May 2, 2008
By: Bruce Walsh
walsh.bruce@gmail.com
Dispatches From the Scene: Powder Burns
Previewing Bug, presented by Theatre Exile
I know what you’re thinking: “Bug? Of course I saw the movie adaptation with Harry Connick Jr. Who didn’t? But isn’t the original play by world famous playwright Tracy Letts? Yeah, I’d like to go to the Theatre Exile production, but what am I going to say at intermission when all of those high-falutin theater types are smoking Dunhill’s and adjusting their ascots? I know I can buy an ascot and a pack of Dunhill’s, but how will I make conversation? I’ve never seen a Letts play before, and I hate reading. I’m going to look like an idiot! Help me, Theater Buzz guy.”
No problem. Here’s a one-minute version of Killer Joe, presented by Theatre Exile in 2006:
Scene 1
Chris: Let’s kill mom.
Dad: Why?
Chris: For $3,000.
Dad: Okay.
Scene 2
Chris: We need you to kill my mom.
Killer Joe: Pay me.
Dad: We don’t have any money yet.
Killer Joe: Can I sleep with your daughter instead?
Chris: Dottie? She’s brain damaged and weird.
Killer Joe: I like women like that. Don’t ask why.
(Pause.)
Dad: It’s cool with me.
Scene 3
Dottie: Killer Joe and I are in love.
Chris: What’s in the plastic bag?
Killer Joe: Your dead mother. Where’s the money?
Dad: We don’t have it.
Killer Joe: I’m marrying Dottie.
Chris: You can’t do that. I have a gun. I will kill you.
Dottie: Um… I think I’ll go in the other room for a sec.
(Exits.)
Killer Joe: Don’t kill me.
(Enter Dottie.)
Dottie: I found another gun. Everybody dies.
Dottie: Also, I’m pregnant.
The End.
Tracy Letts won the Pulitzer Prize last year for August Osage County. And with Bug making its way to Hollywood stardom in 2006, this playwright is decidedly in fashion at the moment. After their success with Letts’ Killer Joe in ’06, Exile is turning to another early hit from this Chicago playwright. It is at times difficult to find a protagonist in Letts’ plays, but… Agnes (who will be played by Grace Gonglewski), is holing up in a “generic hotel room.” She’s had enough of men, and once you meet her ex-husband you won’t blame her. One thing she can’t swear off, though, is cocaine and vodka. (Who can?) I don’t have to tell you. Trouble ensues.
Sometimes I research a production for this column and I get more into the show the more I find out. This is one of those. I was initially concerned about Exile’s playing space, Christ Church Annex. The third floor walk-up has never served naturalism particularly well for me and Bug requires an uber-real hotel room. The Annex is not a theater after all, and you sort of have to work with what the space gives you. But I just got off the phone with a Bug cast member, who went into specifics about what designer Matt Saunders did to create a proscenium for this show. I didn’t think it could be done, but I’m looking forward to being wrong.
$18 - $40, April 24 – May 18, Christ Neighborhood House, 20 N. American St., 215.922.4462, www.theatreexile.org 
