Playwright: Marisa Wegrzyn
At: A Red Orchid, 1531 N. Wells St.
Tickets: 312-943-8722;
www.aredorchidtheatre.org; $25-$30
Runs through: May 25
Flight attendants Beth ( Natalie West ) and Sam ( female ) are overnighting at a standard-issue motel near O'Hare. Sam ( Mierka Girten ) is having drinks with Angie ( Kirsten Fitzgerald ), a recently divorced former flight attendant, but the older Beth declines to join them citing tiredness and her bad back. Instead, Beth scores from her local pot connection, Jonathan ( Matt Farabee ), a high school boy waiting outside the motel in his prom tuxedo. Soon enough ( the play runs just 90 minutes ), all four wind up in Beth's room and the party is on. Stranger things happen in real life, which doesn't make Mud Blue Sky less improbable.
Of course, we learn about the characters. All three gals are unmarried and seek validation in some way as women, making Jonathan a useful device. Beth mothers him in her own hard-edged and aloof manner while Sam plays cougar. Jonathan's mother died in a car accident a year earlier, which explains, perhaps ( and perhaps not ), the awkward appeal of three older women. Still, the ties that keep Jonathan in the room seem weak.
There may be something about Mud Blue Sky I missed. A female friend was wiping tears from her eyes at the end. I left having experienced a play that was very well acted and directed, with a lot of good laughs and a few touching moments, but not one which deeply impressed me. One difficulty is that author Marisa Wegrzyn frequently shifts focus between the four characters, even while giving Beth the most stage time and the ultimate moments with Angie and Jonathan. Mud Blue Sky is Beth's play and yet she is the character who seems least changed by the intimate evening of pot, cognac and confessions. I suspect this play is a women's vehicle and requires a woman's sensibilities to fully fathom.
Estimable director Shade Murray guides his cast with a deft, light hand in a work of intimate ultra-naturalism, although a touch more volume wouldn't hurt, even in A Red Orchid's very small theater. West's dry humor and tough facade are perfectly delivered in effective contrast to Girten's vampish bad-girl vibe and Fitzgerald's puppy-dog earnest appeal. As Jonathan, Matt Farabee makes considerably more of the role than its words alone would indicate. Although in his mid-twenties, Farabee has notched up several adolescent boy roles in his growing Chicago career, and he does them quite well.
Jacqueline Penrod's scenic design is almost too perfect in its cookie-cutter motel details, right down to the HVAC unit beneath the window and headboard attached to the wall, but a bit too much stage space is utilized for the motel exterior, used only briefly.
Mud Blue Sky is appealing, if not profoundbut I'm just a guy.