WISHFUL THINKING
Joe Rezwin’s Wishful Thinking, which features Mary-Arrchie actor Richard Cotovsky in its lead role, had its first commercial showing in 1989, opening for the feature film Drugstore Cowboy at one California theater. The story concerns a shy and colorless young man whose girlfriend gives him a box of underwear and the big good-bye for his birthday, abandoning him in a Chinese restaurant where the staff presents him with a birthday fortune cookie. “I wish people understood me better,” he says as he blows out the candle, but his fortune warns him to be wary of making wishes for they may come true. As the tale continues, he meets several people who understand him all too well–to his discomfort. When finally the young man comes to accept his life as it is (“She’s not coming back, and you can use the underwear,” he says to himself), someone comes along who could be what he really needs. But he doesn’t recognize her; he’s through with wishing.
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Director Robert Maffia seems to think so, too. His cast walk through Shepard’s cryptic script with a brave show of conviction and concentration but no word or sign revealing a source for their interpretation. In the role of Chet, Terry “Turk” Muller overacts with guileless enthusiasm, while Richard Cotovsky, as Stu, once again establishes himself as the most fascinating nebbish in Chicago theater. There is no reason whatsoever to want to look at this schlep, but when he’s onstage we can’t take our eyes off him. However he manages to do this, he does it extremely well–with the right handling his paraffin-pale visage could make him famous.
