In comments to be found in the program for Strawdog Theatre’s production of his 2015 satire, Barbecue, Robert O’Hara identifies a TV genre he calls “watching white people do shit.” “There are all these reality shows: watch the white guy build a house, watch the white guy fix the car, watch the white guy go around the world and eat,” he says. “Or the show where you watch the white girl who is 16 and pregnant. I know 16-year-old black people who are pregnant. I don’t know why they don’t have a television show.”
Director Damon Kiely and his double-five-member cast are more than up to it all. Celeste M. Cooper and Anita Deely supply the lowest of the low humor as the Maries—though only Cooper gets the splendid passage about how “middle easterners” put cancer in corn cans. Barbara Figgins and Deanna Reed-Foster both make canny, formidable Lillie Annes. Ginneh Thomas and Abby Pierce are cynically compatible pieces of work as the Zippity Booms. v
Through 9/30: Fri 8 PM, Sat 3:30 and 8 PM, Sun 3:30 PM 1700 Theatre 1700 N. Halsted 312-335-1650strawdog.org $45
