May 29--You will be shocked -- shocked -- to know that the great city of Chicago and has a long and distinctive history of grifters, tricksters, bamboozlers, fakers and specialists of the great and almighty con, both long and short.
If you saw the movie "The Sting," you were doubtless entertained by the execution of a classic "long con," an elaborate set-up that took weeks or months to execute and, when played to artistic perfection, remained airtight in perpetuity, meaning that the mark never even knew he had been taken. Ideally, he'd go to his grave that way. But most of the time Chicago con artists have preferred the "short con," usually nothing more than a few cups and balls, or a pliant pack of cards, and a show that could be staged on street corners, in doorways and "L" trains. In these instances, the mark found out the bad news fast. But not fast enough. By the peripeteia, the con artist would already have vanished into the fog.
The new, prime-time show at the Neo-Futurarium, "Trust Us/Screw You," written and performed by Phil Ridarelli and Dan Kerr-Hobert, is a scruffy, rough-and-ready affair that struggles with the awkwardly shaped playing space. These are no con men polished to a shine. But the very lively and entertaining piece does contain lots of Chicago huckster minutia, the stories of local characters like The Yellow Kid and Soapy Smith, which appeals to those of us with an interest in the history of intellectualized sin in the Second City. The piece re-creates some of the great Chicago cons, recounts the life and works of some of the more colorful personalities of the trade and, in the Neo-Futurist tradition, encourages all of us to confess the times when we were marks ourselves. Ridarelli, who looks like a classic mark, sets us up by recounting a scary real-life tale involving his purchase of a Rogers Park condo in a building with pre-existing problems. Costly, that one. I have a less dramatic story involving hub caps, the old Maxwell Street Market and my own stupidity.
Oh, and there was one time, years ago, on the train ... I never talk about that.
Ridarelli and Kerr-Hobert point out that every con was a little play, really, designed specifically for an audience of one, thus linking the history of Chicago theater to the more unsavory aspects of profitable artifice. But the biggest revelation of the night, really, was the gullibility of Chicagoans. Even now, even after all the lies and indictments, we still prefer to believe.
At the show I saw last weekend, several audience members emptied their wallets, just because a couple of actors (performing with a weird but pleasurable live band, composed of Alisa Rosenthal, John Szymanski and Curtis Williams) asked them to be so kind. Real Benjamins were unloaded. I think the money was returned -- there was something going on in a back alley after the show, but this ain't Consumer Reports and I did not do a full and fair accounting.
Even that did not amaze me as much as the moment when a nice young woman told the actors roughly how much money she had in her bank account (again, just because they asked). Or the segment when another nice young woman toddled obediently off to the nearest ATM, with a camera strapped to her body so we could watch her every move (alas, the audio failed). When she arrived at the bank, there was even a guy with a little table and an easy way to make money.
All in good fun, for sure, but if you head out to "Trust Us/Screw You," which would be a nice pre- or post-dinner soupcon in Andersonville this weekend, don't trust anything you hear or see. And don't bring too much cash. Chicago has always needed a few suckers to make its nut.
Jones is a Tribune critic.
cjones5@tribpub.com
REVIEW: "Trust Us / Screw You" by the Neo-Futurists
3 STARS
When: Through June 13
Where: The Neo-Futurarium, 5153 N. Ashland Ave.
Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes
Tickets: $20-$25 at 773-275-5255 or neofuturists.org
