I’ll take a bottle, can or a draft

With a crowded bar as a backdrop, the Sandbox Theatre’s comedy takes over Monday nights at Matilda

By Paola Lastick

Sandbox Theatre makes the kind of comedic plays that leave you wanting more, although I had no idea of its addictive power when I made the reservations for “Bottle, Can, Draft.” Not knowing exactly what to expect and going on no more than a blurb on a website, I set out for Matilda on a Monday night, thus abandoning my usual nine o’clock bedtime ritual.

By the time I get to the bar, the place is hopping, and I am surprised at how many people go to bars on Monday nights. Guys and girls wedge up against the bar, as the bartender served drinks as fast as humanly possible.

I spot an available seat against the cool breeze of the open windows at the front of the bar, and I sit expectantly waiting. Searching through the crowd for whom the actors might be, I wonder when the play will start. I check my watch. Two minutes till nine. Surely the lights would be dimming and red velvet curtains would be systematically parting to welcome the cast. But as the minute hand inches its way toward the top of my watch, people continue to mill around the bar asking for drinks. When was the play going to start? Did I get the time right?

I am almost done with my beer when, out of nowhere, a young girl races through the entrance of Matilda and stands on top of a table. She begins to call on us for attention. This is it. The play is starting.

The actress announces at the top of her lungs how she had quit her job and was going to be our waitress for the night. Unsatisfied with her day job, our newly appointed waitress had quit her job to start a career as a writer.

Great, as a writer myself, I’m relating to the play already. All of a sudden, the bartender tells the girl she can start tomorrow and not tonight. Wait a minute. Is this girl, yelling at the top of her lungs, an actress in the play or is she really our waitress? Why would the bartender, who only minutes ago served me a beer, be talking during the play if this girl was not indeed our waitress?

I sit back, frustration quickly building, and wait for the real actors to get started. I stare at my watch once more as a tinge of regret begins to creep up inside of me for coming out so late on a work night. As I wonder how many cups of coffee it will take for me to be somewhat functional at work the next morning, a conversation begins to form among three 20-somethings at the bar, and just like that, I forget what time it is or when the play will start, as I am completely enthralled with what they are saying.

I feel like a fly on the wall, allowed to eavesdrop on private conversations about dead-end jobs, world travel and reuniting with old flames. I am not the only one immersed in the conversation. Patrons at the bar, the tables and the couch on which I am seated are all closely paying attention to the topic being discussed, laughing and sighing at all the right places.

If it weren’t due to the fact the Sandbox Theatre needed a non-traditional stage to put on its play, Matilda would be closed on Monday nights. Every Monday night, bargoers intermingle with the cast of “Bottle, Can, Draft,” giving the play something no other show in Chicago has to offer — an opportunity to be a part of the play. The show is sold out tonight, as it has been every Monday night it has played, and everyone at the bar, it seems, is here to watch the play.

During the course of the show, the actors rush back and forth, using the entire bar as a stage. Maneuvering around the audience, the cast members race through the front door at times to retrieve forgotten items such as cell phones or pens from parked cars, much like real life patrons would.

At one point during the play, one of the actors convinces his friend to sneak out through an open window at the front of the bar so the girl he likes won’t see he has arrived before her.

Through “Bottle, Can, Draft,” Sandbox Theatre seeks to bring the audience and the actors together in an unexpected place. To bring private topics into a public setting. The comedy is centered around 20-somethings looking for hope and excitement at a local bar, making rash decisions in order to follow their dreams.

“People go to bars to do impulsive things, like quitting your job and finding love,” says Justin Powers, one of the four writers/creators of Sandbox Theatre. “Only in real life, that doesn’t always happen. We wanted to do a play about why people go to bars and spend so much money getting drunk.”

The play ends when the bartender, who not only works for Matilda in real life but who is also an actor, shuts off the lights and locks up the bar, putting behind him another night of serving drinks. A speaker announces the end of the play and the re-opening of the bar. Monday nights at Matilda have picked up.

Crawling out of bed the next morning and heading to my local coffee house for the strongest blend that would get me through the eight-hour shift ahead of me, a grin begins to form as I remember Mikey running back into the bar before the end of the play with a handful of pens to jot down a girl’s number, only to be told by the bartender that the bar was closed and she was gone.

No sweat, I think to myself, as I take a swig of my black coffee. The play is definitely worth a few well hidden yawns in my cubicle.

“Bottle, Can, Draft” performs its extended run on Mondays, performed exclusively at Matilda (3101 N. Sheffield Avenue). For tickets to “Bottle, Can, Draft,” call (773) 456-2329 or visit www.sandboxtheatreproject.org.

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