From the archives: March, 2009: A first class thriller about philately

March 23, 11:43 AMChicago Theatre Review ExaminerCatey Sullivan

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Photos by Michael Brosilow. From left: Ann Adams, Dan Kuhlman and Suzanne Lang in Mauritius. Bottom (from left): Adams, Kuhlman and Baker.

Although it only lasted 61 performances on Broadway, Theresa Rebeck’s noir-and-Mamet infused Mauritius is one of the most produced dramas in the country. (No less than 9 regional theaters staged the show in 2008 according to the Theater Communications Group, tying it with The Glass Menagerie.)

Take in Northlight Theatre’s suspenseful, jagged-edged and terrifically entertaining production and the appeal of the show is obvious. Directed by Rick Snyder, Mauritius is defined by vividly idiosyncratic characters, an emotionally (and ultimately physically) violent conflict and a series of scene-ending cliff-hangers that leave you awaiting each new plot twist like a kid between death-loops on a roller coaster.
Rebeck’s story is shadowed by the seedy grifters in Mamet’s “American Buffalo,” with terse, bullets of dialogue reminiscent of “Double Indemnity” and a narrative that veers with the delicious hairpins of “House of Games.” But thanks to a cast that absolutely owns the story, “Mauritius” is far more than an echo of its classic predecessors.

At the piece’s conniving heart: The dark and dangerous world of stamp collecting – specifically, a pair of penny postage stamps from the tiny island of Mauritius. “The Holy Grail of Philately,” the pair is worth many millions. The corkscrew tale centers on who will cash in on stamps that represent not just money, but the chance to reinvent dead-end lives of not-so-quiet desperation.

Among the desperate are Jackie (Anne Adams) and Mary (Suzanne Lang), half sisters mired in a poisonous family history. Also involved in the black market wrangling are Philip (Gary Houston), the chronically morose owner of a shabby stamp store, Dennis (Dan Kuhlman), a con-artist who oh-so-mistakenly pegs Jackie as a “lamb” and Sterling (Lance Baker) a collector whose attraction to rare stamps borders on pornographic levels of ecstasy. (“You touched them. I can’t stand that,” he slavers at one point, and if you didn’t know better, you’d swear he was talking about his wife.)
Baker is exquisitely villainous, looking like he’s dyed his very eyeballs black for the role. He also manages to imbue one of the world’s most commonly used two-word, seven-letter imperative expletives with more shades of emotion than a week-long therapy session. It’s the swear-word equivalent of that beer commercial that consists solely of a dozen or so variations on the exclamation “Dude!”

As Jackie, Adams is as tough as she is damaged, the kind of girl you would not want to go up against in a back-alley smack-down. Lang’s Mary is Jackie’s opposite, prissy, self-centered and so hypocritically self-righteous you want to strangle her as much as Jackie does. When she’s finally sent sprawling by a knuckle sandwich served up with all the trimmings, it’s tempting to break out in applause. Kuhlman and Houston are equally memorable as con artists, each depicting a different version of a life-long loser who sees one final shot at the brass ring in the Mauritius postage.
Precisely who is conning who remains uncertain to the end – which comes with a plot twist that’s a bit too tidy and not wholly believable. In this case, that dramatic flaw is fully forgivable. Mauritius is a first-class diversion.