“Eelpout” reviewed by Jacob Davis

****  Loneliness is one of the most common fears as people get older, with “older” starting in the late twenties. As most people tend to settle into certain routines, a divide develops between the people who get married and must prioritize their growing families versus those who don’t have anyone else to fill the void their friends leave, and in small towns, the window to leave seems to be closing. Eelpout!, now being performed by Shattered Globe Theatre, hosted at Theater Wit, is a new play on these themes that depicts a small stag party at a Mille Lacs ice lodge. A very sweet mostly-comedy written and directed by Paul W. Kruse, it uses fantasy to explore a changing friendship between young men, one of whom really doesn’t want to share the other, but also isn’t sure he was meant to live among people at all.

The party is for Ole Olesen (Carl Hallberg), who is about to get married to Lena (Lydia Moss). When Ole and his lifelong best friend, Sven Svensen (Jeff Rodriguez) arrive at the mobile ice lodge before dawn, they’re so captivated by the stars that Sven fails to notice a hole from a previous ice fisher and falls through. After a life-threatening moment underwater during which he is strangely at peace with the fish, Ole pulls him out and warms him up in the lodge, just in time for the arrival of Lars Larsen (Dinah Berkeley), who comes bringing beer and whiskey. Lars is extremely excitable, with a tendency to talk too much and plan things he can’t follow through on. Ole bullied him in grade school, only invited him to the stag party because Lars’s dad owns the lodge, and didn’t invite him to the wedding. Lars knows all this and accepts it because he is in love with Ole’s sister, Heidi (Taigé Lauren), and hopes that if the stag party goes well, Ole will change his mind about inviting him.

In truth, Ole and Sven’s relationship is also strained, although Ole hadn’t realized it until he announced he and Lena would name their child after Sven if it’s a boy, and Sven seemed upset instead of honored. Sven insists, with no specific evidence, that Lena does not like him, and when he visibly struggles to refrain from kissing Ole while being warmed up, it becomes clear that his real objection to the wedding is one he can’t even admit to himself. Lars’s constant distractions further grind his nerves, as does Lars’s revelation that he has hired a stripper, Holly (Rebecca Jordan), but is struggling to get her out to an ice lodge with no address. But what really brings things to a head is when Sven catches an eelpout (Jesús Barajas), one of the fish he met earlier, who is shocked to learn that humans can talk. Ole does not like Sven being friends with a fish; it is the latest example of what his mother and sister tell him about how Sven has always struggled to fit in, and he worries about Sven’s reputation and future.

Eelpout! is a very high-energy show for nearly the entirety of its ninety minute-run. Each time Ole, Sven, and Lars crack open a beer (and they crack open quite a few), they play a game in which they free-associate song lyrics, movie quotes, sports-related aphorisms, and in-jokes as quickly as they can to get pumped up for fishing. Kruse’s directing makes it clear that this is also a way for them to avoid more substantive conversations that could be painful; that’s not the point of a stag party, after all. Noticeably, the women in the cast don’t really participate in this (neither does the fish). The original music by Christopher Kriz, as well as the set design by Eleanor Kahn, costumes by Delena Bradley, and lighting by Sierra Walker make the lake seem like an entirely different world than the lodge, where wondrous things are possible and people move with grace and connect through wordless intimacy that isn’t the norm in the surface world. But while the drinking game is annoying and the lake is serene, Kruse’s dialogue and staging are quite funny. Sweet and earnest as it is, the show is also full of laugh-out-loud moments and gently pokes fun at the sort of conversational scripts people tend to fall back on when they’re trying to make things seem familiar and unchallenging. Shattered Globe calls the play a “fantasia on Midwestern masculinity,” not a satire, but there are a lot of deeper musings about men’s relationships beneath the comedy.

Eelpout! will continue at Theater Wit, 1229 W Belmont Ave, Chicago, thru May 30 with the following showtimes:

Thursdays: 7:30 pm

Fridays: 7:30 pm

Saturdays: 7:30 pm

Sundays: 3:00 pm

There is an added 3:00 pm matinee on closing day, Saturday, May 30.

Running time is ninety minutes with no intermission.

The show has mature/adult themes and flashing lights.

Audio-Described and Touch Tour: Friday, May 22nd at 7:30 pm 
(6:15 pm touch tour, 7:30 pm curtain)

Open-Captioned Public Performance: Sunday, May 24th at 3 pm

Tickets are $20-60. For tickets and information, visit  www.sgtheatre.org or call 773-975-8150.

To see what others are saying, visit www.theatreinchicago.com, go to Review Round-Up and click at “Eelpout.”                                              photos by Michael Brosilow