Support Group for Men

A new play by Ellen Fairey

Or: They Dance

I must confess, Dear Reader, I was not looking forward to Fairey’s Support Group for Men when I trudged into the goodman theater. Presented with an evening with four guys in an Andersonville apartment using native American names and passing a “talking stick,” when a gender-creative stranger staggers into their midst, I steeled myself for an evening of ignorance and violence of one sort or another. Wrong I was. Instead I was ushered into snug apartment where Brian (Ryan Kitley), Delano (Anthony Irons) Roger (Keith Kupferer) and newcomer Kevin (Dan Lin) as they sip Rosé, talk of Two Spirits, and confront the nature of loneliness. There is ignorance, and there is violence, of a sort, but when an altercation in the street below crosses their paths with Alex (Jeff Louis Kurysz), then doors are opened into a world unlike any of them have come across before.

Fairey’s story and voice glitter in a perfectly fit dazzle of humanness. Above her airtight plot, deliciously wicked humor, magnesium flashes of poetry, and frank examination of loneliness and what we do to reach out, what defines Support Group for Men is its naturalness, that, incredible, as these events are, this could happen some Thursday night on the border of Wrigleyville and Boystown.

That same vim, that recognition, is reflected in the phenomenal performances of the cast. Even the two police officers Delgado and Nowak (Elena Flores and Steve Wojtas) exude an easy manner, wisecracking authority without a shred of artifice. Kilter and Irons, bound about the one with floating calm, trying to pour oil on troubled waters, the other with effervescent anxiety and a masterful turn for the muttered statement, and both light up in a spectacular moment of synchronization, quoting Dirty Harry. Lin is a riot; as the young Kevin, nose in his smartphone and tongue brimming with unasked-for factoids he takes delight in everything and seeds in us that same relishment. Kupferer strikes a perfect note as Rodger, the big blue color lug, the support group his only contact with the world, who doesn’t understand how times changed so fast, but still glows with his own rough goodness. Fairey and Kupferer both take us on a journey with him, to make us want to lean up against him, and show just how much good a person can do if you give them a little prompting. And Kurysz is simply beautiful as Alex, full of life, e, ricocheting from vulnerability to saucinesses to wickedness and simple snugness.

Genuine, surprising, and hilarious, Support Group for Men not only delights for 90 minutes it kindles a feeling of warmth in the belly and peace in the mind for long after that. In a world so full of trouble it is a rare play indeed that by telling stories of loneliness teaches us how not to be alone.