Touch of finesse could rescue “Liz”

Michael Phillips, theatre critic
Chicago Tribune
Published May 14, 2003

lt's amazing how a play's funniness quotient slides up or down the scale depending on the performers. David Sedaris' solo piece "The SantaLand Diaries," expanded from a National Public Radio "Morning Edition" segment about his stint as a Macy's Christmas elf, worked wonderfully as heard in Sedaris' comically depressed on-air delivery.

On stage, performed by someone else, it can go either way: l've seen performers hit "SantaLand" with a nice, dry, deadly thwack, and l've seen it pumped up with the wrong kind of energy. So it is with "The Book of Liz," a comedy by Amy Sedaris ("Strangers With Candy," "Wigtown") and brother David, together billed as The Talent Family. Roadworks Productions opened the Chicago premiere Sunday at the Chopin Theatre. lt's a moderately funny but immoderately forced rendition of material that needs to be finessed Just so. In its New York premiere, Amy Sedaris played the role of Sister Elizabeth Donderstock, one of the "Squeamish" " a strict religious community much like the Amish but more so, shunning conveniences and distractions. Coping with what the play's stage directions refer to as "a remarkable perspiration disorder," Liz makes the legendary cheese balls (regular and smoky) for which the Squeamish are famous, along with their plain, unadorned furniture and annual chastity parade.

But Brother Brightbee has notions of improving the community's productivity and grabbing control of the cheese balls away from Liz. In despair Liz takes flight, meeting up with a Ukrainian with a Cockney accent employed as a roadside Mr. Peanut figure. lt's the first of many picaresque adventures in the "real" World for the Sedaris' heroine.

The writing is clever, multi-directionally rude - recovering alcoholics come in for some of the meaner, better barbs " and not easy to nail in performance. Allowing for opening-night jumpiness, director Birgitta Victorson (a choreogapher making her directorial debut) and her quartet of actors haven't yet settled into a rhythm, or tone. The production doesn't feel in synch with the play: These caricatures require speed and fearlessness but aiso a light touch.

Maggie Camey's Lizworks in perpetual slack-jawed happiness mode; she's a likable performer, but the approach is more sketch-comic than full-length-comedy-comic. ("Liz" runs about 90 minutes, no intermission.) Aaron Cedolia plays the rigid Rev. Tollhouse, among others; Robert Kaercher portrays the Squeamish newbie, Brother Brightbee; and most successfully, Mierka Girten whips from Liz's nattering, bitter rival, to Cockney-Ukrainian, to heinous New Yorker visiting Squeamish country.

The Sedaris siblings should write another full-length play, soon. This one's funny in its deadpan way, but "deadpan" is not a quality emerging naturally from Roadworks' staging.