Playwright: Byron Hatfield
New location: Seven's Cabaret,
Chicago Center for the Performing Arts
Phone: 773-598-4549; $15
Runs through: open run
Update: Play no longer BYOB, but drink specials are available. Show starts at 9 p.m.
BY MARY SHEN BARNIDGE
Even in the boho district of Bucktown, it's not often you see huge caches of beer—6-packs, 12-packs, whole cases of Pabst and Budweiser—being shlepped by crowds of fashionably-dressed clubbers into a storefront theatre. But this is the Gorilla Tango, which has no liquor license, and Bye Bye Liver, now playing every Friday and Saturday in an open run after its premiere last December, isn't your ordinary kind of entertainment.
The rationale behind Byron Hatfield's curious show appears to be 'Since we're drinking anyway, let's laugh about it'. Topics for the comedy sketches include the bibulous progress of two urban female execs, who begin by giggling over candy martinis and finish hunkering round the grumpfire with gin straight-up. The Zen of waiting in the mens' room line, featuring a shaman named Edward Forty-Hands ( played by an actor with a 20-ounce bottle duct-taped to each of his hands ) . A shy couple whose relationship is shaped by subliminal cues from the bar's piano-man ( 'It's 15 minutes to whiskey-dick—let's GO' ) . And a vacillating customer beset by commercial images of various potables vying for his attention.
But what elevates this above mere topical satire is its incorporation of interactive games into its agenda. Chief among these is a variation on Name That Tune, with contestants identifying songs after receiving an abbreviated single-line snippet of melody. ( This is no easy task when the lost chord is, say, Karma Chameleon. ) There is also an episode involving a spectator brought onstage whose preferences—'the book, or the movie?', 'romantic comedy, or action flick?', 'TOP, or BOTTOM?'—the audience attempts to guess. And then there's the Truth-Or-Dare-inspired 'Have You Ever?' quiz. And the 'Russian Brew-lette' stunt. No matter who wins or loses, the drill ends with somebody—or everybody—drinking up.
It's all in fun, of course, but what is most admirable is the crowd control exercised by the six-member ensemble, featuring Josh Dunkin as the bartender/emcee, backed by Dede Drake, Mike Barton, Hanie Lynch and Dan Sanders-Joyce, with Jeff Strickland at the keyboard. Assisted by hand-signals and the vocal power of parade marshals, the performers maintain sufficient titillation to hold their audience's attention ( though political and religious humor are proscribed ) . And since no one can protest a customer swilling a Sharps or a Red Bull, even teetotalers can enjoy this irreverent nightcap to an evening on the town.