Review: Fifty Words/Profiles Theatre

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Adam (Darrell Cox) and Jan (Katherine Keberlein) have the night off from parenting; their son’s at a slumber party. Adam takes the opportunity to inject a little romance into their currently shaky marriage.

Michael Weller’s script stops and starts. He takes his characters’ enmity so far that you’re sure their love can never be repaired; in the next moment they’re asking each other for second chances they don’t deserve.

Cox and Keberlein make the best of a flawed situation; we know there’s a good deal unspoken that must be spoken from the top of Act One. When the story arc offers too much unforeseen information, they roll with it and the audience buys it. Credit director Joe Jahraus with staying on top of an unwieldy arc. Thad Hallstein’s comfortably yuppie set makes the prison of the relationship tangible. You are given the sense that only forgiveness sets the couple free. (Lisa Buscani)

Profiles Theatre, 4147 North Broadway, (773)549-1815. Through June 26.

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