Christopher Durang concocts potent comic nightmares. His one-act “’Dentity Crisis” (one of four currently running at the Theatre Building in a production by A Reasonable Facsimile Theatre Company) centers on a teenage girl whose suicidal tendencies are understandable, given that her mother claims to have introduced cheese to France; her father morphs inexplicably into her brother, her grandfather and the French ambassador; and her therapist has decided to have a sex-change operation in tandem with his wife. Reasonable Facsimile presents the Durang plays with appropriately raw energy, though at times the rawness predominates; the final play, a skewed version of “Medea,” is slight enough to begin with, and the company’s haphazard singing and dancing doesn’t help. Similarly, while Ed Jones’s Stanley sprays Old Style about the stage with gusto in the Tennessee Williams parody “Desire, Desire, Desire,” arch line readings hamper a play already on the verge of going to sleep with archness. But the first two plays of the evening fulfill anyone’s expectations of late-night theater: hilarious, edgy and relentlessly hip, they nonetheless bristle with genuine emotional intensity, constructing imaginary families with real tears in them. (John Beer)
“Durang 4 Play” plays at the Theater Building, 1225 West Belmont, (773)327-5252.
