Morgan Crouch and Cory Hardin/Photo: Austin Oie
The millennial generation has been derided as entitled, narcissistic and directionless twats fused to their electronic devices. Lucas Kavner’s “Fish Eye,” a drama (if such a word can be used to describe a play in which nothing occurs) about the tedious relationship of an insipid couple, highlights these qualities by presenting them without the interruption of any narrative or affective shifts.
“My boss said I gave a really good presentation and if I kept it up I could be president of the United States,” says Max (Cory Hardin) to Jay (Stephen Rowland) at the prompting of his girlfriend, Anna (Katherine Lamb). Jay is Anna’s college boyfriend. He has a better job than Max, one that allows him to simultaneously incinerate barrels of jet fuel and claim that he is saving the environment at climate-change conferences worldwide. He’s also smarter and more interesting than Max, because everyone is.
But Anna, who works as a film production assistant because she lacks the initiative to do more, sublimates her failure of imagination into her professed love for the aimless man. Anna is wasting her life, Jay politely informs her. He reminds her of the dazzling potential she displayed in her student film, “Carrots and Celery.” She believes him and applies to film school then cries when she gets in.
Because Max needs an insignificant other, too, his hot blonde friend Avery (Morgan Crouch) sometimes comes by and they sometimes have sex but it doesn’t mean anything. Hardin emotes with enough sincerity that you wish he’d gotten to play Willy Loman instead. Love, we’re assured, is obsession with someone else’s Facebook feed, looking at all ten thousand selfies and panicking when the object of your affection is shown therein with someone else.
Depicted in percussive shorts—cell-phone conversations that overlap, trail off or have no observable auditor and awkward flirtations that illustrate the absence of any effort to conquer or submit—and ambitious in neither plot nor principle, “Fish Eye” attempts to make something of the trivial acts and minor feelings of psychologically flabby people. (Irene Hsiao)
Dandelion Theatre at The Frontier, 1106 West Thorndale, (773)349-2342, dandeliontheatre.com, $20 suggested donation. Through October 16.
Related Stories
Started in the Basement, Now They're Here: Talking With the Next Generation of Storefront Theaters Artists from four up-and-coming storefront theaters discuss their missions, why they do what they do, and the future of Chicago’s storefront community. - Chekhov for the Smartphone Generation: A Review of At The Table at Broken Nose Theatre RECOMMENDED Real, honest-to-god naturalism in theater is so difficult to achieve that it’s no wonder many modern playwrights and young companies are shying away from it. The returns are too low and the risks are too high. But if Spenser Davis’ production of Michael Perlman’s “At The Table” proves anything, it’s that these kinds of plays and performances can still…
- Not For Sale: UrbanTheater Company Co-Founder Ivan Vega on Community, Gentrification and the Next Generation of Theater Makers Leader of the Humboldt Park-based theater, Vega and his company are actively working to preserve their community's stories while training a new generation of theater artists.
- Their Future is Our Future: A&A Ballet Presents an Art Deco Nutcracker and Trains the Next Generation of Ballet Dancers The Studebaker provides a unique stage for A&A's vision: one large enough to put up a spectacle of scenic design and a massive cast, while intimate enough a house to afford every audience member a view of facial expressions and movement nuances without use of opera glasses.
