Photo by Ryan Blomquist
In Tandem Theatre Company’s season opener, Bruce Graham’s provocative, prize-winning dark comedy Any Given Monday, proved a real winner in all respects. Purporting to be domestic melodrama, some surprising wrinkles give the play an unexpected dimension.
Lenny, devoted husband and father, is introduced in a deep funk, brooding over his wife who left him while having an affair. His good-natured, well-intentioned friend Mick boisterously tries to cheer him up with pizza, beer and—of course—Monday Night Football. But Mick introduces a new agenda. Suddenly, an unexpected, irreversible, damaging event takes place, startling the audience and threatening to derail the play’s humor. However, Graham’s witty dialogue and a superlative cast put the play back on track and establish a new sense of equilibrium with a more challenging set of circumstances for the characters.
It would be a travesty to divulge the plot. Issues and questions of whether an evil act can result in a greater good are addressed, but the sardonic, dark dialogue humorously gives weight to the practical rather than the moral issues. The daughter, brilliantly played by Leeanna Rubin, is caught up in the college cynicism of her times, but her stance turns out to be the most moral of all. The pragmatic Mick is performed with scene-stealing exuberance by Todd Denning; he’s the basic realist. Doug Jarecki as Lenny comes into his own in a cleverly written repartee in the second act when he learns to be angry rather than just forgiving towards his almost penitent wife, played subtly by Tiersa Ferraro.
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The inescapable irony of accepting what cannot be changed is cleverly subscribed in a set of cynically humorous dialogue exchanges which are often hilarious but steer clear of being philosophically heavy handed. The play aptly describes—with veiled tongue in cheek—how changing circumstances can alter our value system. The barest hint of human hypocrisy gives this consistently fascinating play its cutting edge.
Through Oct. 25 at Tenth Street Theatre, 628 N. 10th St. For tickets, call 414-271-1371 or visit intandemtheatre.org.
