The Griffin Theatre is presenting a program of two one-act plays, the second of which, “Subfertile,” is a somewhat long but funny, sensitive, light-hearted and thoughtful look at male infertility.
Tom Mardirosian’s story of one man’s effort to procreate bubbles with much slapstick and low humor, but ultimately builds a solid, gentle portrait of an ordinary couple grappling with a painful problem.
“Subfertile” is narrated by the lead character, Tom (Warren Davis). It’s peppered with fun-loving paleolithic imagery (the story begins in a natural history museum) and dream sequences, and it slaps at the agonies and humiliations of modern medical procedures. But it’s also, finally, quite moving and down to earth in its leap from a one-man medical yarn to a fanciful evocation of our need to live on.
Tom and his wife, Jackie (Laurie Larson), are a healthy, likable, normal couple who can’t conceive a child. They learn that the problem is Tom’s low sperm count, and thereafter he’s poked, prodded, stuck with gargantuan needles, told to wear a contraption that is, in effect, a baby diaper filled with ice, undergoes major surgery and is forced to consultwith an evolving team of anonymous and baffling specialists.
Mardirosian clearly writes with empathy for his subject. Tom wants to have his own child, not adopt, and the horrors of our civilization are now such that our technology can work near miracles, but not without repeated costs.
Davis is folksy, everyday and affable as the beleaguered Tom, and Larson is a reassuring, amiable contemporary everywoman as his wife, frustrated but eminently respectable.
A host of Griffin ensemble players take on a multiplicity of tiny slapstick parts, all of them funny, with Berkely Rhodes especially interesting, changing accents and demeanors as Tom’s friend and Scandinavian specialist, among other roles.
The curtain opener, “Sex Lives of Superheroes,” by Stephen Gregg, is a 30-minute skit about a man too easily victimized by the women in his life. It’s silly, stupid and dull, and makes little sense teamed with Mardirosian’s equally outrageous but much more sophisticated playwriting.
”SEX LIVES OF SUPERHEROES” AND ”SUBFERTILE”
Two contemporary one-act comedies, the former by Stephen Gregg and the latter by Tom Mardirosian. Playing at the Griffin Theatre, 5404 N. Clark St., at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 3 p.m. Sunday. Length: 2 hours. Tickets are $10 to $15. Phone 312-769-2228.
