'Do the Hustle' at Writers' Theatre: The con game gets personal in Neveu's 'Hustle'
THEATER REVIEW: "Do the Hustle" ★★½ Through March 20 at Writers' Theatre, 325 Tudor Court, Glencoe; Running time: 1 hour, 25 minutes; Tickets: $46-$65 at 847-242-6000 or www.writerstheatre.org
On one level, “Do the Hustle,” the latest play from Brett Neveu, is a typically sparse and elliptical drama about a father-and-son team of Chicago con men. Small-time grifters who knock off convenience stores and library patrons for a few bucks, Eddie (Francis Guinan) and Sam (Patrick Andrews) are also engaged in an increasingly desperate battle for power and control, meaning they need to con each other as much as their marks.
But this 85-minute play, premiering at Writers' Theatre under the sympathetic direction of William Brown, is no mere crime procedural. It's a lot more personal than that.
“Hey, some of that s--- you said before,” says Eddie, critiquing his 18-year-old kid after the first con we see, “didn't sound like part of the play.”
And at another, even more telling moment, Sam fights back against his dad's telling him what to say: “I'm gonna do it in my own form and function, depending on how I feel,” the young hustler says, defiantly. “Once I get out from under.”
I'm not inside Neveu's head, and all decent playwrights (a category that includes Neveu) must put themselves in their writing. But it surely feels like “Do the Hustle” is really about a talented and restless writer, probing his own creative and professional state and firing off a few shots at the critics and industry types who have sometimes suggested that Neveu's love of the dramatic withholding of information holds him back — making his plays inaccessible and insufficiently clear.
I suspect he's also hoping some of its bullets will land in the hearts of those who have compared him with David Mamet or other high-pressure Chicago comparatives.
Neveu moved from Chicago to Los Angeles, and “Do the Hustle” feels a lot like the play a lot of frustrated playwrights find themselves penning once they get to that mercurial place, where symbols and feelings must be explained to kids with too much power. Any writer can sympathize — powerful pedants are pervasive. At one other point, Eddie seems to take on a voice of authority, familiar to frustrated scribes in love with the oblique: “You think stuff plays out random, with nothing behind it?” he taunts, before saying what happens to those who insist on seeing the world in such a way: “You'll find yourself in a dark corner out in the cold.”
Well, only sometimes. It all depends how the random plays out.
Many great playwrights have written their why-they-won't-let-me-be-me-and-still-pay-me play, so Neveu is in fine company. And indeed, “Do the Hustle” is intriguing and rather enjoyable without delving into any writerly subtext. (It's a four-hander, also featuring Joe Minoso and Karen Janes Woditsch, who plays a little clutch of mostly maternal figures). But in general, most writers are better off getting such a play out of their system and moving on. This is no exception. And, yes, I wouldn't say those in the seats around me felt fully satisfied.
You'll be satisfied with the acting, through — Guinan and Andrews are superb. Brown humanizes the play throughout. Writers' Theatre is laudably standing by a writer to whom it has made a commitment. In return, Neveu is staring down some demons. I am all the more interested, now, to see what comes out of all this on the other side.
Could not agree more with this review. In fact, we liked it even less, leaving early during one of the fade-outs in this terminally boring intermissionless performance. Maybe the acting was good. But, the story and the characters are not interesting enough to carry them.
Posted by: Jim Chamberlain | February 08, 2011 at 06:39 AM
"And indeed, 'Do the Hustle' is intriquing and rather enjoyable without delving into any writerly subtext." Isn't this where the review should start? Not after all the "I'm not in Neveu's head, but..." and "I suspect he's also hoping..." which is all your conjecture and simply has nothing to do with the play. This is an unfair review, Mr. Jones, and I expect more from you. If you really must present some personal context for the play, you might look to the fact that Mr. Neveu is now a father and the play deals in the complicated territory of fatherhood.
Posted by: Theatre Insider | February 08, 2011 at 11:43 AM
This review is total gibberish. This is all your projection onto a play that is a pretty standard issue little drama. It's about con men. Nothing more, nothing less.
Posted by: dh | February 08, 2011 at 04:01 PM
this review told me nothing about what the play is about.
Posted by: disappointed -- but I shouldnt be | February 09, 2011 at 06:15 PM
If you wanted to communicate to the playwright Chris, then you should have done so privately. But who is the audience for this piece of highly subjective twaddle? Certainly not your readers!!
Posted by: Confused | February 09, 2011 at 11:14 PM
You spent the majority of this review fleshing out your take on what this play means about the playwright. It's your own theory and I can't imagine anyone else walked out thinking that this father-son con man tale had anything to do with the writer's thoughts on his career.
The show is somewhat cliched and needlessly obtuse, but it's an enjoyable father-son story about the short con. There, I wrote a review of the show in one sentence that did not include armchair psychoanalysis.
Posted by: hen | February 10, 2011 at 06:32 AM