Chicago Theater Review: 25 SAINTS (Pine Box at Greenhouse Theater Center)

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by Lawrence Bommer on February 22, 2013

in Theater-Chicago

25 SAINTS

A 75-minute exercise in dead-end disaster tautly directed by Susan E. Bowen, this new work by Pine Box Theater ensemble member Joshua Rollins tightly fits the theater company’s action-oriented theatricality. It also delivers a pitiless look at the “forgotten world of Appalachia,” specifically a misery known as West Virginia. Corruption seems to grow out of the poverty of abandoned mining hamlets where Lawrence Bommer's Stage and Cinema review of Pine Box' "25 Saints" in Chicagothe earth and water are as polluted as the folk.

Charlie (Drew Johnson) has returned to his backwater dump in southeast West Virginia to pay back a drug debt owed by his dead user brother Trevor. Charlie fancies Trevor’s former girlfriend Sammy (Caroline Neff), a possibly pregnant bad-time girl who dreams of running off to Virginia Beach. Meanwhile, Charlie and his bud Tuck (Josh Odor), a disabled Iraq vet, assault a deputy sheriff (set designer John Ross Wilson) and dump his bleeding body into an oak chest as the plays begins. Then they get back to cooking meth, hoping to make a score, pay off the debt, and scram, with help from Sasha (Ashley Neal), a tweak head who’ll do anything for a fix.

Opposing their scummy scheme are meth queen Duffy (Molly Reynolds), as evil as flesh can creep, and the drug-dealing sheriff (veteran Chicago actor Danny Goldring), who needs a new batch by Thursday. To these toxic crime bosses the others are expendable in the worst way. (Interestingly, they see methamphetamine as the “all-American drug,” improving morale and productivity for the miserable Lawrence Bommer's Stage and Cinema review of Pine Box' "25 Saints" in Chicagominions of shitty jobs.)

Nothing good can escape this witch’s brew—or this cursed world. Rollins lays it on a bit thick as the women orate with unexpected (as in unbelievable) eloquence about the elaborate hopelessness of their desperate, stunted lives. (The title refers to all the saints who supposedly patronize travelers, none of whom intercedes for these luckless losers.) Here’s a script that’s all about the action and, considering jaded audiences’ fervid tastes and the impact of the stage picture at hand, for many that should be payoff enough. For better or worse, it’s a case where walking away from the scene of the crimes is palpably therapeutic—to wit, be very glad you don’t know West Virginia.

As my ringing ears could attest, a big sign warns, “Gunshots are used in the performance.” Equally detonating are the seven tense performances from Bowen’s driven actors. If y0u have a ton of “sympathy for the devil(s)” to spare and gusto for gallows humor and grungy action, this uglified 25 Saints is your Tobacco Road of 2013.

Lawrence Bommer's Stage and Cinema review of Pine Box' "25 Saints" in Chicago

photos by Michael Brosilow
poster/graphic design by Ryan Bourque

25 Saints
Pine Box Theater Company
Greenhouse Theater Center Upstairs Studio, 2257 N. Lincoln Ave.
scheduled to end on March 31, 2013
for tickets, visit http://wwwGreenhouseTheater.org

for info on this and other Chicago Theater, visit http://www.TheatreinChicago.com

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