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An audience of eight sits and watches the opera.

Saturday May 05, 2001.     By Eric Rosenblum

Theater Feed

Terrapin Theatre At Chicago Dramatists
1105 W. Chicago Ave.
Tickets: (773) 989-1006
Through December 31

An audience of eight sits and watches the opera. As they enjoy the show, some of them listening blissfully to the music, others on the brink of sleep, a man in the back row sneezes violently, spraying a heap of snot into the hair of a highly-decorated official who is sitting in front of him. The man spends the rest of the performance feebly trying to remove his boogers from the officer's head as his wife scolds him for his messy mistake.

No, it's not an episode of Benny Hill. The volatile scenario described above is the highlight of Terrapin Theater's homage to Anton Chekhov, a dramatic presentation of the author's humorous short stories and plays called, The Sneeze. The ensemble put together these eight vignettes, translated and adapted by Michael Frayn, to show Chicago audiences what Chekhov was best known for during his nineteenth century literary career: his ability to make people laugh. The group achieves varying results.

The show is most enjoyable when it takes itself lightly. The title story, The Sneeze directed by Ronald Jiu, is undoubtedly the funniest sketch. In The Proposal, the excellent Dominic Conti displays a talent for slapstick comedy in his portrayal of a man who suffers through severe neuroses, heart palpitations and paralysis from the waist down as he attempts to propose to the woman who he loves. And Swan Song, a more serious piece about a drunken actor at the end of his career (Dominic Conti, again), has an affecting honesty.

The other sketches are easily forgettable and poorly done. In The Evils of Tobacco, actor Steve Emily lacks subtlety as he drones on and on about his horrible life. Drama, about a woman who intrudes on an established writer to perform for him a play that she wrote, is only vaguely amusing. And in The Bear, a short piece about a man (Steve Emily) who has come to collect money from a recent widow (Beverly Coscarelli), the two actors fail to create the sexual tension that would make the piece interesting to watch.

Despite impressive performances by Dominic Conti and Casey Hayes, The Sneeze never has enough substance or comedy to justify itself. The show's underdeveloped pathos and meek humor elicit only surface laughter and vague feelings of sympathy for the characters. Clocking in at over two hours long, the most authentic emotion that this performance inspires is the desire to leave.

The Sneeze runs Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 PM and Sundays at 3 PM. Price: $12.50-15.50.