EXACT CHANGE
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Actually, that wasn’t too far off the mark. Imagine “Who’s on First?” with dialogue by Harold Pinter and played by the Bowery Boys, with sight gags lifted from the Three Stooges, the Muppets, and I tre zanni, and you’ll get the flavor of the start of this play. Eddie, Ricky, and Richie, three overgrown delinquents who can’t seem to do anything right (and who also happen to be Vietnam war veterans), have just bungled their latest money-making scheme; having kidnapped the boyfriend or husband of Ricky’s ex-wife (it’s hard to tell from the play’s chaotic slapstick beginning) they quickly lost him at a tollbooth, and have repaired to a deserted warehouse in the Bronx to figure out what to do. (Inept criminals, to say the least, they asked the victim for toll money; he threw it on the floor of the getaway car and escaped while his captors scrambled for it.) Their latest failure is meant to demonstrate that these guys are all complete losers. Even their wounds are petty–Eddie has psoriasis, for God’s sake. But somehow they’re meant to be lovable in their idiocy. When Ricky and Richie come to blows over a woman, they fight like amateurs, with none of the efficiency of trained warriors. And though their fight is violent and brutal, the audience sit back and laugh, because by now they know that this is only a cartoon. Nobody’s really going to get hurt.
A little more than halfway into this silliness, however, something strange happens: Eddie, having heretofore exhibited the IQ of a rock lobster, suddenly develops the eloquence of Ben Kingsley and recites a heart-rending soliloquy about seeing the Vietnam war memorial. The transformation in character is jarring this first time, since the play shifts back to slapstick immediately afterward (did I mention the keys locked in the stolen car?). But the second time–when Ricky dreams about the child he doesn’t yet have–the incongruity is scarcely noticeable. By the time we see these three small, superfluous men huddled in the dark around a decrepit space heater, sharing fantasies about sex, violence, and the American Way of Life (“All you need is an idea and some luck,” one character insists–is he Vladimir or Estragon?), we realize the tremendous courage and excruciating optimism these bunglers must have to keep the faith in a world where even the best-laid plans can go awry in so many absurd little ways.
