For much of the first part of “Another Shot,” by Harry Teinowitz and Spike Manton, we watch Harry, a radio personality played by Dan Butler, deliver a string of sometimes funny, but often infuriating jokes that could easily fit into a stand-up routine. In this play, at the Pershing Square Signature Center, we feel like we’re watching a comedian delivering material on stage, more than a man living his life. He is more of a joke machine than a human being, a performer who never sheds his mask rather than a full person. Instead of a stage, though, he is delivering this material at an alcohol and drug rehab center. Although we hear about flamingos, he's more like an ostrich who will not see what he needs to in order to change. We soon realize that his drug of choice is denial and he chooses comedy over cure, setting the scene for a drama of someone not facing up to danger, but trying to ignore it and hope it goes away. Alcoholism may be his problem, but avoidance is his poison.
Harry, in his Chicago Bulls jacket and other sports attire, doesn’t understand that alcoholism is as much an attitude as the act of consuming a drink. He doesn't confront, but accepts alcohol as part of his life. We hear some new, and some very old jokes, a little bit like someone cracking jokes to a judge. He just doesn’t take this seriously. The audience on stage including other members of a rehab group and the leader, Barb (portrayed by Portia), are not amused. Neither, despite some fun moments, are we. Portia, whose character has dealt with her own alcoholism, tells us humor is wonderful, unless you use it “to never answer a question.”
“I spill my guts,” Chike Johnson as Vince tells Harry at one point. “And you make a joke.”
Rather than solve any problem, Harry says there isn’t one, addressing the audience, rather than being submerged in the story, at least at first. Director Jackson Gay does a good job presenting three dimensional characters, after we see a two dimensional version of Harry at first, in this production done as theater in the round. We see the dilemma of a radio personality whose admission to rehab made news and who now engages in humor as a defense mechanism, finally beginning to break through when he tells us about his daughter’s reaction. Still, nothing can get him to respond emotionally at first, because he deflects with punchlines like someone throwing punches. He believes admitting alcoholism is a sign of weakness, rather than a first step toward finding the strength to deal with it. It seems as if we’ll get an endless string of jokes, punctuated by moving stories about the destruction of alcohol, spoken not shown. A series of monologues are scattered like jazz solos, all delivered as performances, in the past not the present, told, rather than enacted in true theater. For so long, this show is about telling stories and not seeing a story unfurl on stage.
But in the second part of the show, after Harry announces he’s been told by his boss that he can leave when he’s ready, we watch Harry walk out, but not away. His journey is not over, and neither is ours. We see the drama kick in, as the stage shrinks to a real place, not a platform to perform, and becomes alive with action and relationships like a boxing ring. The stakes rise, the struggles sharpen and the relationships deepen as we watch this cast each battle with their own demons. I can only say that by the end, this show passed the shiver test. I was moved by the realization that the stakes always were high here, despite the joking, the falling down and getting up. When we see the cost of failure, it hits us as hard in the gut as the punch that killed Houdini. I left feeling that the show had pierced the armor of language to reach a final feeling and a much earned transformation and sense that one mistake here always can be fatal. This Eden always has a dangerous snake coiled in the corner.
We see the various residents seeking rehab together in a good ensemble piece, with characters like instruments playing chamber music and the group leader, played by Portia, as the conductor. The subplots are strong and in the end produce a strong plot, as we see Harry emerge, having lived with and learned from his fellow rehab residents. We hear characters telling rather than living stories, but the drama and the life arrive. Although the monologues are both moving and meaningful, they lack the drama they would have if we saw them happen rather than heard about them. But the play comes together and the drama develops as the play finally shifts from past to present, narrative to true drama.
“If a man drinks, he’s blowing off steam,” says Samantha Mathis as Andrea. “If a woman drinks, she’s a party girl.”
The show has its share of pop psychology and easy insight along with revelation, as Portia, the adult in this family, says we must learn to forgive ourselves, which feels like advice more than action. Drama is lessons learned from life, while this is just advice distributed to rehab residents, more lecture than life experience, like medication. It seems as if comedy, rather than conflict, is contagious. We hear joking, often inappropriate, by various characters along with deeply personal monologues, such as Chike Johnson telling us how he got drunk and devoured his kid’s Halloween candy and how his father paid him for tackles and for injuring opponents. Gregg Mozgala as Isaiah tells us how his wife put her wedding ring next to his pills and told him to pick. Johnson as Vince tells us his ex wife wanted a cat and he didn’t, so they "compromised" by getting a cat. We get jokes instead of honesty, statistics instead of true struggle, as Portia as Barb reminds us that there are 22 million alcoholics in America and only 5 percent seek rehab. But all of that changes and finally Harry faces up to facts and feelings.
Quentin Nguyễn-duy as George falls off the wagon as they all find themselves tempted by alcohol outside of the rehab. Everybody wants to save him. In fact, Chike Johnson's character is such a picture of strength that it seems as if we all forget about his struggle. Samantha Mathis as Andrea says, almost as a confession, “my mother the drunk.” Each person tells us a little bit about themselves, their family and struggle, as we watch them under the pressure of the rehab. But if for much of the play, we feel as if we are watching a group, we soon see the drama take center stage, literally and figuratively.
The residents all believe that if one fails in this fishbowl, all will, bonded by the same struggle. They succeed or sink together. When Quentin Nguyễn-duy as George drinks, we don’t just see alcoholism, but someone losing his struggle. Chike Johnson is the picture of strength, although he is broken by a brutal father. When he faces problems, it’s as if he has never exorcised the ghost of that voice in his head. We watch Harry learn he can leave, only to realize if he slips in and out, he will never learn to win his war with alcoholism. Hemingway wrote that bankruptcy happens both slowly and all at once. So does revelation here, as we watch Dan Butler as Harry take off his comic mask and go from denial and decision.
“Forget the first drink,” Portia as the group leader says. “Remember the last.”
Through much of the first part of the play, I was frustrated that Harry kept performing, rather than facing his own humanity. In the second act, comedy was replaced by honesty. And the cast rose to the occasion. Portia as leader remains detached and worldly wise, until she gets personal. Dan Butler is the one who flew over the cuckoo’s nest, until he lets go of the laughter to deal with the danger. Quentin Nguyễn-duy as George portrays a young, physically strong, but emotionally weak man who in the end finds his strength. While each actor has moving moments in their monologues, Samantha Mathis as Andrea reminds us that drinking among women has a special stigma. Gregg Mozgala carries around a secret, finally facing up to a fact that he has hidden, in this play about honesty as well as humor. When we find out a key lie he told, we realize these people aren’t here simply to deal with drinks, but to face truth and fact.
After we hear that Harry has done stand up for seven years, we understand that he uses laughter to camouflage dangerous behavior. Whether or not this is the definitive play about alcoholism and addiction to comedy as a kind of crack when it interferes with reality, after a lot of laughter, the story and the show settle down. That shiver I felt at the end reminded me that the stakes were always high. This play is about honesty and reality, recognizing our weaknesses to triumph over them, how addiction hides in plain site like a wayward wolf in sheep’s clothing. Whether or not you drink, you probably face some struggles. This is about the need to acknowledge our weakness in order to find our strengths. People here each strive to succeed for someone else – a daughter, a wife, but in the end, it is their life. The show, like Harry himself, is infuriating for so long. He has to stop being a stand up comedian before he can claim his own humanity. We hear about an intervention - including his agent - where Harry was forced to to go rehab. In the end this show feels not like an intervention, or a therapy session, although it is both, but it becomes a drama where one drink or at least one decision can destroy a life, by opening the door to the kind of destruction that, even amid the laughter, always lies, like an ambush, waiting around the corner.
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