Created by: Tim Ryder and Tim Sniffen; Written by: Tim Sniffen. At: Writers Theatre Gillian Theatre, 325 Tudor Ct., Glencoe. Tickets: 847-242-6000 or WritersTheatre.org; $35-$80. Runs through: July 31
Writers Theatre already inaugurated its new multimillion-dollar two-theater complex in Glencoe with Tom Stoppard's heady time-shifting drama Arcadia. Now comes the silly stuff to open the venue's more flexible Gillian Theatre black-box space with the world premiere of Death of a Streetcar Named Virginia Woolf: A Parody.
Let's just say right up front that the show is a laugh riot of funparticularly for veteran theatergoers who have spent countless hours sitting through classic works by 20th-century U.S. playwright titans like Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Edward Albee and Thornton Wilder. There's even some local name-dropping, with David Mamet and the European import of Samuel Beckett to chortle at, too.
But theater neophytes shouldn't feel left out, since so many of the lampooned texts were core curriculum in high school. Or some have become ingrained in pop culture through previous parodies. The Simpsons presenting a musical version of A Streetcar Named Desire called Oh, Streetcar! comes to mind.
Death of a Streetcar… counters the notion that too many cooks spoil the soup, since it's listed as being co-created by Tim Ryder and Tim Sniffen ( though the latter is the main writer ). Two directors are also credited with Stuart Carden and Writers Theatre artistic director Michael Halberstam both putting their hands into this irreverent comic concoction.
Things knowingly kick off with Sean Fortunato as a narrating Stage Manager right out of Our Town, pointing out how his character is a time-saving playwriting trick. He then introduces the characters drawn from the mashed-up title as they all strangely converge on a grand New Orleans home that has been bequeathed to Stanley Kowalski ( a strapping and perpetually sweaty Michael Perez ) of Streetcar fame.
Jennifer Engstrom layers on the Southern damsel charm as Streetcar's Blanche DuBois ( who recently escaped from an asylum ), while Marc Grapey's shoulders droop as the over-worked and underappreciated Willy Loman of Death of a Salesman. The always-sparring George and Martha of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? also arrive, and John Hoogenakker and Karen Janes Woditsch, respectively, hilariously embody them.
Together, this motley crew demolishes the plays' dramatic structures and lovingly shatter the symbolism whenever possible. But what makes so much of the humor so juicy is that each of these performers could also convincingly play their original characters in the towering dramas that inspired this theatrically inspired parody.
Far from trashing the parodied originals, Death of a Streetcar… allows for cleansing laughs that also make you appreciate the ground-breaking dramatic literature of these amazing playwrights. And after all this time, such smart-aleck antics are certainly most welcome and appreciated.