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Eric Bogosian, the master of urban anger, has moved to the suburbs.

Saturday May 05, 2001.     By Joseph Bowen

Theater Feed

Goodman Theatre
Tickets: (312) 443-3800
Through February 21

Eric Bogosian, the master of urban anger, has moved to the suburbs. In Griller, his third full-length play, Bogosian virtually shatters the myth of the happy suburban family. So bring your appetite and the whole family (yeah, right), but bring a seat belt.

Bogosian is well known for his solo shows Drinking in America, Funhouse, Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll, and Pounding Nails in the Floor with My Forehead. He is perhaps best known, however, for his two previous full length plays, Talk Radio and subUrbia, both of which have been made into films. His solo work has an element of anarchy in it, targeting subjects such as homelessness, prejudice and drug abuse. But perhaps the most effective victim of his pen, as in Griller, is that of the rich white male and the decline of both civilization and the American family. If you think those topics are too far reaching, let me tell you, he pulls it off. It's an angstfest; but oddly, very funny.

Griller is set on the Fourth of July, in the back yard of Gussie's (Robert Klein) fieldstone house in suburban New Jersey (strangely, the kind of house you would see on the Brady Bunch or some other sitcom of the time). Gussie has made his fortune in the travel industry. His wife Michelle (Karen Valentine), who lives to shop and visit her plastic surgeon, is helping Gussie prepare for a barbecue in honor of his 50th birthday. As a present to himself, Gussie has purchased a $3,000 gas grill, complete with an intercom and an icemaker. Also attending this gathering are his two sons, Terence (Mark Grapey), an out of control stockbroker and Dylan (Mark Ruffalo), an artist and heroine addict. Also present are Terence's sexually frustrated former swimsuit model wife Roz (Nahanni Johnstone); their hyperactive son Jeremy (Alex Kirsch); Gussie's profound nursing home bound mother Grandma Betty (Irma St. Paule) and his ever suffering sister with a secret Gloria (Caroline Aaron). Into all of this add Uncle Tony (Howard Witt), a man with a mysterious past who was a friend of Gussie's father. The first act is quite funny, as we watch the workings of this troubled family, but we can see that something is really wrong here. As soon as the second act begins, we begin to see just how wrong it all is, as the family wrestle with their skeletons and their demons.

Goodman Artistic Director Robert Falls has given us a world in which nothing is as it seems and everything is deadly. Perhaps Griller is more of an apt title than it seems at first. It's almost as if everyone gets a turn on that grill. The scenic design by Derek McLane, the lighting by Kenneth Posner and the costumes by Mara Blumenfeld all perfectly convey the false sense of cheeriness that Gussie and Michelle want to pretend exists, but is so absent from this family one wonders why they try.

The actors all give fine performances. Robert Klein, as Gussie, is effervescent and proud, but always seems to have an eye on his family's crumbling stability. Karen Valentine's Michelle is bubbly for most of the play, but lashes out when her family starts to crumble. Howard Witt, demonic and mysterious as Uncle Tony, makes you wonder why he was invited at all. Marc Grapey's Terence, a stressed out mess of a man, neatly runs the gamut between the uncaring husband and jealous lover; and Irma St. Paule, who is literally nothing more than the comic relief for the majority of the play, does a wonderful job with the wisdom she imparts at the play's end.

Griller is a searing, skewering comedy. It doesn't matter which (if any) of these characters you identify with, there is something waiting for you at the Goodman.