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'Men aren't very good at expressing their feelings' would appear to be the underlying message of this self-consciously strange play by Chicago-based writer Bryn Magnus. Debt collector Tanner (Simon Deborough) falls in love with waitress Rita (Martha O'Toole) but bridles at his own amorous inarticulacy; a visit to a coke-addled dentist then points to some startling activity on the part of adopted Tanner's real 'parents', scientists unafraid of re-sequencing genes out of a sense of curiosity.
Plot and dialogue are extremely baroque: characters launch into a pseudo-poetic patois aimed at evoking a visceral masculinity - lots of gym talk and the occasional explicit physical threat ('I will strip you nude and knock your balls about with a spoon') - while the action mixes Sam Shepard-style cowboy mythology with the sort of oddball twists the Coen brothers specialise in.
There's plenty of talent on display in Max Jerschke's faithful production: the leads are particularly good. But the writing's emphasis on huge, weird gestures rather than the minutiae of courtship ultimately undermines dramatic interest.
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