Playwright: Charles Berg

At: EP Theater at Vivo, 838 W. Randolph St.

Phone: 847-491-7282; $60 (includes play and four-course meal)

In an open run on Sundays

BY SCOTT C. MORGAN

If ever there was an exciting concept that doesn’t live up to expectations, it’s EP Theater’s fledgling dinner theater foray, 18 %.

The setup certainly sounds sexy: Wouldn’t it be fun to have actors portray the waitstaff at the swanky West Randolph Italian restaurant Vivo? While we’re sampling fine cuisine, wouldn’t it be divine to eavesdrop on the love lives and family dramas of the restaurant workers?

Alas, 18% doesn’t deliver in the drama department, thanks to Charles Berg’s so-so soap-opera script. For a show billed as a ‘hilarious comedy,’ 18% doesn’t extract many laughs (unless you’ve been overimbibing the wine).

Part of the problem is you’re not sure who to fully identify with since not one of the characters or plot lines is fully developed.

There’s slacker actor Julian (Luke Johanson), who returns home to his family’s Chicago restaurant, much to the resentment of his control-freak manager brother, Frank (Stephan Montague). Bartender Klara (Kristen Looper) worries she’s settling for a guy she’s not entirely in love with, while Isabella (Toni Machi) prettily pushes her family’s Italian beer Peroni (a blatant and none-too-well-integrated product placement if there ever was one).

Another confusing element is the show-within-the-show put on by self-pitying and alcoholic gay waiter/playwright Arthur (Julian Martinez) and his pretty-boy waiter cohort Rodger (Christian Luke). With shirtless and drunken zombies firing off plastic guns, their poetry play comes off as bizarre. That such an amateurish show would be allowed in a restaurant micromanaged by Frank also seems unlikely.

Director Jason Ewers and his attractive cast clearly have fun playing and moving around Vivo, though the weakness of the script ultimately does 18% in. Another question: Is the show’s title supposed to represent how much we’re supposed to tip the waiters?

In terms of dining, Vivo’s four-course meal provided for the show proved to be scrumptious. (You have a main entrée choice of filet mignon, grilled jumbo shrimp, grilled chicken breast and pan-seared salmon filet.) Still, the powers that be may want to rethink when the courses are served.

The main entrée and dessert arrive after the show concludes, just when you feel like getting up and leaving. Also, it took an interminable wait of 10 to 20 minutes for the main entrée to arrive on opening night.

With 18%, EP Theater shows it’s willing to take risks and move theater to different and unexpected places. Too bad this foray doesn’t live up to its ambitions and stylish surroundings.