Anne Fogarty in "Facts and Figures"
From the Chicago Reader NOV-99The Penlight Theater presents Eric Ziegenhagen’s drama about long-distance telephone conversations between a traveling management consultant and her boyfriend. “Ziegenhagen’s naturalistic script . . . doesn’t offer many surprises. . . . But for this playwright the ends aren’t nearly as important as the means: ultimately it’s [his] direction . . . that makes Facts and Figures stand out. [His] minimalist lighting design [is] a simple but powerful choice: short of having his actors phone in their performances, [he] could not have come closer to staging actual phone conversations. . . . In the hands of a less accomplished pair of actors, the tightly wound Facts and Figures might have unraveled into another tedious exercise in one-dimensional performance. But part of what makes the script so convincing is the remarkable chemistry between John Roberts and Anne Fogarty,” said Reader critic Nick Green when he reviewed the show’s original run as part of this year’s Rhinoceros Theater Festival. Live Bait Theater, 3914 N. Clark, 312-409-2674. Through December 18: Thursdays and Saturdays, 7:30 PM. $10.