Tonight I went out to see a show called Infinite Wrench put on by the Neo Futurists in Chicago. I have actually been to the theater once before, all the way back in 2015 for a show I remember fondly. It’s always fun to see a local show and honestly after tonight I feel a bit silly for taking so long to go back.
Infinite Wrench is 30 plays in 60 minutes with the plays ordered off a menu, which is to say that the audience yells out the numbers. Some are funny. Some are pithy. We got through all 30 plays today so I guess I got my moneys worth.
Funnily enough one of the plays I liked the most was because I misread the menu. The play was titled “Visiting Witcha” but I thought it said “Visiting Wichita”. All four actors were speaking at the same time, but the closest to me was repeating over and over “it’s always too much, and it’s never enough”. Wichita always seemed to me like a place that one’s family is from, full of kindly grandparents and distant cousins. On the one hand long visits with family can fray the nerves, especially when the family is a little distant. Still, many people have family relationships they wish they had done more to nurture, especially when the events of our lives unexpectedly take that option away. I don’t know what the original intention behind the play was, but to me it was a moving reflection on that tension.
Good show in a cool venue in a friendly neighborhood. Hard to sketch up a better Saturday night than that.