Directed by Matt Kemple, Pink Banana Theatre’s Any Given Monday is an intimate little dark comedy staged in their basement black box. The stage is set up like a cozy den. The place is draped in Philadelphia Eagles iconography. After a brief introduction, we see a couple of guys watching a Monday night game between the Cowboys and the Giants. With their couch facing the audience, we are where their TV would be. The two men react to us like a game they couldn’t possibly care less about. They occasionally stop a conversation about their own lives to yell in our direction.
Joe Krapf is endearingly depressed as Lenny, a schoolteacher whose wife has left him. Paul Madden is cleverly witty as Mick, a morally oblivious subway worker who is a bit more upset about the situation than Lenny is. He demands that Lenny take control of his personal life. Madden and Krapf maintain a fun dynamic.
Marissa Clayton plays Lenny’s daughter, Sarah, who will soon graduate with a degree in philosophy. She doesn’t want to teach and has no idea what to do with her life. Playwright Bruce Graham allows Sarah some of the sharpest, wittiest lines in the show and Clayton brings them to the stage with a deeply appealing brilliance. Reva Fox rounds out the cast as Lenny’s estranged wife, Risa. Fox does a nice little tango with her character, maintaining likability without compromising complexity.
Pink Banana Theatre Company’s production of Any Given Monday runs through Nov. 15 at the Underground Collaborative, 161 W. Wisconsin Ave. For tickets, visit pinkbananamke.org
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