Parlour Song

The brand of seeping suburban ennui that’s Parlour Song’s mise-en-scène is a British variant of that typically ascribed to Cheever and Updike. But if we’re playing the Inevitable Comparisons game, Butterworth’s play begs for reference to another writer of indelible stamp. The playwright has spoken repeatedly of his admiration for Harold Pinter (who appeared in the film version of Butterworth’s Mojo), and Parlour Song seems to aim for the sense of ruefulness and danger that saturates Pinter’s relationship plays.

Butterworth’s script, though, comes off a bit overgroomed and underfed. Ned, a demolition expert grown flabby with the onset of early middle age in a cookie-cutter cul-de-sac community, confides in his friend and neighbor Dale that his things—a pair of cuff links, a set of Victorian postcards, his lawn mower—are unaccountably disappearing from his house. After 11 years of marriage, Ned’s wife, the ironically named Joy, can barely stomach her husband’s presence but gives a halfhearted go of keeping up appearances.

Steep’s Chicago premiere features the kind of acting one expects from the company—smart and muscular without turning showy—but it’s hampered by Butterworth’s attempt to splice docudrama realism with Sarah Ruhl–like symbolism (Ned is both a demolition expert who savors videos of buildings imploding and a Scrabble aficionado who wakes up one morning with a “blank” tile stuck to his forehead). While director Witt proved her metaphor mettle with last year’s elliptical thriller Breathing Corpses, Butterworth’s desire to have it both ways falls short of achieving either.

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