Nov. 22--Attending a satirical show named after the term for chest pain often deriving from coronary artery disease was perhaps a foolhardy way to spend a Saturday night, but the title alone of "Angina Pectoris" was insufficient warning for one of the worst shows I've seen in a good long while.
This 90-minute comedy -- albeit a comedy without any laughs -- is the work of Israeli-based scribe Michal Aharoni. This Chicago production, directed by David Y. Chack, is the work of a company called Shpiel Performing Identity, renting space at Theater Wit. Allegedly, the play is to be seen next in Tel Aviv, Israel, where I hope it, and the good people of that city, are better served than by this clumsy, overplayed, artistically shapeless and seemingly endless endeavor.
The premise of "Angina Pectoris" is that a right-wing Israeli defense minister finds himself in the hospital in dire need of a heart transplant. Alas, he has passed a law saying that Jewish patients should only get Jewish hearts installed in their bodies, and there are no suitable Jewish hearts available. But there is a Palestinian possibility ...
And the laughs just keep on rolling.
There is just no relief from the general awfulness. The main problem, in essence, is that nothing set before you is even remotely believable: not the hospital, not the heart(s) that characters keep handling as if they're Silly Putty, not the situation nor the romantic machinations of the side plot, and certainly not the acting -- which is as overwrought as you could ever hope not to see on a Chicago stage. The show moves at a glacial pace, marked by little artificial freezes at the end of each scene, which, each and every time, make you want to go and roll around in the snow outside.
Actors' arms flail around, as if wild gesticulation (while wearing too much makeup) and stabbing at the air can improve anything. Ever since Hamlet upbraided his players this has failed to be a bankable technique.
In order to work, this play would require the most sophisticated of delicate, satiric touches, and even then I don't think it's likely to be all that funny. Heart disease is a tough one. And in the last few minutes, we get into a whole other play involving the death of kids -- realities, certainly in that part of the world, but difficult to shoehorn into a satire.
I appreciate that the surely sincere Aharoni is trying to promote reconciliation between the Israeli political factions, to point out that we all are one when mortality rears its head. And let's stipulate there is no reason the satirist's scalpel cannot be applied to, say, the Palestinian question or the collision of religiosity and liberalism. Israel is a democracy: There is all manner of dissent and complexity in its theaters, and Aharoni is free to poke fun at anything or anyone she wishes, including, as she does here, bombings, settlements, death and the practices of Orthodox Jews.
And the audience is free not to laugh.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
cjones5@tribpub.com
1 STAR
When: Through Jan. 3
Where: Theatre Wit, 1229 W. Belmont Ave.
Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes
Tickets: $28 at 773-975-8710 or theatrewit.org
