In the second act of All the Fame of Lofty Deeds, Mark Guarino’s homage to the music and art of Jon Langford, the title character tells a smarmy rock journalist/horse (stay with me), “You’re going to write a piece that in no way represents the people and places my stories come from.” Which is funny, because that’s exactly what Guarino has done in this ambitious but disappointing production from the House Theatre of Chicago. The band sounds pretty good, but the show suffers from narrative rootlessness and underdeveloped characters. Apparently unable to decide on what story he’s most interested in telling, Guarino throws a lot of strands at the wall to see what will stick—and what will allow a segue to a musical interlude.
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And that’s a damn shame, because Langford deserves a great, imaginative theatrical setting. The Welsh-born Chicago transplant cofounded the legendary British punk band the Mekons and has become the godfather of alt country with the Waco Brothers and other local bands. (He’s also built a career as a visual artist using classic country and western iconography, and the House was smart enough to get him to do the painting for Lee Keenan’s set here.) But Langford’s thorny adult complexity doesn’t lend itself well to the House’s trademark adolescent whimsy, no matter how much director Tommy Rapley tries to up the octane.
Lofty is supposed to be old enough to qualify for a retirement home. He should probably resemble Harry Dean Stanton, but Nathan Allen looks like he’s on the fresh side of 30, which doesn’t make it any easier to relate to him. Though Allen gesticulates theatrically with the booze and the pill bottles, little in his overplayed performance suggests a worn-out soul. Ironically, he comes across as exactly the sort of plastic New Country performer Guarino’s script rails against. Allen isn’t a bad singer by any means—he’s just not an interesting one. A show that’s at least in part about “the death of country music,” as one Waco Brothers song puts it, requires someone with dangerous charisma to burn—someone who can growl as easily as he croons.
