(January
20-February 22, 1986, Atlantic Theatre Company, Chicago)
Happy
Endings was the first production put on by the Atlantic Theatre Company,
which was founded in 1985 by William H. Macy and David Mamet. The production
was composed of eight different playlets strung together, with the only
link being that each play takes an idea and carries it to absurd lengths--a
theme common to many of Silverstein's plays. Below is a review from the
January 21, 1986 edition of the Chicago Tribune:
ATLANTIC`S `HAPPY ENDINGS` GOES GREAT LENGTHS FOR LAUGHS By Richard Christiansen, Entertainment editor. The Atlantic Theater Company, which made its Chicago debut Monday night, comes equipped with some impressive backers and an interesting pedigree. Its origins
are in a Practical Aesthetics Workshop that was started in 1983 by playwright
David
While in
Chicago in 1985, the students also presented in the Goodman Studio Theatre
an engaging
Now, bearing
the Atlantic banner and with the names of Mamet, Crouse, Macy and Mosher
on their
Nothing
if not clever, Silverstein has given the neophyte company a series of eight
playlets, none
For example,
in ``Talk,`` performed in semi-darkness, the premise is that a man
(Tom Donaghy) has taken a woman (Mary McCann) to bed, not with heavy lovemaking
in mind, but with the pass- ionate purpose of getting her to talk a blue
streak. She protests that she`s not the kind of girl who talks on the first
date, that her mother would be shocked if she could see her daughter talking
like this, and so on and on. Finally, she breaks down and starts talking,
begging her lover to be
All the
other pieces take off from equally ridiculous assumptions--and sometimes
much grosser
The five
actors engaged in these plays will need more substantial work to test their
mettle; but
For the
rest, aside from one momentary line lapse on opening night and a tendency
to try toohard for their laughs, the actors bring off the free-hand sketches
with aplomb under Scott Zigler`s direction and with a minimum of props
and scenery.
`HAPPY ENDINGS`
Eight new playlets by Shel Silverstein, presented by the
THE CAST
Tom Donaghy, Wylie Goodman, Merrill Holtzman,
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