Nina Metz

There is nothing subtle about this terrorism-inspired comedy by British playwright James Walker (currently in a U.S. debut at Actors Workshop Theatre), but subtlety isn't the point where terrorism is concerned. To that end, Walker certainly gets his meaning across. Jennings, an upper-middle-class barrister, checks into the hospital for a heart transplant only to learn that he has an actual ticker inside his chest--a time bomb wired to go off in less than an hour. In a style part Marx Brothers, part Monty Python, he is swiftly accused of being a suicide bomber and his "caregivers"--various idiotic functionaries of the British government's war-on-terrorism--use whatever means necessary to extract information. This transpires much to Jennings' confusion and deepening fear; he doesn't know how the bomb got there, either. But once the jumper cables get clamped to his legs--earlier, the cables dangle ominously from under the hospital bed in a profoundly unsettling image--Jennings is willing to say just about anything. And absurd as it may seem, in light of recent events, a surgically implanted bomb is no less fathomable than, say, a shampoo bomb. The script itself is difficult and demands whippet-fast delivery and abrupt changes in tone. That's not easy to pull off, but director G.J. Cederquist--a friend of the playwright's since their time in the mid-nineties as students at a British boarding school--has cast the production with a careful eye for the play's idiosyncrasies. (The lone exception is the nurse, played by Julie Griffith with a tenuous grasp on her English accent and the quirkiness of the role.) Despite the obviousness of the play's intent, it works on a number of levels--not the least of which is that of a visceral horror story. At one point, Jennings is left to stew in his own panic, strapped to the bed and blind in the darkness--and very aware that someone is in the room with him. As disturbing moments go, it's a doozy.

"Proving Mr. Jennings" plays at the Actors Workshop Theatre, 1044 West Bryn Mawr, (773)728-7529, through September 3.

(2006-08-15)

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