Playwright: Lee Blessing. At: Remy Bumppo Theatre, Company at Greenhouse Theater, 2257 N. Lincoln Ave. Tickets: 773-404-7336; www.remybumppo.org; $30-$40. Runs through: April 29
Some audiences might question the relevancy of Remy Bumppo Theatre Company programming Lee Blessing's 1999 comedy Chesapeake at this particular juncture in history.
However, anyone who has seen "Animal Lovers for Obama" presidential fundraising ads (no doubt created in response to Mitt Romney's infamous family vacation trip when their dog was kept in a crate strapped atop the car) can see how Blessing's entrancing one-man show is still timely for today's polarized political landscape.
Blessing wrote Chesapeake in response to the 1998 Supreme Court decision that upheld the so-called "Decency Clause" when it came to government agencies awarding federal grants to artists and art organizations. It was a major loss for performance artists Karen Finley, Holly Hughes, Tim Miller and John Fleck (lumped together as the "NEA Four"), who banded together to challenge the Decency Clause in court after their arts grants from the National Endowment for the Arts were revoked in 1990 due to "indecency" in their work (some of which dealt with topics like homoeroticism and sadomasochism.)
This blow to freedom of expression and the nebulous notion of what constitutes art are items that Blessing delves into with plenty of relish and comic panache in Chesapeake. It's all about a bisexual performance artist who tries to undermine a bigoted Southern Congressman (who successfully pushed to have the artist's grant revoked) by kidnapping the politico's beloved dog, a Chesapeake Bay retriever called Lucky.
The question of how art can inexplicably move people is vividly expounded upon in Blessing's often-absurd and later magical realist scenarios in Chesapeake. Blessing's script offers deep insight and a plethora of laughs (particularly about dog behavior), and Remy Bumppo is more than up to the challenge of finessing every scrap of humor and pathos from the material.
It's a tour-de-force performance for Greg Matthew Anderson, as the artist Kerr (pronounced like "cur," literally meaning a mongrel dog or cowardly person.) Anderson is wonderfully supported by the smart pacing of director Shawn Douglass and the great sound design work of Rick Sims.
Although some people might assume that this one-man show is a cheaper alternative to other plays calling for larger ensembles and more elaborate scenery, Blessing's insistence on structuring Chesapeake as a solo turn neatly ties into the tradition of many a famed performance artist who can command the stage with his or her skilled writing and delivery alone.
Remy Bumppo's Chesapeake is bound to gain even more historical insight with a special pre-show conversation with out performance artist Holly Hughes at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, April 14 (tickets are $45 and include admission to the 2:30 p.m. performance). This melding of fact and fiction is undoubtedly a theatrical event that shouldn't be missed.