Sucked Into Service @ Chemically Imbalanced

Act I: 1/2 Caf Chronicals

Paul Whitehouse recounted anecdotes from his time working at Starbucks. Off-the-bat, he had an engaging & approachable stage personality. For me, his immediate backstory of the employment was a little eerie…living in Wrigleyville, a BA in Theatre, & having spent more hours than you’d ever imagined crafting coffee creations.

His strongest bit was recounting the days

after a cab drove into his Starbucks at North/Wells.

People made the same lame joke:

“I didn’t know this was a drive-through location”

332 times. I so relate to his pain.

“The Coffee Serving Muppet Machine”

He spent equal energy dissecting his relationship with the management as he did recounting interactions with the customers. This was a strong balance, but his narratives relating to the customers had a much stronger, more cohesive point-of-view. The only bit that recurred throughout the whole skit was one in which he imitated Muppets portraying his bosses. He had good miming capabilities (especially of Elmo & the Cookie Monster) & physicality, but the point of the Muppetizing was foggy. The common strand of Muppetzing bosses cost some of the quality of his more insightful & subtle observations at times, the imitations even blurred the clarity of his story’s narrative line. The whole performance piece would have been stronger without the impressions and a dedicated reliance on his ideas.

One Moral I Appreciated:

Don’t leave gum under the table

because someday a human being will have to clean it.

Act II: Trapped in a Box

At intermission, I had a conversation with my friend because I was unsure if would I like the structure & I was wondering how interesting a solitary job could be. All of the anecdotes from the first piece were recounting interactions with 3-D humans. But the question posed to me in response was:

Aren’t people more obnoxious on the phone than in real-life?

It turned out to be true that there is more meat for humor erupting from a situation where humans can be faceless jerks. More of the root of the humor was found in recorded phone conversations, so the central character was largely reactionary, which is still to her credit since she wrote the show.

My first impression was that the styling was too colorful & over-stylized. This heightened tone was maintained throughout the piece. Her reactions were strong, quick, & extreme. Her emotions & physicality too pronounced. Initially she, created a character who was more bratty than whose frustrations were authentic & actually relatable. She reacted to the phone calls before we had a chance to develop the same perspective her character had already developed. The whining got old until she warmed the audience up. I grew to like her performance more as it progressed, and she turned out to be a very committed, talented performer. Eventually, I realized her attitude was based on frustration of being pulled upon & intrinsically dissatisfied with her life situation. 

Best Line:

"Gotta get me off the bottom of my totem pole"

And the production couldn't have faded out with a better song:

Billy Joel's Vienna