THIS OLD MAN CAME ROLLING HOME
at Chicago Dramatists Workshop
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After a blithe “No contraceptive is 100 percent. We got lucky,” Dr. Louise proceeds to cheerfully anticipate having a baby. But the father, Benjamin, an inventor of adult social-interaction games, is not as enthusiastic. Since Louise has no intention of quitting her job, he points out, she will have to run off to deliver other women’s babies whenever her pager summons, even if it means neglecting her own child–a consideration his fiancee simply shrugs off, saying “We’ll manage.” Louise’s career is not what’s eating Benjamin, however, but what he perceives as his own inadequacies as a man, misgivings he’s been trying to banish through psychoanalysis (speaking to his shrink over a speaker phone when he can’t make it into the office for his session) and Robert Bly-style men’s groups.
Jack, 28 years old with a PhD in cultural anthropology, provides a refreshingly egalitarian point of view, but she’s a voice crying in the wilderness. Jack commends Benjamin for not running away, as many men in his situation would; but Louise laughs at his search for spiritual serenity and scoffs at his conscientious approach to procreational responsibilities. (“I’m not sure I’m ready for this yet,” Benjamin protests, and his would-be wife retorts, “You won’t know until you try. I think you’d make a wonderful father.”) This mommy-knows-best attitude is heartily endorsed by the playwright, who makes a running gag out of one of Benjamin’s men’s group members who weeps uncontrollably into Benjamin’s answering machine–a crying man is still an object of ridicule here. The oodles of charm exuded by director Dennis Zacek’s cast–most notably by Byrne Piven as the hearty Nate and Rengin Altay as Jack (proving an actress can be both ingenuous and intelligent)–masks the seriousness of the issues, sliding us along the schmaltz to an easy all-you-need-is-love ending.
