March 02--Steven Dietz's play "Yankee Tavern" is a cleverly self-protected piece of writing, a deconstruction of 9/11 conspiracy theories that also airs a good number of them, ranging from the spike in the short-selling of stock in United and American Airlines on Sept. 10, 2001, to the guy who claimed to have a notarized prediction of the hijackings in advance, to the notion that Building 7, the other New York City skyscraper to fall on that terrible day beyond the Twin Towers, was deliberately demolished so as to protect the secrets of some of the agencies who were tenants therein.
To put this another way, the piece both takes a macro view on conspiracy theories, a ubiquitous accompaniment to traumatic events and indicative, for sure, of a certain simmering American distrust in government, as well as lends a couple of them just enough credulity to structure a viable thriller.
Set in a bar in New York City, a place where the owner has a mysterious personal connection to international counterterrorism even as he serves up Rolling Rocks to weird conspiracy theorists on his bar stools, "Yankee Tavern," seen in Chicago for the first time, is a very sly play from a highly accomplished craftsman of the theater. It accomplishes a number of things in the theater that are very difficult to do at once and has many useful things to say about how most of us stake out a position that rejects what we see as outlandish conspiracy theories, even as we remain less than convinced that the government is dispensing the whole truth.
Should we really be good with that? The piece is, I think, offering an indictment for laziness, and fair enough.
That central question, alas, kicks in only in Act 2 of director Joanie Schultz's production for American Blues Theater, a show that finally finds its feet during a scene between a young bride-to-be (movingly played by Darci Nalepa) and a strange man (Steve Key) who wanders into the bar ordering one beer for himself and another for a missing friend, and who seems to know a remarkable number of things for one who lacks official jurisdiction. It's a long, killer scene -- Key unlocks all kinds of good stuff -- and it makes you wish that Act 1 had been similarly energetic, verbose and emphatic.
Act 1 is dominated by Rich Cotovsky, who plays Ray, the resident conspiracy theorist. Cotovsky is a well-known creature of the off-Loop and a bona fide character who, in the right role, can be fantastic onstage. In this instance, though, he has huge amounts of text to deliver with the energy of a man convinced of own rectitude. On Sunday, Cotovsky was struggling with that; he catches Ray's eccentricities, for sure, but he's too laid-back to convince us that he's a guy who never met a radio call-in show he did not want to dominate. Similarly, Ian Paul Custer -- who plays the owner of the tavern, which is vividly realized by the designer Grant Sabin -- is too mellow and deferential to offer the requisite pushback, and so the show lacks energy and oomph. It moves haltingly, which never is ideal for a thriller.
After intermission, it gets a whole lot better. But this is one potentially gripping show, and the stakes don't rise here as, given what went down, they really must.
cjones5@tribpub.com
2 STARS
When: Through March 22
Where: Greenhouse Theater Center, 2257 N. Lincoln Ave.
Running time: 2 hours
Tickets: $29-$39 at 773-404-7336 or americanbluestheater.com
