Lazy Susan Theatre Company’s “Not Bitter Nor Sweet”/Photo: Mollie Menuck

On the second floor of the Greenhouse Theater Center, at the end of an unadorned, lightless hallway, an open door provides entry to a narrow black-box theater with seats for perhaps twenty spectators and a control booth, forming the home of the Lazy Susan Theatre Company.

In its current iteration, the theater has been transformed into a cramped Chicago office for the staging of the company’s latest venture: the comedy “Not Bitter Nor Sweet.” The black walls have been painted pastel blue. The empty stage is strewn with desks and swivel chairs.

The ninety-minute show, written collaboratively by the seven-person ensemble in a four-week sprint preceding its opening, takes place in the single-room office of the company it is named after. “Not Bitter Nor Sweet” is a relationship-advice hotline operated by five employees (and one new hire in training) who provide guidance on every type of affection. Each employee has an area of expertise—first love, long-term love, self-love, love crises and sex—and calls are directed to them depending on the tenure of the relationship in question and the seriousness of the accompanying inquiry. The brokenhearted call with their troubles. Not Bitter Nor Sweet employees attempt to provide a remedy.

The show takes place over the course of a single workday, and the play, resultingly, mimics the shape of what a Monday might resemble at the fictional company. Calls are received when lines open in the early morning, and coworkers discuss each conflict’s resolution around the proverbial water cooler. Circuitous and repeating, like a workday often is, the play lacks a traditional plot, being driven forward by only the passage of time and the slow unraveling of each character’s background.

If the play has a central, propulsive element (aside from the turning of the clock), it is the anticipation of each character’s “moment of interiority.” “Not Bitter Nor Sweet” is predominantly a comedy of workplace hijinks, but, throughout the play, each of the seven actors has a moment of isolation or soliloquy during which the lights dim, and they are afforded time to explain how the strain of love they are supposed experts in has formed them (e.g. The long-term love contact has been cheated on; the self-love contact struggles with confidence; etc.). The first instance of this confession is surprising—one even thinks that a conflict has emerged—but by the time the second and third soliloquies occur, all taking a similar shape and reflecting upon parallel values, it becomes clear that these revelations are the play’s central interest.

Lazy Susan Theatre Company’s “Not Bitter Nor Sweet”/Photo: Mollie Menuck

This patchwork format, which treats each character as a protagonist for separate, fifteen-minute increments of the show, is likely the result of the script having been written by the ensemble in a remarkably short period of time. “Not Bitter Nor Sweet” oftentimes feels like six plays within a single larger performance, and it is not a surprising result when one considers that six pens were involved in the script’s drafting. The lion’s share of each character’s dialogue occurs within their soliloquies. Once their moment of focus has dimmed, they revert to idleness and interjection, filling the moments before the next divulgence with comedy and phone calls. The characters reach epiphany independently instead of letting dialogue and interaction allow them to achieve it in unison.

“Not Bitter Nor Sweet” consequentially feels much more like a series of speeches than a work of plotted theater. The characters each have something they would like to say about love, and the canvas of a telephone hotline provides them reason to do so. The show moves slowly as a result—tiptoeing from one speech to the next, anonymous callers spurring them on—and the spectator is left wondering if the show might have operated more smoothly if it were presented as what it largely is: a series of personal anecdotes presented in poetic meter. If the veil of fictionality were lifted, the words might be able to speak more frankly for themselves.

Despite its fragmentation, however, the writing and delivery of “Not Bitter Nor Sweet” is often praiseworthy. The direction, particularly during each soliloquy, when lights are dimmed and the already unbelievable world further crosses the threshold—telephone cords are strung across the stage, post-it notes shroud a character in technicolor—is inventive and compelling. Indeed, many of the elements required for strong, attention-grabbing theater are present throughout the performance. But one can’t help but feel that the play’s potential is hamstrung by its lack of commitment to plot. If the actors, writing and direction had something propulsive to hinge upon, the ninety minutes of “Not Bitter Nor Sweet” might pass more quickly, and the audience might leave the aisles with the feeling of resolution that every satisfactory piece of theater should provide.

From what little I have seen of them, the Lazy Susan Theatre Company is an ambitious young group that has all the talent requisite for great theater. And, for a play that was written by seven creatives in only four weeks, “Not Bitter Nor Sweet” is an impressive staging. But if the company wants to progress into that next echelon of artistry, a refocus on what makes theater great is in order: storytelling and creative distillation.

Lazy Susan Theatre Company’s “Not Bitter Nor Sweet” runs through February 16 at Greenhouse Theater Center, 2257 North Lincoln. Showtimes are Thursday-Saturday at 8pm; and Sunday at 2pm. Tickets are $31.50 and are available online at greenhousetheater.org or by calling the box office, open on show days only, at (773)404-7336.