LAUGHING WILD
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Which may be why I feel a certain affinity for Christopher Durang and his recent comedy, Laughing Wild. Best known as the jolly blasphemer who gave us Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You, Durang specializes in bitterly funny diatribes, just ever so lightly dusted in dramaturgy. A theater of spouting off. In Laughing Wild he’s not only found a structure that allows him to spout hilariously across an almost unlimited range of topics, but also to double back and contemplate–seriously, even touchingly–the nature of the spouteur.
Specifically, the urban spouteur. Set up rather like David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross–with a first act consisting of two separate monologues, and a second act in which the monologists interact–Laughing Wild gives us a couple of New Yorkers in deep anomie. The female of the pair is certifiable: a charming but crazy soul with a history of suicide attempts and mental-ward commitments, who starts out telling us about her adventures in the tuna fish aisle at a Gristede’s supermarket and quickly segues into discussions of taxicab etiquette, street musicians, AA meetings, college, the famous Edie Sedgwick, the inscrutable Sally Jessy Raphael, the key to existence, and the art of wild laughter.
Until finally their dreams have meshed.
