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Mark Unger, "Drinking up the Pieces"
With a title like “Drinking Up the Pieces,” playing at the Theater Project from February 18 to February 21, actor/playwright Mark Unger is setting himself a stern task. Not only does he have to spend 1 ½ hours keeping people interested in a somewhat run-of-the-mill down-and-drunk story. He also has to make people believe he’s sticking to the facts. The spectacle of Oprah dragging crackhead wannabe James Frey over the coals for fabricating large chunks of A Million Tiny Pieces is still fresh in peoples’ minds.
What’s remarkable is that somehow Mr. Unger manages to make it work in a quickly paced, unvarnished story of two years spent on a barstool. The title may be deceptive. This isn’t a cautionary tale, an adventure, or a rehab story. At its best, it’s the story of a seedy Baltimore bar.
The bar, which exists under the alias of “Jimmy’s”, is located somewhere in the north of Baltimore. It is also the stage’s essential prop, which is cleverly painted to give us a wino’s view of a bar’s sink. It’s not a pretty bar. It’s not a Legendary Bar. It isn’t a pickup joint. It has a decent jukebox and a couple of (purely recreational, of course) one arm-bandits. And, apparently, a string of middle aged guys slouched over their whiskey shots, escaping the emptiness of their own lives.
So a standup Baltimore comic who’s been dumped by his wife walks into a bar. He slips in, grabs a stool and tells us his story. In this bar, it’s a familiar one. A beautiful Russian wife tells him, in so many words, it’s done. She’s hooked up with a young professor who’s been bamboozling her with World Trade Center conspiracy theories. She leaves with the young, blonde-haired toddler whom he has learned to call his son.
It’s the evening after. We see him telling his sad story between shots of JD. We sympathize. And yet every once in a while (Remember! This is a play!) we see her point. Anyone sitting on a stool next to him would probably buy him a shot just to shut him up. If there’s one thing that can empty any dive bar, it’s a neurotic, alcoholic lapsed Jewish standup comedian on antidepressants who’s been dumped by a beautiful woman. It could empty a theater, too.
The following scene saves the evening. Unger the playwright and director Rain Pryor, an established veteran of one-person shows, wisely restrain Unger the standup comic. Then we watch him head back to his apartment. His wife has taken everything of hers, and he’s left standing in his son’s bedroom, with nothing left but two nails, which once held up his step son’s Curious George poster. At that moment, it’s pretty clear what the play’s real drama is: in the tension between the emptiness of his life and the crowded coziness of the corner bar.
Jimmy’s takes him in, like an aging, maternal hooker, despite his obvious flaws. She lets him fiddle with her channel changer, and, at least until 2 in the morning, she leaves the door open. She doesn’t lecture him, lets him stay at her house for Christmas. The relationship is touching, but temporary. Eventually, Unger finds another woman, also beautiful, named Maria. He and Jimmy’s Bar remain good friends. But we get the impression that, should he go through the same gauntlet again, Jimmy’s will be there, and the door will be open. It may, in fact, be the one constant in that character’s life.
This production isn’t going to be endorsed by AA; in fact, Unger makes a good case for heading to the nearest watering hole whenever things start to fall apart. If there’s a cautionary tale, it’s for guys who marry women with children without backing up their stepdaddy status legally. And there may be a moral: if you dump a standup comedian, make sure you stay friends. But none of these are reasons for coming to see “Picking Up the Pieces.” Come and enjoy, because it’s a sweetly rendered story of a dive bar — the one that is lodged deeply in the American psyche. Mr. Unger’s loyalty to that place, where middle aged men head to nurse wounds and recreate themselves, remains steadfast and even touching.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Ray Bates and Curly Snide Jr, Holly Calosita. Holly Calosita said: Another Dive Bar Diva: Mark Unger Brings a Broken Heart to a Baltimore Bar: With a title like “Drinking Up the P… http://bit.ly/fQ2mCD [...]
February 20, 2011 12:43 amAs an infrequent customer at “Jimmy’s” I wish I could have seen the show.
February 21, 2011 2:55 am