Sandy Rustin, the playwright, just pulled off a first in neighborhood Chicago theater. She was instrumental in bringing her 2023 sexual farce stage play directly from Broadway to neighborhood Citadel Theatre in Lake Forest. Ms. Rustin grew up in Glenview and went to Northwestern University. She was influenced by Noel Coward’s “Private Lives” and Bernard Slade’s “Same Time Next Year” but creates her own unique story in “The Cottage”. It is recommended by this reviewer.
“The Cottage”, directed by Jack Hickey, opens with Sylvia, played by Elizabeth Bushell, waiting for Beau (Philip J. Macaluso), her lover, the morning after a wild sexual ramp. She and Beau have done this once per year for seven years.
Since she is now ready for a more permanent relationship and feels she can create it by sending telegrams to her husband and Beau’s wife, explaining that she and Beau are ready to begin a new life together. She suggests that divorces should be in order.
Sylvia’s husband, Clarke (Joel Ottenheimer), is aware that Beau went to his mother’s cottage for the weekend since they are brothers and speak regularly. It turns out that Clarke and Beau’s pregnant wife, Marjorie (Shannon Bachelder), are also lovers. She is actually carrying Clarke’s baby.
Both Clarke and Marjorie show up at the cottage to settle the situation. And, as if that wasn’t complex enough, Beau’s other lover, Diedre (Melody Rowland), also shows up and she is trailed by her gun wielding husband, Richard (John Dooley).
Frankly you need a score card to keep track of who is cheating on whom.
All of the colliding chaos actually is quite funny. This almost slapstick humor is enhanced by the props in the set. For example, Beau, who has given up smoking, has cigarettes stashed in very peculiar places. Some of the props are used as ridiculous weapons, as they fruitlessly attack each other. The characters are all perky and bright with Dierdre, played by Stephanie Boyd the night I attended, being particularly entertaining. Sylvia’s arc going from a flirty romantic to a level-headed independent woman, needing no men in her life, brings the story to a meaningful conclusion.
“The Cottage” is playing at Citadel Theatre, in residence in the West Campus of the Lake Forest School District at 300 S. Waukegan Road, Lake Forest. until Oct. 13. Tickets are $45 and available by phone at 847-735-8554, ext. 1 or online at www.CitadelTheatre.org.