Ugly people doing ugly things to one another isn’t a bad premise for a black comedy. In her rarely produced first play from 1972, Caryl Churchill juices that premise with a kind of manic, larger-than-life odiousness of a sketch show shoved violently through a David Mamet-like meat grinder and set in London. Blow it up to such extremes, and maybe there’s something funny in there. Maybe.
In any case, it’s hard to tell in this Interrobang production, which doesn’t quite have a handle on the bitter comedy of it all or the snap needed to pull it off. You don’t get the sense director Jeffry Stanton has a firm grasp on what he wants to get across.
Real estate and marital undoings are on the menu. There’s a clever turntable set design from Joe Schermoly, a damn-the-torpedoes performance from Brynne Barnard as an ego-busting narcissist who takes the “lean in” mindset to dastardly extremes, and a very witty Matt Browning as a man fully checked out from life and contentedly so — a hipster zombie. But the ensemble’s British accents and comedic timing are off by more than a few notches.
Through Nov. 2 at the Athenaeum Theatre, 2936 N. Southport Ave.; tickets are $15-$20 at 773-935-6875 or athenaeumtheatre.org
