[title]
Denny (Vincent Regan) and Joey (David Schaal) are Chicago police officers. While they might not be the most bent cops in the world, they’re hardly model law enforcers. Hot-tempered Denny blames his career stagnation on quotas and positive discrimination. Recovering alcoholic Joey takes his partner’s roughness (‘you dumb Irish tampon!’) on the chin. Trying to help his childhood buddy dry out, Denny invites Joey over for dinner with his family – along with a prostitute, hoping she’ll cheer him up.
Things spiral quickly thereafter, from a run-in with her pimp, to an attack on Denny’s home, to the discovery of a semi-naked Vietnamese teenager in an alleyway. Not that we ever witness this first-hand: the fourth wall is broken from the outset as both men half-recount, half-re-enact the tragic events of a summer of violence, betrayal and unending rain.
The manner in which the storytelling conjures a fast-moving sequence of events is something to perhaps be expected of playwright Keith Huff, whose CV also includes ‘House of Cards’ and ‘Mad Men’. In lesser hands, it might feel in thrall to a television narrative. But Andrew Pearson’s production makes clever, imaginative use of a versatile interview-room set and the scant props, while Regan and Schaal nail the accents and hard-boiled dialogue. Ultimately, your enjoyment of this will depend on whether you’re into themes already exhaustively explored in American bloke-written fiction: the instinct for violence, the desire to protect, shagging your best mate’s wife, etc. If you are, then go see this.