I also don’t usually enjoy plays that start out by telling you how things are going to end. If you know the destination, the journey has to be that much better. Unfortunately, Adore is a monologue play that lets you know the ending at the top. And it’s a particularly macabre ending.

Arming (Eric Leonard) has an unusual predilection. It’s not that he’s gay. It’s that he wants to literally consume his lover. As in kill and eat him. And as it happens, he finds the perfect match in Bernd Jorgen Brandes (Paige Smith) who is so self-hating that he’s willing to fulfill Armin’s desires.

While these two may be perfectly matched, that doesn’t exactly make this a healthy relationship. And as we learn about their exploration of their respective…interests, we gradually realize that, despite the mutual and consenting nature of their relationship, these are really two people who should have gotten help.

And while there’s a lot of talk about true love and so forth, it’s also hard to swallow cannibalism (sorry for that turn of phrase) as an acceptable expression of feeling, no matter how willing the consumed party might be. And that makes sympathizing with the characters difficult at best.

In order to connect with these sad, twisted people, playwright and director Stephen Louis Grush would need to cast two exceptional actors who could overcome an audience’s inherent repugnance. And while Eric Leonard and Paige Smith are certainly solid performers, they cannot transform these difficult characters into people the audience wants to spend time with. Eric’s awkwardly geeky Armin only ends up emphasizing the brutality of the killing and Paige’s angrier Bernd gives us nothing to balance what, in the end, is a painfully ornate suicide.

It’s possible that no pairing of actors could open the doors on these characters in a way to make Adore an enjoyable theatrical experience. We may just not be ready for a cannibalistic love story. And the static structure of direct address monologues and an ending that’s a fait accompli removes whatever drama might otherwise have existed. The audience is stuck as voyeurs on a particularly brutal expression of sexual desire. That the subjects are willing only makes it worse.

Adore is happening as part of Garage Rep—a program Steppenwolf put together to bring in three young, nearly unknown, companies to run their work in repertory. It’s a laudable idea and a natural extension of Steppenwolf’s hosting of various small to mid-sized Chicago theatre companies. Unfortunately, the work in Adore doesn’t live up to the level of ambition I’d like to see for companies getting this opportunity. Hopefully the other two shows—punkplay from Pavement Group and The Twins Would Like to Say from Dog & Pony Theatre—bring more exciting work to the table.

Adore, XIII Pocket

Chris Jones, Tribune—“I didn't believe for a hot second that these mannered actors, Paige Smith and Eric Leonard, would engage in such ‘Dexter’-like activities. And while it's tempting for young writers to venerate that old saw of it being better to go out with a bloody bang than live your life without passion, it needs more, well, context. Obsession is rarely interesting on stage without discipline. Or charm.”

http://leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com/the_theater_loop/2010/03/twins-adore-and-punkplay-passion-and-new-talent-in-the-steppenwolf-garage.html

Tony Adler, Reader—“What it's not is a story with lots of drama. We know the ending at the start, so there's little narrative momentum. And Meiwes and Brandes are in complete sync as soon as they hook up, so there's no tension to exploit. They don't even face any external obstacles. They basically just make a deal and fulfill it. Grush gets interesting performances from Paige Smith as Brandes and Eric Leonard as Meiwes—both of whom project a startling normality—and he tries to pump up the spectacle with film images. But for all its appalling aspects, Adore gets dull fast.”

http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/steppenwolf-garage-rep-punkplay-twins-review/Content?oid=1492309

Kris Vire, Time Out—“Grush gives his characters some well-written observations on the mundanity of modern life and the democratizing anonymity of the Internet, and he makes some interesting (and some less so) use of video. But the decision to render the telling in past tense keeps us at a remove; more crucially, for all the men’s proclamations of eternal love for each other, there’s zero urgency or electricity when they finally share a scene.”

http://chicago.timeout.com/articles/theater/83372/garage-rep-at-steppenwolf-theatre-company-theater-review

Monica Westin, New City—“The problem with this production isn’t the story it tells—which is visceral and painful to watch in a way that would have delighted Artaud—but the way it’s articulated. The writing is often hackneyed, with ruminations about true love and metaphors for being absorbed by our lover that are nothing new, awash with profanity…The other major problem is a lack of any kind of theatricality; the play is comprised of almost all monologues, delivered as backstory by the major characters against a screen of fucked-up home movies…Indulgent and conceptually simplistic, not much is added in this production to the story, but it will turn your stomach with its narrative of ultimate masochism, if you’re into that kind of thing.”

http://newcitystage.com/2010/03/01/review-adorexiii-pocket/

Lawrence Bommer, Free Press—“This look at S&M taken to its cannibalistic limit deserves more than author-director Grush’s highly speculative (and thus deeply doubtful) illustrated lecture on how ‘You always hurt the one you love.’ Uncritically presented in supposed confessions from both the diner and his willing prey, Grush’s video-laden staging rhapsodically embraces what demands a saving skepticism—that these creatures who met briefly before their one-sided banquet ‘adored’ each other. Incredibly, their ‘pure and beautiful’ Dahmer-like obsession registers as toxic romanticism. It’s possible to avoid judgment without resorting to uncritical affirmation.”

http://dev.chicagofreepress.com/2010/03/09/theater-adore-and-twins-would-like-to-say/

Scott C. Morgan, Windy City—“Through alternating monologues (and dialogue with actors on video), Grush's characters explain that theirs was the ultimate love where one person becomes part of the other (yuck!). The problem is that Grush's hypothesis of self-hatred and homophobia for Brandes' extreme sacrifice doesn't ring true (really no explanation would make sense).”

http://www.windycitymediagroup.com/gay/lesbian/news/ARTICLE.php?AID=25805

punkplay, Pavement Group

Chris Jones, Tribune—“The pair of teen wannabe punks in punkplay have no discipline either, but as rendered by Alexander Lane and Matt Farabee and directed by David Perez, they're charming company for an hour. As penned by Gregory Moss in rollicking theatrical style, punkplay is mostly the tale of Duck and Mickey, a pair of characters who look like escapees from a John Hughes VHS. The show is happily filled with 1980s detritus from Top Gun to Brooke Shields, Izod to Aerosmith, and the language is amusing and inventive. The piece doesn't really know where it wants to go, but it does capture a cultural moment with off-beat smarts and entertaining efficacy.”

http://leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com/the_theater_loop/2010/03/twins-adore-and-punkplay-passion-and-new-talent-in-the-steppenwolf-garage.html

Tony Adler, Reader—“This Pavement Group show is the most conventional of the three Garage Rep entries, but also the most fully realized and enjoyable. Gregory Moss's tale focuses on Mickey and his pal Duck, a couple of middle-class American teenage boys growing up in the 1980s…If you wanted to stretch the consumed lover/merged twin motif, you could say Duck absorbs Mickey. But the results are comparatively easy to take. And neither of the other plays offers anything like the sweet wisdom of Punkplay's closing speech, delivered by a subversive LP. This is a canny coming-of-age play, as sharp as it is charming.”

http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/steppenwolf-garage-rep-punkplay-twins-review/Content?oid=1492309

Kris Vire, Time Out—“[Director David] Perez and [set designer Grant] Sabin’s transformation of Mickey’s bedroom is both ingenious and in keeping with the boys’ new fondness for tearing down the status quo; David Hyman’s killer costumes are equally inventive. As the boys begin to grow apart, with Duck seeing punk as simply a new set of rules against which Mickey chafes, Farabee and Lane, both new to Chicago, are nothing less than astonishing. [Playwright Gregory] Moss, a recent Brown M.F.A., finally provides Mickey with an explicit lesson we can only wish we’d been gifted with.”

http://chicago.timeout.com/articles/theater/83372/garage-rep-at-steppenwolf-theatre-company-theater-review

Monica Westin, New City—“It’s also an incredibly funny play, with dialogue that runs between witty banter and insults of a Beavis and Butthead nature without dumbing the production down, and some of the worst and best names of nonexistent punk bands you’ve never heard of. Acting is controlled, perfectly paced, and full of hormonal energy; and this edge extends to savvy technical theater. But the most impressive feat lies in the final scenes of the play, which explore the real ideology of punk music, as opposed to its mere fashion, and actually manage to make it seem relevant again.”

http://newcitystage.com/2010/03/01/review-punkplaypavement-group/

Scott C. Morgan, Windy City—“Moss comically explores fumbling adolescence amid several clipped scenes that include outrageous oddball characters played by Tanya McBride and Keith Neagle. Farabee is heartbreaking as Mickey, especially when his character comes to realize that he's really pining for Lane's great lug-headed Duck. It's moments like these that make punkplay much more than a nostalgic satire on 1980s fashions and the fickleness of teenage trend transformations.”

http://www.windycitymediagroup.com/gay/lesbian/news/ARTICLE.php?AID=25805

The Twins Would Like to Say, Dog & Pony Theatre

Chris Jones, Tribune—“(E)veryone comes together to watch the twins' stories, writ theatrical. Many promenade shows feel gimmicky, and frequently are uncomfortable to watch. Not this one. The deceptively sophisticated staging has an organic relation to theme and you're led through the twins' world, falling apart yet coming together when it matters. It is a very rich experience. And richly acted. As the twins, Ashleigh LaThrop and Paige Collins are quite moving in their quiet resilience.”

http://leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com/the_theater_loop/2010/03/twins-adore-and-punkplay-passion-and-new-talent-in-the-steppenwolf-garage.html

Tony Adler, Reader—“Bockley and de Mayo stick close to the known facts of the twins' lives prior to their incarceration but don't stop with simple biography. They take us inside June and Jennifer's often turbulent mind-meld—a universe populated by living dolls, a pal called Mr. Nobody, and, of course, the characters in their stories, which are performed in a long passage that's hugely entertaining even though Bockley and de Mayo haven't figured out how to fit it into the structure of the show. The entire cast is deft, but Paige Collins and Ashleigh LaThrop are something special as June and Jennifer.”

http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/steppenwolf-garage-rep-punkplay-twins-review/Content?oid=1492309

Kris Vire, Time Out—“The staging suggests a more contained, grounded version of de Mayo’s 2008 work As Told by the Vivian Girls, which similarly attempted to get inside the head of an outsider artist. Set designer Grant Sabin’s sliding panels smartly reconfigure and guide us through the space. The uncanny Paige Collins and Ashleigh LaThrop lead a terrific ensemble; if [playwrights Devon] de Mayo and [Seth] Bockley’s story ends a little abruptly, well, so did June and Jennifer’s.”

http://chicago.timeout.com/articles/theater/83372/garage-rep-at-steppenwolf-theatre-company-theater-review

Monica Westin, New City—“The story lends itself beautifully to a dramatic staging, and Dog & Pony maximizes its potential with a brilliantly versatile promenade set, wherein audience members circulate to make real choices about which scenes to see…In terms of dramatic range and technical theater, the show is flawless; the actors show impressive flexibility working amongst stylized choreography, sharp naturalism and song-and-dance disco numbers. The show’s only weakness might end up being this very versatility; there is so much stimulation happening at any given moment that the real tragedy of the twins’ sad lives is somewhat lost.”

http://newcitystage.com/2010/03/01/review-the-twins-would-like-to-saydog-pony/

Lawrence Bommer, Free Press—“More successful in writing and staging, Twins is an elaborately imagined, exuberantly performed promenade production. In 65 bountiful minutes it recreates the true story of the Gibbons sisters, English twins who for more than 20 years spoke to no one and did everything in unison. Director-authors Bockley and de Mayo literally walk us through scenes depicting the twins’ hermetically sealed lives and, in cunning contrast, the flamboyant novels of passion and protest that replaced anything as dull as talk. The result is an invigorating look at teenage angst at its most eccentric, fueled by the sheer disconnect between frustrated imagination and even more exasperating reality.”

http://dev.chicagofreepress.com/2010/03/09/theater-adore-and-twins-would-like-to-say/

Scott C. Morgan, Windy City—“The most impressive and distinctive show of the bunch is Dog & Pony Theatre Company's The Twins Would Like to Say. And that largely has to do with its clever promenade-style staging. Director/authors Seth Bockley and Devon de Mayo have audiences wander around eavesdropping in on scenes which often play simultaneously to learn about the real-life twins June and Jennifer Gibbons, who refused to communicate with anyone other than themselves for 20 years.”

http://www.windycitymediagroup.com/gay/lesbian/news/ARTICLE.php?AID=25805