Gary Ambler was feeling great when he got off the el at Austin about 3 AM on July 27. A downstate actor and co-artistic director of a new theater company, Faces Like Swords, Ambler had been out with friends who’d come to see him perform that night. Faces Like Swords was doing Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker in a six-week run at the Chopin Theatre studio on Division. It was the company’s first attempt to make a mark in Chicago’s competitive theater scene, and now, three weekends in, they’d hit the sweet spot: a couple of great reviews had just come out. If the reviews attracted bigger audiences for the last half of the run, it looked like they might actually break even on the production. That would be frosting on the cake for Ambler, a central Illinois native who’s been acting and directing in Urbana’s Celebration Company for 25 years.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Faces Like Swords grew out of work Ambler and cofounder Jerrett Dapier had done at Celebration. They met four years ago when Dapier, then a freshman at University of Illinois, auditioned for a show Ambler was directing there; they began planning two years ago to bring something to the big city. Last spring, when Dapier graduated and moved back to Chicago (he’s a teacher, Ambler is a U. of I. admissions counselor), they created the nonprofit company and raised enough money to make The Caretaker happen. In May Ambler began kissing his wife and son goodbye and catching the bus to Chicago for four-day rehearsal weekends. He had the title role in the three-man show, and it required him to get into the mind of a paranoid codger riddled with fears of being attacked by nameless thugs. His younger cohorts would be played by Dapier (who also directed) and Dave Stinton. The show opened July 12; Lawrence Bommer, reviewing for the Reader on July 26, found that “Ambler’s wheedling Davies is shuffling, sinister hostility masquerading as humility. His eyes couldn’t be hungrier, his hands more grasping as he suggests every whining loser…”
Doctors at Loyola Hospital told Ambler his femur was shattered. They planted a metal rod in his thigh, screwed the remains of his bone to it, and told him he was lucky he hadn’t been hit higher up. They say the pain should be gone and he should be back to normal in a year, though he’ll still have a rod and a bullet in his thigh. Oak Park police commander Robert Scianna says the four alleged attackers were in custody within minutes of the shooting: one is 17 years old, two are 14, and the kid accused of pulling the trigger is 13. The robbery netted them $20 from Ambler’s wallet. Scianna says this was not organized gang activity, but is part of “a dramatic increase in juvenile crime” in a hot, “out of control” summer.
