You might be thinking that during the next couple of months we need to find some entertainment that will warm our hearts against the Winter chill. Something from the heart to the heart. Something earnest that will promote the Values we all profess to live our lives by and remind us of the Goodness we would find around us if we just poured the milk of human kindness into each other’s cups a little every day.

Gross. Enough already. What we need is sex, violence, cannibalism, and the living dead–thick dross for verdant art. We need entertainment that is intelligent and insincere. Or something sincere, but unpredictable. Something cheerful and disturbing to bring in the new year. Or maybe just something silly so we can all share a laugh while we share a drink. And if this isn’t what we need…. Well, this is what you’ll get if you go to Thirst Theater Monday nights at Jitters Bar and Cafe.

The nightly five-course menu contains a variety of theatrical fare. I’m thinking more recently of Stacey Parshall’s “Strange Ailment”–the sheer delight of the audience during this one was a real treat to be a part of–and less recently of the metrical sexual Ju-Jitsu of Bill Corbett’s “Versus.” And then there’s the serial zaniness of Tom Poole’s “What the Fuck?” and Joseph Scrimshaw’s “Tales from Beyond the Edge of Your Seat.”
Memorable performances include Phil Kilbourne’s egomaniacal Stephan Hawking, Phil Callen’s hipper-than-thou Beethoven and Casey Greig’s confessional Everyman. I also enjoyed Chris Carlson’s anger and confusion, Adena Brumer’s inscrutability, and Stephen D’Ambrose’s preternatural weirdness. Is there anyone funnier than Carolyn Pool and Kate Eifrig? Probably, but they make me forget who. They are both called upon to do a host of humorous things without cracking a smile. That’s talent. And I haven’t even mentioned the deft Randy Reyes and the lush Maren Bush. (I’m using ‘lush’ as an adjective.) I could go on, but Tracey Maloney’s hotness has been discussed elsewhere, and we don’t need to see Zach Curtis’s name in yet another theater review, do we? (Darn it.)

Thirst is serving mostly comedy. (Ari Hoptman and Christina Ham are also in the kitchen–and in the bar.) This is all well and good, if you like to laugh. If you don’t, don’t worry. There are items that engage the more serious aspects of the human condition which, as you may know, is not always a laughing matter. Trista Baldwin gave Maggie Chestovich something to work with (“Boomps a Daisy”). Alan Berks did the same for Chris Carlson (“Hurricane Love”). As did Dan Hopman for Casey Greig (“MSP”). The intimacy of the setting can really amplify the intensity of a performance. On more than one occasion, I was reminded of that passage from Norse mythology:
Then is the Wolf Fenris let loose…. The great Ash Tree of Ydrasil is shaken; nor is anything in heaven or earth exempt from fear or danger.

Well, not really. But what I’m trying to say is that actors that close to you can take you out of your comfort zone and into the reflective place you need to be if an unexamined life is not worth living.

The quality of the material is impressive given the self-imposed constraints the writers and actors labor under–all the pieces are meant to be quickly written, quickly staged productions. (Sometimes the quality is impressive without the qualification.) After three years, the theatrical experiment has produced a working formula that maintains its freshness through restocking and reinventing. If you saw it in the Fall, check it out now. New items are on the menu. New actors are serving them up. And after the show you can interact with the artists over cheap drinks.

I didn’t just write all this so that if someone Googles ’sex’, ‘Norse mythology’, and ‘cannabilism’, something I’ve written will filter to the top of the results list. I also wrote it because I don’t want you to miss out. Come see what I’m talking about.