"American Buffalo" is considered to be playwright David Mamet's breakout piece, a small-cast, dialogue-heavy play about some small-time crooks bumbling backward into a take.
It might not have the same power for Rubber Chicken Theater. Perhaps it is too much of a niche production to go up against the Duluth Playhouse's "Our Town," -- who doesn't love "Our Town"? -- and Renegade Theater Company's take on the rock musical "Tommy," featuring local rock band Cars & Trucks. Attendance was dangerously light at the Venue at Mohaupt Block for Thursday night's opening -- which butted up against the opening of the other two shows.
Let's just say that anyone could have sprung for a round of drinks without breaking the bank.
This is unfortunate, as "American Buffalo," directed by Minden Anderson, is a verbal treat, funny and jostling with three actors wringing the sweat out of the petty thieves they portray.
Donny (Tony Barrett) is the mostly cool-headed owner of a junk store in Chicago, and has taken under his plaid-shirt wing the bumbly-fumbly Bobby (Tate Haglund-Pagel) -- offering such wisdom as why breakfast is important, and how you can't live on cigarettes alone. They have sold a customer a coin for what they believe now is an insufficient amount of cash, and are plotting to break into the man's home. Their whispered plans are overheard by Teach (Brian Matuszak), a jittery and opinionated insomniac who, through the course of the play, gets Donny to cut Bobby out of the action, while inserting himself into the scheme.
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The play is rich in talky-talky, and it's Teach who becomes a sort of one-man perpetuator of movement. Matuszak, sporting a mini-pony tail, plays him in nic-fit like bursts of spastic nervous energy, plucking at his nose, gesturing like a maestro, pacing and riffing tirades. He got as many laughs when spewing vitriol as he did when he was fidgeting and dumping bits of bacon onto a piece of pie.
Barrett's old-man junk store owner is so convincing, you can almost smell the stale coffee on him and hear his back creaking. His control is pitted nicely against his rare fevered explosions.
Because it is Mamet, you expect swears said with the same intensity as, say, any other noun or action verb in the dictionary, and the kind of phraseology that really rankles the editorial staff at Ms. Magazine. In a pre-show recording, Matuszak provides a warning emphasizing that "American Buffalo" is not for the delicate-eared. He drops a comical number of F-bombs -- enough to make you stop and think: "Wow. Swearing is super hilarious."
