`The Progeny Chronicles,” one-act comedies that amuse at their own expense, has created two worlds that are too harsh to be remedied by the easy answers or a happy ending that they are given.
Scott Sandoe, the Chicago playwright of these new works from KKT Productions, creates two fairly despicable worlds-a dysfunctional family and a lunatic asylum for suicidal teenagers. But near the end of each play Sandoe cranks out some feel-good cliches to make us think these hellholes can heal.
It’s rare to see so blatant a case of wanting it both ways. To worsen the malfunction, the characters are never real enough to get funny.
“Texanna Rearranges the Planets and Saves Your Family from the Gates of Hell” both exposes and defends Texanna (Lesley Delmenico), a horoscope-spouting, self-help expert whose books “speak for white women of all races” but who has managed to ruin the lives of her three children (a gay porn star, a mousy mama’s boy and a latter-day Whore of Babylon).
Though she offers mantras like “My life has been in the toilet long enough,” Texanna’s real life, revealed as the family tapes a video for her fans, undermines her smarmy therapy.
Sadly, Texanna’s hypocrisy is spelled out repetitiously and with so heavy a hand that there’s no surprise or edge to the exposure. Worse yet is Sandoe’s unconvincing last-minute attempt to paper over his own attack on this anti-mother.
Combining the weakest elements of Joe Orton and Ken Kesey, “Half-Assed Teenage Suicide Attempts” is as sensitive as its title. The lovable inmates are a debutante (Laura Scariano) institutionalized by her incestuous father, a transvestite with an “accessorizing disorder” (Joel Jeske), a sex fiend who slobbers under the other patients’ beds (Brad Nelson Winters) and a victim of multiple personalities (Claire Kaplan) who imagines herself-tediously each time-as Blanche DuBois, Zelda Fitzgerald, Scarlett O’Hara, Chita Rivera and Gloria Swanson.
We’re supposed to admire Fiona (Mary Zentmyer), the equally crazed manager of this 12-step home for disturbed teenagers, though a paltry running joke has her keeping Cynthia in a straitjacket for over six months.
Martin DeMaat’s peppy staging tries to cover up the uneven tones with a cartoon-like pace. But these scripts can never play fast enough to escape themselves.
`The Progeny Chronicles’
By Scott Sandoe; directed by Martin DeMaat, with original music by Steven Taylor and costumes by Kathleen A. Halter; KKT Productions at Red Bones Theater, 4147 N. Broadway; at 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and 7 p.m. Sundays; through April 3. Running time: 2:05. Tickets: $10. Phone 312-283-0289.
