Theatre Oobleck's production of Jeff Dorchen's "Strauss at Midnight" is the kind of show that demands a lot from its audience - most obviously, some familiarity with its large and complicated cast of characters, some historical and some fictional. The play takes place in one of the most iconic settings in American theater: the filthy, garbage-strewn apartment of Oscar Madison in Neil Simon's "The Odd Couple."
"Strauss" posits that this apartment is in fact, a central point in the reality of the universe, and a gateway to an afterlife, which may or may not be Hell, that contains the titular Leo Strauss (David Shapiro), among others. Strauss was a University of Chicago professor widely considered to be the intellectual godfather of the Neo-Conservative movement, which recently cheerfully led America into a bloody war in Iraq. Strauss is accompanied, among other characters, by his disciple, Allan Bloom (Troy Martin) whose mind was damaged in the transition to the underworld and now behaves, hilariously, as a feral dog. The underworld then welcomes the arrival of Chicago novelist Saul Bellow (David Isaacson) who was once sympathetic to the neo-cons but is now horrified by the suffering they have wrought.
Meanwhile the world of the Odd Couple is undergoing bizarre changes because of a millionaire going back in time and stepping on a butterfly. Felix and Oscar (played by Brian Nemtusak and H.B. Ward in a very amusing Lemmon and Matthau re-creation) and their friends find themselves going through dizzying changes of memory and personality, and historical era, because of the temporal distortions. The two storylines eventually collide, as Strauss and Bloom escape to the Odd Couple world and take advantage of the situation.
The thematic similarities between the two storylines are not obvious at first but unfold themselves slowly with a deft allegorical subtlety. A supremely entertaining look at the mindset that leads to very dismal events, "Strauss" is worth seeing, more than once.
Reviewed by Centerstage!
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