'1985' by Factory Theater: Chicago Bears satire '1985' is double-plus ungood
THEATER REVIEW: "1985" ★½ Through Nov. 7 by Factory Theater at Storefront Theater, 66 E. Randolph St.; Running time: 1 hour, 25 minutes; Tickets: $25 at 312-742-8497 or www.dcatheater.org
If you're headed to an original comedy show about the fans of the Chicago Bears in the mid-1980s, you expect to see a lovably nostalgic treatment of shuffling Bears Nation obsessives: da guys, Ditka, da Refrigerator, dat kind of stuff. You don't expect a dystopian, Orwellian satire that recasts Bears fans as totalitarians, killing off art and culture, railing against the Cheeseheads of Dairyland and sticking those who resist Bear-ification (and refuse to Bear-ify or offer their Bear-imony) into their own personal version of George Orwell's Room 101.
“1985,” Chas Vrba's 85-minute piece for the Factory Theater, even has the characters Julia, Winston and O'Brien from Orwell's “1984” (Julia is actually coach Don Shula's daughter, making her seduction of Winston all the more egregious to the leaders of Bears Nation). And “Papa Bear” George Halas sees and controls all. Vrba, who also stars as Winston, certainly deserves points for a zesty and original concept. And, in the first few minutes, you think the show (remounted in the Storefront Theater in the Loop), is going to be darkly amusing. Some of the performances are colorful. And I'm still chuckling at the moment when someone calls a Vienna Beef hot dog “double-plus good.”
But it all lands in the tank before long.
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