May 20--Once upon a time, back in the analog days of the '70s, David Mamet gazed upon the mating habits of the young and single in his play "Sexual Perversity in Chicago," and in "Double Text," a breezy, enjoyably doofy look at dating in the digital age, playwright Olivia Bagan (who directs with Racquel Rizzo) gives that concept a 21st-century update.
Specifically, she takes a knowing, very amused look at what it means to (over)analyze texts to better suss out a person's feelings for you. To double-text is to signal the ultimate surrender of power in hookup culture: sending yet another message to a person who isn't replying. Didn't that used to be called playing hard to get?
Emma (Lauren Nitto) and Phillip (Henry Steinken) are 20-somethings still in the "Do you like me?" stage of flirtation, and their respective roommates are on hand to advise on and analyze -- often quite badly -- said texts, as well as the anxiety-provoking silence between texts.
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One of the key formulas of the rom-com is the easily-cleared-up misunderstanding that nevertheless is stretched out and belabored beyond reason. Bagan includes such a plot twist here, but she is smart enough to resolve it almost as quickly as it's introduced because her characters aren't stupid.
All of this sage, sage (cough) wisdom comes from the pals, played by Maeve Devitt (nicely acerbic and blazingly confident) and Jordan Pettis (as a spiritual cousin to all those meatheads who once found employment on "Jersey Shore"). According to these two knuckleheads, courtship by text follows certain rules. The only acceptable reasons for not immediately replying back to a text are sleep or working out. Sexual innuendo when discussing nonsexual topics can be weird but also sends the right signal if you want to go further. Mentioning a friend who may or may not be platonic is a good way to stoke jealously early on.
The co-directors scale everything in a naturalistic key, with the exception being Pettis, who is making the most of the role and leaning into his guy's bro-tastic inclinations. Bagan has given him plenty of material to play with. It's a good riff on a stock character -- the idiotic, self-involved pig -- but presented in a way that doesn't make your skin crawl.
He's the kind of guy who says things like, "I'm gonna go do some pullups and look at myself in the mirror," equates a woman's enthusiastic response during a sex act to "watching someone discover Portillo's for the first time" and is a big believer in The Smolder as the key to landing female attention, no matter how cheesy or stupid it makes either party look: "If she falls for The Smolder, that's not my fault!"
"Double Text" -- 3 STARS
When: Through May 28
Where: Public House Theater, 3914 N. Clark St.
Tickets: $15 at 800-650-6449 or www.thepubtheatre.com
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