Theatre in Review: The Undeniable Sound of Right Now (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater/Women's Project)

	Margo Siebert, Jeb Brown. Photo: Sandra Coudert

You can't be a rock rebel forever, nor can you live on the cutting edge without sooner or later falling off. These inarguable propositions are explored with wit and perception in Laura Eason's new play. Such thoughts are plaguing Eason's protagonist, Hank, who has run a Chicago bar that, since 1967, has been a launching pad for most of the music industry. (In its elaborate squalor and dicey neighborhood, it is a Windy City edition of CBGB.) Hank's Bar was also an unofficial after-hours place for music-industry greats: In one well-worn anecdote told by several characters, we hear about the secret concert played by The Clash; Mick Jones even signed the teddy bear belonging to Hank's daughter Lena. That's the kind of place it was -- stars of the moment mingling with those hoping to replace them, all performing for a supremely in-the-know audience. As a result, Hank is sitting on enough memorabilia to restock the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame -- among others, a guitar given to him by Keith Richards, a scarf left behind by Stevie Nicks.

Now, however, it is 1992. The big acts have moved on and so have the crowds. Hank is still making a buck, if only just. A newspaper profile calls him "Chicago's ultimate Indie rock tastemaker," a comment that, to him, feels like a tombstone inscription. And indeed the clock is ticking. The building that contains the bar -- with Hank and Lena's apartments upstairs -- is falling apart. Hank has always occupied the space courtesy of a handshake agreement with his landlord, but now the latter's son, Joey, is taking over and he wants Hank out. (The neighborhood is gentrifying and Joey wants to cash in.) Worst of all, the music scene is changing: Guitarists are out and DJs are in, as young people pile into abandoned warehouses for drug-fueled raves. There are serious questions to be faced -- but Hank only wants to talk about booking the next band.

The Undeniable Sound of Right Now traces what happens when the grown-up Lena, who serves as Hank's press rep and marketing director, starts to fall for Nash, a rising DJ who Hank won't even allow on the premises. Trying to tie past and present together, Lena cooks up a plan: Nash will run a rave in the ex-slaughterhouse next door, raising enough money to keep Joey appeased and Hank's bar open. The event, given Hank's permission, if not his blessing, is a thumping success, but it also sets off a chain of unintended consequences.

For most of its running time, The Undeniable Sound of Right Now is like sitting around late at night sharing a bottle with some funny, flavorful characters. "You should have seen me clearing corpses from the entrance in '74," says Hank. "There was only one corpse!" protests his sort-of girlfriend Bette, who, having divorced him, still shows up every night. Explaining her decision to live with Hank, Lena says, "When kids leave home, they want to come here. Where was I supposed to go? The suburbs?" Hank recalls his encounter with a certain talented, but not prepossessing, band, causing Toby, his sound man, to exclaim, "No way. No way! You are not really claiming responsibility for the KISS makeup are you?" As a matter of fact, he is.

And, thanks to Kirsten Kelly's easygoing direction, the evening is a pleasure whenever Jeb Brown is serving up another round of bourbon shots, fiercely defending his right to keep the bar going, or furiously admitting that his desire "to be connected to the earth loosely" was undermined by the appearance of a beautiful baby daughter. Lusia Strus makes a fine sparring partner as Bette, especially when jealously recalling how shamelessly Stevie Nicks flirted with Hank, "right in front of Lindsey." Best of all, Margo Seibert is an ideal Lena, cajoling Hank, warily romancing Nash, and fending off Joey's advances with the same electric energy and brash attitude. (This show provides Seibert with a much better showcase than last season's also-ran musical Rocky.) Less lucky, although proficient, are Daniel Abeles as Nash, a character whose intentions are kept ambiguous for too long; Brian Miskell as Toby, who mostly casts longing glances at Lena; and Chris Kipiniak as Joey, the designated villain of the piece, although he does make us feel Joey's forever-frustrated longing for his father's approval.

If I have a reservation about The Undeniable Sound of Right Now, it's that Eason shies away from writing the big scene that would endow her atmospheric conversation piece with a real dramatic punch. We never see Nash facing up to the fact that his way of life is very possibly untenable, and Lena is left dangling between her father and her boyfriend, the past and the future, a dilemma that is left thoroughly unresolved. The play ends abruptly, with Hank making a fast, unexpected grand gesture; it's hard to tell if such brusqueness belongs to Hank or the writer who created him.

Still, there's John McDermott's set, a small masterpiece of grime and dilapidation, a crumbling interior papered over with flyers for the Dead Kennedys and Alice Cooper and pictures of Jim Morrison, filled with beer cans, garbage bags, and piles of sound cables on the floor. Joel Moritz's lighting preserves a permanent 3am atmosphere while still differentiating between various times of day and night. Sarah J. Holden's costumes are full of telling observations, such as the difference between the T-shirt worn by Toby (featuring The Velvet Underground) and Nash (an image by Keith Haring). Lindsay Jones' sound design paces the action with a variety of rock sounds.

If The Undeniable Sound of Right Now strikes some disappointing notes, it's still another striking offering from Eason, who has written 20 plays but, until last summer, was something of an unknown quantity in New York. To open in one season with both Sex with Strangers and The Undeniable Sound of Right Now is not something to be dismissed lightly. She has the undeniable sound of a real writer. -- David Barbour