One of the themes underlying two of Geva’s plays this season
seems to be — as the PR for the latest Nextstage production has it — “the redemptive
power of baseball.” This particular kind of redemption is achieved not by good works,
but by faith — eternal optimism directed toward perpetually losing teams. Last
winter’s “Last Gas” was partly about undiscouraged belief in the Boston Red
Sox; in “Tinker to Evers to Chance” the attention is on the Chicago Cubs, who
won the World Series in 1907 and 1908, but have not come anywhere near since
the team’s last appearance in 1945. Despite their team’s lack of Series mojo, fans
hold on to their dreams — and writer Mat Smart’s new play tells us about the
interactions of three of them.
“Tinker to Evers to Chance” revolves around a mother,
Vanessa, and her daughter, Lauren (Emily Kitchens), who are obsessed Cubs fans —
in fact the daughter’s given name is Everly Lauren in tribute to Johnny Evers,
one-third of the Cubs’ turn-of-the-century double play combo, and once-famous
poem, that gives the play its name. Vanessa,
or just Nessa, and Lauren never miss a Cubs opening day; in fact, it’s one of two
times in the year that Lauren comes from New York to see her mother.
At the play’s beginning, Lauren returns to Nessa’s apartment
near Wrigley Field for the annual ritual, only to find her mother gone; her
caretaker RJ (James Craven) is the last person to see her. Lauren thinks RJ has
the answer to Nessa’s disappearance — which is partially true. She has left some clues in the draft of a play
she has written about Johnny Evers’ life and her family’s obsession with him. This
tells the story of a family heirloom — one of Evers’ actual Cubs jerseys, given
to Nessa’s mother by the great man himself. But the draft’s depiction of Evers
at the end of his life, lonely, sick, and in love with his nurse, hints at
Nessa’s feelings toward RJ. When the “Tinker to Evers to Chance” ends, Nessa is
still at large, but the experience of sorting out her life has taken RJ and
Lauren from adversaries to friends — and, need it be said, Cubs fans through
thick and thin.
As a play “Tinker to Evers to Chance” is more a leisurely
run around the bases rather than an out-of-the park home run. The basic
situation may not be very original, but Mat Smart does catch the obsessive love
of detail held by true baseball fans (and after all, that word is short for
“fanatic”), and I do like the idea of a woman nearing the end of her life
trying to make sense of it through art. The unseen character often sounds more
interesting than the two characters onstage.
The slender story includes readings and acted-out scenes
from Nessa’s play, the short Franklin P. Adams poem mentioned above, and a
funny interchange between two radio broadcasters, one of whom a near-suicidal
Cubs fan. These bits and pieces are fine in themselves, but they seem to be
padding for a short play (even with a 15-minute intermission, “Tinkers to Evers
to Chance” is over in well under two hours).
The play’s best scene begins the second act — a touching and
funny flashback, one of two in the play, showing an encounter between the
aging, ailing Evers and the spunky 17-year-old Nessa, who shows him the
original jersey given to her mother. Kitchens and Craven are very good
throughout “Tinker to Evers to Chance,” but this engaging scene is a particularly
neat double play that brings out the best in both actors, in Mat Smart, and in director
Sean Daniels.
This article appears in May 14-20, 2014.
