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Half and Half
By James Sherman
Directed by Dennis Zacek
At Victory Gardens Theater
2257 N. Lincoln Ave
Chicago, IL
Call 773-871-3000, tickets $35 - $40
Tuesday thru Friday at 8 PM
Saturday at 5 & 8:30 PM
Sundays at 3 PM
Running time is 2 hours with intermission
Through July 9, 2006
Half and Half equals a hundred percent enjoyable play
James Sherman has penned many terrific plays (Beau Jest, Affluenza, From Door to Door and The God of Isaac) and is know as “The Neil Simon of Lincoln Avenue” (by Sid Smith of the Chicago Tribune). He and Victory Gardens and director Dennis Zacek have collaborated to premiere all but one of Sherman’s plays.
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Their latest work, Half and Half is a smart telling comedy that is actually two interconnected one acts about married life. Sherman’s work uses Chicago as background and is filled with wit and biting humor. Half and Half covers one family, living in the same Rogers Park house first in 1970, then 2005. Set in a working kitchen (set design by Mary Griswold), we find Susan (Laura T. Fisher) is a frustrated unhappy housewife who strongly wants to break away from the traditional mode of being a housewife. She become a feminist, a liberated woman who announces to her demanding and controlling husband, Stewart (Joe Dempsey) that she will march in the 1970 Earth Day demonstration. After Stewart ‘orders’ her not and further orders her to stay home and cook and clean, she revolts leaving a baffled Stewart unable to cope with the sudden events. Sherman has a handle on this era aptly depicting the turmoil that often accompanied such liberating transitions. Lucy (Mattie Hawkinson) is the daughter who strongly embraces the modern feminist ideals.
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In act two, in the same house thirty-five years later, we see Lucy (Laura T. Fisher), now an attorney, busy preparing a case for trial. Jeremy, her husband (Joe Dempsey) is a stay-at-home husband and sometimes novelist who cooks breakfast for Lucy in a time appropriate role reversal that happens often in the world of 21st Century. Sherman smartly covers the drastic changes in marriage roles in only a generation. In the first act, Stewart is an unsympathetic male chauvinist typical of his generation. Susan is the struggling woman whose self worth needs more than cooking and cleaning.
In act two, Lucy starts to act like the uncaring career-oriented wife while Jeremy plays the unappreciated home maker while their daughter Katie (Mattie Hawkinson) is a typical teen of her era.
Sherman’s intelligent writing suggest that a new role for each partner in a marriage may now emerge as both parties discover that common ground and meeting each one’s needs makes a marriage work. Marriage indeed is a partnership of equals allowing men and woman to communicate and share the creation of an environment that fills everyone’s needs.
Laura T. Fisher and Joe Dempsey do excellent work here as they capture their characters angst and land Sherman’s wicked comedy.
Half and Half is a cagey work that profiles the changes in the marriage model with a hint that the model still needs some refinement. This is a funny, yet insightful cautionary tale. It is worth seeing, especially for the 30something crowd.
Recommended
Tom Williams
Tom99@chicagocritic.com for comments
Talk Theatre in Chicago podcast
Date Reviewed: June 5, 2006
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