SOUTHBOUND
at the Synergy Center
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This could be conveyed in a three-minute video, and Ruane is hard put to stretch this tenuous dramatic question to cover all the breaks between the musical numbers. Much of the filler consists of a sitcom subplot in which Sean’s worried wife endures the boorish behavior of an abominable snowman from next door. Another bit is an abortive stickup in the subway that ultimately accomplishes nothing but the bonding of Sean and Paul, who both risk their lives in defense of the guitars. There are also the standard obstructions and annoyances of Chicago public transportation: trains that stand in the station with doors shut; trains that charge through stations without stopping; trains that suddenly announce emergency express routes that bypass your stop. On the other hand, no amount of bad weather has ever stopped the “Love Train”–but that conductor’s cheerful talk is mocking here, juxtaposed with the ill-timed robbery attempt. (CTA riders can explain the happy-rapping Love Train to automobile theatergoers, but no one will be able to explain why Sean gets so indignant over frustrations that veteran subway riders have come to accept stoically.)
Noel Olken, who plays Paul, has actually logged time in Europe as a street musician, so it’s ironic that his character comes across as the most bogus in this patently make-believe story. Olken somewhat redeems his wandering minstrel, however, with a gritty and mischievous charm. Joe Morgan’s Sean also has a smiling, fresh-faced boyishness, in addition to a soaring tenor voice reminiscent of John Denver in his Mitchell Trio days. As the devoted wife, Meg, Mary Jo Licata has a nice sense of comic timing as well as a voice that can leap two octaves at a single bound. And the nonsinging Jim O’Heir delivers a fearless, if sometimes self-indulgent, performance as the neighbor Jack Roman.
What distinguishes this retelling of a standard gothic-horror fantasy is the superlative acting of Krista Strutz as the virginal Sally Ann and Margaret Halkin as the ruthless Bingo. Under the direction of Kenn L.D. Frandsen, the two enact their eerie pas de deux with a concentrated intensity that fascinates and hypnotizes, as do the woman-to-woman erotics–the steamiest since Unidentified Human Remains, with a fraction of the nudity. (A mannequin from Marshall Field’s, circa 1920, makes an adequate George, but falls short of the attraction these female Pygmalions would have us believe he possesses.)
