The Chicago School of drama, led by such as David Mamet, Nelson Algren and Tracy Letts, involves pain, profanity and polarization, in almost-equal parts. It's well-represented in newcomer Keith Huff's "A Steady Rain," which opened last night in the Rep's Studio Theatre and will run through Feb. 5.
It's tough theater, directed in proper style by Steven Woolf, with powerful acting from Joey Collins as Denny and Michael James Reed as Joey. It plays out in a gloomy police precinct interrogation room, though the actors' conversations leads us to living rooms and other places, but the location is unimportant. We have two characters in a love-hate relationship, like so many two-handers, but it certainly holds our focus, or did mine until a softball ending left me squirming.
Denny and Joey are lifelong friends; Italian-American Denny and Irish-American Joey went to "kinnergarten" together. As grown-ups, at least physically, they're beat cops, passed over for promotion because they don't deserve it. Joey drinks, Denny is on the take from streetwalkers and pimps, which he defends as preserving the capitalistic system and protecting the girls from violence. And his almost-constant profanity, much of it close to being racially tinged, makes others uncomfortable, which is the mildest possible description.
As Denny says, "You got a problem with the bottle, I got a problem with my mouth. We're helping each other out, right?"
Joey, who has been the victim of Denny's sadistic bullying since childhood, says nothing. He lives alone, with a bottle as a companion. Denny, honestly trying to keep his buddy sober, invites him for dinner a lot. Denny has a house and a family; he is so protective of them that he's willing to demonstrate to his wife, two children and a dog named Heinz what he is protecting them from. A classic controlling bully and abuser.
Denny also is having a feud with a pimp, partly over a girl named Rhonda, whom Denny also likes, invites to dinner, offers to Joey. A real buddy, right? And when the two policemen carelessly make a terrible mistake, the balloon goes up.
Both Collins and Reed offer strong performances; Collins' ice-blue eyes make some of his anger even more frightening, and Woolf's direction turns both men into fierce creatures. Robert Mark Morgan's set is magnificently drab, with window blinds that occasionally open to show a city out there, and Dorothy Marshall Englis' costumes are a perfect match. Peter Sargent's lighting helps create an impressive mood. It's a worthy production, but a shame that Huff didn't finish as strongly as he began.
A Steady Rain, a Repertory Theatre of St. Louis Studio Theatre production, opened Jan. 20 and will run through Feb. 5
—Joe