“If a play has been produced, it has a history, a reputation,” says New York playwright Jill Campbell. It can survive an unfortunate production. A new play by a newish playwright is another matter. In February, Revolution Theatre, a young Chicago company, did a staged reading of Campbell’s play Starf**ker at the Red Lion Pub. Campbell wasn’t there for it, but she says it seemed to go well and she got some good feedback. When Revolution founder John Thurner asked if the company could do a full production, she agreed and spent the next few months revising the script. The show, which opened Labor Day weekend at the Side Studio in Rogers Park, is the story of a woman who has trouble differentiating between fantasy and real life, and when Campbell came to town to catch a performance, she says she couldn’t believe what she was seeing either. “It felt like I was in a Fellini nightmare,” she says. “It wasn’t my play.”
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Campbell, whose introduction to Revolution came by way of its snappy Web site, says she was surprised by the small storefront theater, its “dodgy” location, and the tiny audience, which doubled when she walked in with two friends. Then, as the play unfolded, she says, “I flipped out.” Thurner, who was directing, “had cast 20-year-olds as 40-year-olds; it’s a surrealistic play and he directed it naturalistically; he cut out the whole first part and put in the beginning from an old script; three or four scenes had been changed.” In Campbell’s view the play had lost its narrative logic and momentum, and nearly everything that could be wrong was: “the music, the acting, the bad casting, the not following my stage directions, the misjudgments–not even getting the style of the piece.”
Last Saturday night the Side Studio was locked; a note on the front door said the performance was canceled because one of the cast members had suffered a death in the family. Thurner says his company’s continuing the show’s run but has dropped ticket prices to $5 or “pay what you can.”
