearances in the Mammoths' locker room.

Despite the obstacles inherent in this well-crafted, if too-rarely-staged, script, however, Peter Moore and Alex Gillmor, along with a sturdy ensemble ( featuring a standout character turn by Jim Poole as the irate manager ) , forge an argument for being one's brother's keeper with enough stoical poignancy to elevate masculine values to the level of heroic myth. What more could Cubs fans ask, passing the playhouse as they depart from Wrigley Field for the Sheridan el station, than the opportunity for a good guy-cry?

Gay Chicago Magazine

- reviewed by Scotty Zacher

There's been a trend in theatre, more prominent in the last decade, where adaptations are not just being generated from the more common source, books, but are also drawing subject matter from movies. This movie-to-theatre route is most pronounced in musicals ("Hairspray," "The Full Monty"). An elongated variation to this is book-to-movie-to-theatre ("The Color Purple," "Ragtime").

In "Bang the Drum Slowly," we see the latter route: From book (written in 1956), to movie (1974) to this adaptation for the stage, first premiering at Evanston's Next Theatre in 1992.

"Bang the Drum Slowly" is a baseball story. It takes place during the regular season of an imaginary professional baseball team, the New York Mammoths. One of the team's pitchers, Author (the nickname derived from the fact that Author is also a writer), tells us the story of his on-the-road roommate, Bruce, a country-boy baseball catcher from Georgia. Bruce, as we soon find out, had been diagnosed with a fatal disease. The play commences to delve into the ways Bruce, Author and the rest of the team struggle and react to the realities of this disease throughout the team's baseball season. This play has the potential of being a powerful piece, but unfortunately, there are missed moments in this adaptation, especially in the second act, where the tensions and emotional struggles that imminent death can bring seemingly fizzle out.

What saves this adaptation's missteps, though, is superb direction by Tony Adams, who is also Steep Theatre's coartistic director. This is Adams' 20th directing gig at Steep, and it is apparent that he knows the space well. The staging is interesting and well-paced; the transitions are seamless.

The acting is strong overall. Alex Gillmor, playing Bruce, brings a nuanced combination of acceptance and despair, instilling a feeling of empathy rather than sympathy. Peter Moore, playing Author, skillfully shifts from relaying the story in the past tense to his real-time character. This is not an easy task to do, but Moore, with the guidance of Adams, pulls it off without a hitch. Dutch, the Mustang's coach, played by Jim Poole, is portrayed a bit over-the-top, thankfully not quite reaching the point of caricature. (In an odd sense, though, this portrayal is an acceptable choice, as it brings a change in pace and energy to the over-all melancholic tension of the evening.)

A special mention must be given to the play's accent coach, Nicole Pellegrino. Bringing a piece together that encompasses the multitude of racially and culturally diverse characters surrounding a 1950s baseball team is not an easy endeavor, but one never questions the actor's accents and speech patterns throughout the entire play.

"Bang the Drum Slowly" is a large piece - 28 separate characters played by an 18-member cast. It's rather refreshing to see a theatre company tackle a play of this size, giving so many actors the experience of being on a Chicago stage. Steep Theatre's performance space is small, with seating for 40. But rather than feeling cramped, the space is cozy and intimate, a fine example of Chicago storefront theatre at its best. (***)