For six years now, Amy Seeley has been slogging away for no money at the Factory Theatre, creating a gallery of wacky characters in the troupe’s zany comedies. She’s had fun at the expense of ABBA, Curt Cobain, Quentin Tarantino, and other easily targeted icons of contemporary pop culture. College kids are still coming to the Rogers Park storefront for laughs. But Seeley has grown tried of the same old stuff.
So for her latest project, Seeley, 29, chooses to strip away all of the nonsense, lay herself bare, and stand up alone in a theater for 90 minutes to talk about her relationship with her father, a tough-skinned, professional drag racer from the Quad Cities who was stricken with cancer when his daughter was a teenager.
The revelatory result is a gutsy, moving, funny, and generally superb one-woman show. One does not expect to leave the Factory Theatre in tears, but it would take the coldest of hearts to be unmoved by “Amy Seeley and the Moline Madman.”
Most artists who create their own material eventually end up writing about their formative relationships with their parents. So if you see a lot of performance, you sit through frequent evocations of dysfunctional families and childhood traumas. And albeit pivotal to the development of the performer, personal revelations can be deadly for an audience.
Seeley falls into none of these traps. That’s partly because her dad was obviously such a gloriously eccentric character–not only could he go from 0 to 230 m.p.h. in under seven seconds but he missed his daughter’s birth to go racing.
Yet even as she refuses to whitewash his rough flaws, the vulnerable Seeley’s love for her father (and her long-suffering mother) shines through her emotionally intense monologue, a heart-warming celebration of blue-collar family life. By the end of the show, the Moline Madman has been depicted in such vivid colors, we’re mortified when he is ravaged by disease.
We care so much because Seeley takes care to allow us into her autobiography. One’s mind spirals back to the times one’s own parents did trivial, embarrassing things that somehow created lifelong scars. And if you’ve cared for a loved one who suffered, you’ll likely find yourself right back in the complex emotions of that time.
Given that there’s no set, costumes or other people around (only a true tale, honestly told), this splendid show is a remarkable achievement. The city leaders of Moline should rent a theater and invite this hometown girl back to talk about her dad. She has a story that will live long into the night.
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“Amy Seeley and the Moline Madman.”
When: Through Aug. 8
Where: Factory Theatre, 1257 W. Loyola Ave., Chicago
Call: 773-274-1345
