Harry (Dan Butler, left) and George (Quentin Nguyen-Duy) are in rehab together, though Harry struggles to understand George’s unwillingness to open up, in Spike Manton and Harry Teinowtiz’s Another Shot.
It’s a fallacy that addiction can be cured by a stint in rehab. Anyone celebrating sobriety can affirm that the process of recovery takes decades—and is often lifelong. Nevertheless, a rehab experience can trigger a life-changing awakening. This unpredictable process is at the center of Spike Manton and Harry Teinowtiz’s Another Shot, a poignant exploration of Teinowitz’s alcoholism and treatment. Director Jackson Gay keeps the play teetering between denial and acceptance, and between comedy and tragedy.
Harry (Dan Butler) is a popular Chicago-area sports-radio personality who, at the play’s opening, banters with his on-air colleagues about upcoming games, appearances at local bars, and his tolerance for large quantities of booze. But the flashing red-and-blue lights (lighting design by Mextly Couzin) of sirens soon signal Harry’s arrest for drunk driving. In a lawyer’s office, Harry’s agent tells him that rehab is the only way to save his job. Harry responds: “I came here for help, and you give me this? NO GODDAMN WAY I’M GOING TO REHAB! YOU HEAR ME? DO YOU HEAR ME?”
Isaiah (Gregg Mozgala, left) and Vince (Chiké Johnson) share a light moment together in the rehab lounge.
Harry frequently narrates directly to the audience, but his focus during intake to rehab is on challenging Barb (Portia), a caring therapist in charge of the rehab facility, and acclimating to its other residents: Andrea (Samantha Mathis), Vince (Chiké Johnson), Isaiah (Gregg Mozgala), and George (Quentin Nguyen-Duy). Beowulf Boritt’s set, including an office desk and group-therapy room, is realistically sterile.
Barb hands Harry a notebook for him to record his feelings, goals, and progress toward sobriety—or their absence. During therapy, the other patients sit with notebooks in hand in a modified circle. They welcome Harry, though not exactly enthusiastically, as underlying issues and closeted skeletons hamper their relationships. Gradually, Vince, Isaiah, and Andrea reveal their baggage, but George is the enigmatic holdout. When George attends therapy sessions, his head is down and his lips are sealed. The group is not optimistic about his recovery, and they all seem to internalize this negative expectation. Isaiah explains, “You see Harry, Vince embraces the karmic theory ‘If we don’t believe George can make it, then we can’t believe we will make it.’”
In contrast with the morose George, Harry relishes entertaining stories. Although his alcoholism may cost him his job and has impaired his family life, he makes light of his DUIs, fails to recognize consequences, and avoids responsibility for major life changes. In his warped reality, he can keep his drink, his job, and his family, without therapy or rehab.
Barb is a formidable opponent: she has a powerful physical presence that is matched by her absolute resistance to Harry’s or anyone else’s decision to quit rehab. At one session, when George is visibly upset and bolts from the room, Barb goes so far as to pursue him outside the building. Portia’s outstanding and moving portrayal of Barb as a mental health professional profoundly invested in her clients’ recovery is one of the show’s many strengths, as is Butler’s stellar characterization of Harry, with his cocky, cavalier attitude and overall indifference to his own derailment.
Harry reflects on his journey toward sobriety. Photographs by Joan Marcus.
Despite George’s inexplicable remoteness, Andrea, Vince, Isaiah, and Harry start to bond—and to disclose. Vince, who is the group’s unappointed leader, the most grounded and committed of them, and a foil to Harry, reveals how his alcoholic father abused him. He resolves not to follow in his father’s footsteps and never to let his children down. Andrea admits how her alcoholism contributed to her five failed marriages. Isaiah, a pharmacist, confesses that he pilfered the pharmacy’s OxyContin to feed his addiction. The outlier during these disclosures remains the taciturn George.
Harry and Vince both have an opportunity to return to their families for a week, in a trial run to test their sobriety amid family pressures. Harry returns intact from his week away, but, in a surprising twist, Vince’s visit with his children and girlfriend produces a very different outcome.
A collective shock sets in, and George suddenly shares that he hasn’t spoken to his mother in 13 years because he regularly stole from her. Despite this, she foots his treatment bill and has come to visit him. At the group’s urging, he goes to meet with her and begins the process of reconciliation.
As for Harry, the final projections by Stefania Bulbarella document his ultimate, long-lasting sobriety, abetted in rehab by “four imperfect strangers” and Barb, who made “his denial and excuses disappear.” Harry’s reconciliation with himself, and the unconditional support of these unlikely people, played a key role in his recovery.
Another Shot runs at Pershing Square Signature Center (480 W. 42nd St.) through Jan. 4. Evening performances are Tuesday through Sunday at 7:00 p.m.; matinees are at 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. For more information, or to purchase tickets, visit anothershotplay.com.
Playwrights: Spike Manton and Harry Teinowitz
Director: Jackson Gay
Scenic Design: Beowulf Boritt
Lighting Design: Mextly Couzin
Costume Design: Alejo Vietti
Sound Design and Music: Daniel Baker and Co.
Projection Design: Stefania Bulbarella
