WILD MEN!
When the Friends of the Zoo stopped performing regularly almost two years ago, the Chicago theater scene lost something vital. This talented troupe of singer-comedians had injected new life into musical theater and satire at a time when most comedy troupes were content to crank out tedious revues that were at best pale shadows of Second City’s work. Even companies like the plucky, constantly percolating Annoyance Theatre can’t hold a candle to Mark Nutter’s intelligent, witty lyrics or to the Friends of the Zoo’s inventive theatrical productions.
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When it was announced that three of the creative forces behind the Friends of the Zoo–Nutter, Peter Burns, and Rob Riley–were putting together a new show, there was reason to hope it would be fun and Zoo-like. In a way Wild Men! is reminiscent of the company’s best work. Certainly Nutter’s 12 songs are every bit as clever as anything he wrote during the Zoo years. Who else would dare write a parody of overblown Broadway tunes with lyrics like “We’re wild men, woolly wild men, and not especially tame”?
The result is a play in which laughs (of which there are plenty) play second fiddle to character development. The story–about four misfits (Burns, David Lewman, Joe Liss, George Wendt) who find themselves at a weekend men’s retreat run by a Robert Bly wannabe named Stuart Penn (Riley)–is so compelling that by the end of the play these five fools feel like old friends.
Molly, who begins the play stinging from her recent divorce, learns to love George, who sheds his nerdish manner in favor of the sort of assertive behavior Molly approves of. Sex addict Robbie is cured when he falls head over heels for wallflower Lonnie, who learns to quit her codependent ways and tells him she doesn’t want to see just him.
