Steadstyle Chicago
	January 2010 Theatre Review by Joe Stead
	It Runs in the Family I believe Noel Coward once said that he preferred a well-dressed lie to the naked truth any day.  After all the misery, despair, angst and so-called "truth" evoked by several of our city's esteemed storefront theatres lately, what a delight and relief it was to spend a couple of hours of pure unambiguous entertainment at the reliable suburban Attic Playhouse.  Ray Cooney is known as the master of the modern British farce and his populist works have enjoyed considerable success on both sides of the Atlantic.  The Attic is currently having a fling with Cooney's 1987 farce "It Runs in the Family," and what a lively and dizzying fling it is. As one of the characters declares, "If you're going to tell a lie, tell a whopper!"  No, that character is not a politician or a current political candidate either.  In Cooney's topsy turvy world, everything spins on a lie and as we all know in order to keep one lie going you need to tell a whole series.  It's almost a balancing act to see how many plates the juggler can keep up in the air without breaking.  Director Donna Lubow respects the time tested formula of farce: keep it fast, frivolous and funny.  As I once learned from a prominent Chicago and Broadway director, there is also a certain pure logic in farce.  Everything must make sense on a basic level, even as the situation becomes heightened and the complications escalate into pure pandemonium.  So it works here, and the cast is thoroughly game for every outrageous blow. The play is set in St. Andrews Hospital, London three days before Christmas.  While several of the doctors are anticipating the annual Christmas Pantomime, the head physician Dr. David Mortimore is working feverishly to complete a lecture he is supposed to deliver as the keynote speaker for an annual neurologists convention.  When a former nurse and one time flame, Jane Tate shows up at the hospital out of the blue after 18 years, Dr. Mortimore's distractions begin to mount.  It seems that their secret and highly inappropriate liaison produced a child the good doctor never knew about, and for the boy's 18th birthday Jane has revealed to her son who his father is.  Well, sort of.  The happily married doctor must quickly spin a series of lies to keep the boy Leslie, his unsuspecting wife Rosemary, his professional colleagues and an inquisitive police inspector off the track.  The central character, Doctor Mortimore is really a louse, and with a slightly different tone could be considered the villain of the piece.  His selfish, arrogant behavior comes to cause much pain and consternation to everyone in the play, including himself.  And yet Joshua Harris stylishly and confidently meets every hurtle, allowing us to laugh at Mortimer's lies and indiscretions.  Dave Lemrise is superb as his co-conspirator Doctor Bonney, at once combining a soft shoe routine into one cover-up and a pretty solid Al Jolson imitation into another with spot-on timing.  Thom Powers' exasperated Police Sergeant is another comical highlight. Denyse Leahy is a hoot as the harried Matron who winds up feeling the effects of her own medicine, and Jim Scott contributes a delightful supporting performance as an elderly patient who gets mixed up in the shenanigans.  Watching him getting slammed repeatedly into a wall in a wheelchair is quite alarming.  Credit Damian Arnold for both the Stage Combat and British Dialect coaching, both excellent.  Good theatre does not always have to be depressing and I truly believe that laughter is the best medicine for what ails us.  If you want to forget your woes and have a fun evening of escapist entertainment, plan your escape to Attic Playhouse for "It Runs in the Family". "It Runs in the Family" runs through March 14, 2010 at Attic Playhouse, located at 410 Sheridan Road in Highwood.  The play runs 2 hours 10 minutes with intermission.  Performances are Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 p.m. and Sundays at 3:00 p.m. (except no matinee on 1/31).  Tickets are $20 with advanced purchase and $22 at the door.  Special discounts are given to Senior Citizens (age 65+), Students (age 21 & younger), Active Duty Military Personnel and groups.  Call (847) 433-2660 or visit www.atticplayhouse.com.       About Joe Stead Joe Stead has enjoyed a lifelong passion for the theatre, which has involved acting, directing, producing, designing and reviewing for the past twenty-five years.  He served as founder, producer and Artistic Director of Curtain Up Productions in Baltimore, Maryland and Four Star Players in Tampa, Florida.  Favorite productions have included "Life With Father," "Deathtrap," "The Odd Couple," "The Miracle Worker," "Brighton Beach Memoirs," "You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown" and "Godspell".  He has also performed leading roles in "Fiddler on the Roof," "Pippin," "The Phantom of the Opera," "The Front Page," and most recently as Hucklebee in "The Fantasticks" for Waukegan Community Players.  Joe holds a degree in Commercial Art from Tampa Technical Institute.  As a critic, he has reviewed everything from Broadway to community theatre and major regional theatres throughout the United States including the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey, Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut, and the Asolo Theatre in Sarasota, Florida.  Since 1998, he has been a proud resident of Chicago, the greatest theatre city in America.  He served for two years as Theatre Editor for College News and Central Newspapers.  He created the website Steadstyle Chicago in 2000 to showcase the city's outstanding and diverse theatre scene.  Joe was proud to serve alongside a distinguished panel of theatre professionals as a judge for two seasons of Speaking Ring Theatre's "Vitality" Festival of original short plays.  His most fulfilling role, in addition to reviewer and all-around theatre fanatic, was as director of the 2007 production of Peter Shaffer's "Equus" at Actors Workshop (now Redtwist) Theatre, which was nominated for five Joseph Jefferson Award Citations and won for Best Actor (Peter Oyloe).