“Tango” reviewed by Jacob Davis

Recommended *** How do you create values to live by when everything’s been discredited and you can’t think of anything else? That’s the question at the center of Polish dissident playwright Sławomir Mrożek’s most famous absurdist work, the 1964 Tango. Now in a production at the Trap Door Theatre, it is, by absurdist standards, an oddly straightforward account of a young man’s rebellion against his family. But as always at the Eastern European-influenced company, bold staging devices, high energy, and a deep-seated sympathy for those trying to make meaning amid chaos abound.

Imagine if a less forbearing normal person were to find themselves living with the family of You Can’t Take It with You, and you’ll understand the predicament of Arthur (Adam Huizenga). His father, Stomil (Keith Surney), a retired revolutionary and long-time proponent of free love, can’t justify being angry with his wife, Eleanore (Katelyn Lane), for cheating on him with the mysterious Eddie (Logan Hulick). And what a lover she’s chosen! Eddie lurks in the house of Arthur’s grandmother, Eugenia (Joan Nahid), vacuous and congenial, but with a distinct aura of menace. Nobody knows anything about him, it seems there’s nothing to know, and what’s it matter, anyway, when he’s not overtly aggressive and we’re not supposed to judge? Great uncle Eugene (Dennis Bisto) longs for the good old days, but Arthur recognizes there’s no going back to those and couldn’t have faith in them if he tried. His only hope for finding something pure is his impending marriage to his girlfriend, Ala (Emily Nichelson), but he can’t even get that to go right.

For a play with so much discussion of ideas, director Emily Lotspeich keeps it light and farcical. Old Stomil even points out that’s the only way to do theatre these days. Actors pop in and out of Jacqueline Frole’s multicolored set; they adopt the movements to match the mood of whomever is speaking, and each prop introduces another element of children’s make-believe. Only when the world is turned upside down by Arthur’s fleeting triumph are people allowed to be serious, for once, and they wonder whether they ought to be. Besides their physical talents, the actors are also adept at shifting between their characters’ self-conscious performances as liberated free-thinkers and their gnawing existential angst. They flicker between two states of being, with only Arthur having the solace of revealing his inner life to the audience.

It would be ungrateful, Eleanore rues, to admit to being anything less than fully satisfied with the way things have progressed after fighting so hard to break free of old oppressions. Her son is less concerned with that, having inherited only her ambivalence. Huizenga’s role is a difficult one; Arthur is a bit like a combination of Holden Caulfield and Hedda Gabler—a comparison he would bristle at since it confirms that his existence is a post-modernist mishmash of deconstructed relics. He’s arrogant and condescending, particularly to Ala, who seems to be the smarter of the two, yet it’s hard not to feel some sympathy for him. But while he engages in his adolescent quest for identity, Eddie’s nihilistic presence becomes ever more unnerving. Tango’s relevance fifty years later is a bit less overt than other absurdist shows, but it neatly captures the conundrum of people who instinctually feel there is something deeply wrong going on around them without having a fully developed ethics system of their own. It’s also a fascinating piece of stagework that makes ninety minutes and a lot of discourse seem to fly by, with more than a few laughs along the way.

Tango runs through March 30, at Trap Door Theater, 1655 W Cortland, Chicago. Parking is available in the neighborhood.

Running time is ninety minutes with no intermission.

Performances are

Thursdays:          8:00 pm

Fridays:                                8:00 pm

Saturdays:           8:00 pm

Tickets are $20-25, with 2-for-1 admission of Thursdays.

To order, call 773-384-0494 or visit Trap Door Theatre.

To see what others are saying, go to Theater in Chicago, go to Review Round-Up and click at “Tango”.