A young American graduate student, studying Russian literature in Moscow, is taken to a hospital with a case of food poisoning, is visited there by his aunt and uncle from Kansas (she`s wearing a bear suit, pretending she`s from the Moscow circus), is attacked and beaten by a group of hammer-wielding children, is drawn into a wild conspiracy by a Russian who loves Little Richard records, and is finally sent home by the Soviets to New York, there to deal with the craziness of life in America.
And that is but a bit of the first half of ”Highest Standard of Living,” the semi-autobiographical, realistic-surrealistic new political-satirical comedy by Keith Reddin that opens here next Sunday at Remains Theatre. It is the third (and wildest) full-length play written by actor-author Reddin, known in Chicago for his 1985 portrayal of the title role of
”The Government Inspector” at Goodman Theatre, and as an author for the 1984 production of his first comedy, ”Life and Limb,” presented at Wisdom Bridge Theatre with a cast drawn primarily from the Remains ensemble.
Since then, a second play, ”Rum and Coke,” produced last season at the Public Theatre in New York, has further established him as a playwright of great wit and imagination, a reputation that is bound to increase this year with nearly simultaneous productions of ”Highest Standard of Living” at the South Coast Repertory in California, Remains in Chicago and Playwrights Horizon in New York, where Griffin Dunne, who starred in the movie ”After Hours,” is slated to play the graduate student Bob Wills.
Like Reddin`s first two plays, ”Highest Standard” deals sharply with the politics and pop culture of its time. As a result, Reddin says, ”I tend to be pigeonholed as a social satirist, but I just think of myself as a playwright who likes to write funny plays.”
The new comedy, in fact, had its origins in Reddin`s own experience in Russia, when he visited Moscow shortly after his graduation from Dwight Morrow High School (”John Travolta`s alma mater”) in Englewood, N.J., in 1973. He went to the Soviet Union as part of a larger group, and, just like the character in his play, came down in Moscow with such a severe case of food poisoning that he was laid low for the first week of his stay. ”It was very oppressive there, and I felt completely isolated from the rest of the world,” Reddin recalls. ”I was in a feverish state, very insecure and fearful, and the play sort of takes off from that point.”
Later, before concentrating on theater at Northwestern University, Reddin studied Russian and was turned on to Soviet literature through his classes with actor-director-teacher Frank Galati, whose particular interests were the Russian satirists Mikhail Bulgakov and Vladimir Nabokov.
The character of Wills actually seems so close to Reddin`s own life that several people have suggested that he should play the role himself. However, Reddin says, ”It`s not a very good idea when you`re working on a new play and trying to be objective about it. I`d want to keep all my speeches.”
In its evolution, the play`s script has gone through several staged readings, including two in Chicago last year; and it is receiving three very different physical productions in its California-Chicago-Ne w York openings.
”I do enough acting to realize that there`s no `only way` to play a role,” he says. ”There are different ways of doing a part, and a play, so long as you`re faithful to the author`s intent. And here in Chicago, I`ve got a very, very smart director (Michael Maggio) and a group of actors who are ready to fly with the script.”
Reddin jokes that ”Highest Standard” represents ”a major breakthrough for me,” because, unlike his earlier plays, which were set in the Eisenhower `50s and the Kennedy `60s, in time periods he barely knew from personal experience, this new comedy is based directly on his own life and is set in the Reagan `80s.
In a real sense, however, ”Highest Standard” does expand Reddin`s range. In ”Rum and Coke,” which dealt with U.S. involvement in the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1963, he tried to look at that event as an American writer of the `80s–and from the eyes of the Third World participants, as well. ”Highest Standard” takes that viewpoint farther by looking at the United States and the Soviet Union as they see each other, complete with their mutual suspicion and fear.
”I thought I was writing a surrealistic play,” Reddin says, ”but people who have been to Russia keep telling me it`s a very realistic, naturalistic play. They say it`s like I was listening in on their own experiences. It`s so bizarre.”
Reddin had completed the first draft of his play last fall, when he arrived in Chicago to start rehearsals at the Goodman. Recent events
–including the exchange of Russian-American charges in the case of Victor Daniloff, the U.S. journalist detained in Moscow–have made his story of U.S.-Soviet paranoia seem particularly pertinent, as if the play had been written right off the headlines.
”That happens with me,” Reddin says. ”No matter how crazy the situation that I write seems, the politicians always outwit me. They`re better playwrights than I am.”
