Larry Grimm and Danny McCarthy/Photo: Michael Brosilow
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A nervous inventor (Larry Grimm) pitches his latest creation to a smarmy business executive (Danny McCarthy) in the confines of a metallic negotiation room that gives off the claustrophobic feeling of an inner chamber in a giant machine (scenic design by John Dalton). It’s a creation he breathlessly claims will change not just the world, but our very perception of the EVERYDAY. Playwright Brett Neveu’s latest work is a comically dark take on big business, set in a surreal world of branding, mass-produced scientific discoveries, back-stabbing, mutant creatures that appear to be children and a band of unseen protesters known simply as the “tight-shirts.” Director Dado paces the show in a stylized manner, actors shooting out dialogue with a machine-gun quality, particularly McCarthy’s cocksure businessman, who spouts lines like “I’m me. You’re you. What else can we do?” with a sort of sing-songy smug finalism. Corruption and destruction are presented light-heartedly enough to let us laugh at the horror of it all. (Zach Freeman)
A Red Orchid Theatre, 1531 North Wells, (312)943-8722. $25-30. Through February 26.
Dueling in Dystopia: A Review of "Last Hermanos" at A Red Orchid Theatre Two Mexican American brothers who've grown up separately in the United States are together on the run, hoping to make it across the border to Mexico and escape the unfriendly confines that our country has become in a not-too-distant dystopian future.
