The Attempters. Photo by Michael Brosilow. Playwright: Shawn Pfautsch. At: The House at Building Stages,. 412 N. Carpenter. Phone: 773-251-2195; $17-$22. Runs through: April 19
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This House Theatre of Chicago world premiere centers on an overachieving adolescent hero, which is very familiar turf for The House. Danny Hackles is 17, cute, energetic, precocious, infinitely resourceful and entirely self-absorbed, all of which are qualities we’ve seen before in heroes and heroines at The House. But cute, energetic and self-absorbed can only carry you so far, and they’re wearing out their welcome. We need to have a reason to care about the characters, too, and that’s a hit-or-miss proposition at The House although their best works have achieved it, among them The Sparrow and Dave DaVinci Saves the Universe (which returns to open the troupe’s 2008-2009 season),
In their temporary new space at Building Stages, The House is a little more cramped than at The Viaduct but nonetheless definitely makes the space their own. They present The Attempters with such typical flourishes as living room-style seating, live music and the casual intermingling of cast and audience. The performance, too, boasts The House’s usual high energy and high spirits, but even so The Attempters comes across as a light-weight work and a slighter-than-usual effort.
With seemingly unlimited access to money and means, young Danny starts a garage band, runs for public office, sets himself up as a transcendental guru, studies Italian and makes a movie in order to achieve fame—which he believes is his destiny—and impress the girl he loves. Referring to himself in the third person, he states he is ‘confident in his ascendancy as avatar of the Common Man.’ In so doing, he charmingly but repeatedly steps on those closest to him, even though they all tell him time and again to stop, shut up and listen—think a young, straight version of Will and Grace’s Jack McFarland. Eventually he gets it after at least one repetition too many of the old, familiar pattern. When another guy hauls off and whomps Danny upside the head, I wanted to shout out ‘It’s about time!’ Indeed, his best friend says, ‘Danny, the Dalai Lama would punch you in the face.’
The Attempters is presented and performed with great charm by the ensemble cast, lead by Chris Matthews as Danny. It’s a pleasant enough theatrical event, but it’s dramatically slight with a thin and repetitive storyline. Playwright Shawn Pfaustch turns plenty of clever phrases and seems to have a deadpan sense of adolescence (do 17-year-olds really have their own checking accounts?), but he offers so little exposition that it’s not until Act II that one realizes Danny’s shrink also is his father, or that Danny declares that finding fame is his life goal. The Attempters is a simple case of teenage puppy love meets situation comedy.