The darkly funny play “Obliteration” opens with a 10-minute monologue based on an uncomfortable question: How did you end up in a wheelchair?
Delivered by Chicago actor Michael Patrick Thornton, the response comes right from personal experience: Thornton has used a wheelchair since an illness when he was 24.
“It is something that Mike has talked to me about … that people will often ask him,” says playwright and showrunner Andrew Hinderaker. “And he’s so annoyed by the question that he just makes stuff up. He makes up crazy stories.”
“Obliteration,” which opened Friday at The Revival Theater (a 100-seat venue in the South Loop) after a sold-out test run at a new play festival last summer in Steppenwolf’s cabaret-style 1700 Theater, is driven by a scrappy, improvisational vibe.
Staged by the original cast, “Obliteration” fuses stand-up comedy with theater, drawing from the at-times dark mind of its Madison, Wis.-based creator. Hinderaker has had a successful career as a writer in Hollywood, despite his home base in Wisconsin, with writing credits that include Showtime’s “Penny Dreadful,” a supernatural horror series starring Josh Hartnett; Showtime’s “Let the Right One In,” about a teen who turns into a vampire; and the upcoming Netflix series “Black Rabbit,” a nightlife drama which reunites “Ozark” co-stars Jason Bateman and Laura Linney and also stars Jude Law.
Hinderaker, an ensemble member at Chicago’s Gift Theatre, started his career penning plays locally. He still has a passion for theater, despite his success with scripted television series.
“I’ve been so lucky to get to work in TV and film,” he said. “But the theater I came up in in Chicago is a really specific brand of storefront theater, where you get to see some of the best actors in the world in a space that’s sometimes 20 or 30 seats — which is just an intimacy that you don’t get to have [in TV].”
Directed by Jonathan Berry, “Obliteration” walks a fine line between two performers chasing laughs and the rawness of the comedians — portrayed by Thornton and Gift ensemble member Cyd Blakewell — offstage, baring their souls. It has moments that are funny, but the play is also visceral.
“When he first pitched the idea of us being stand-ups, I was like, ‘I really don’t know why you want me to do this,’ ” said Blakewell. “Being funny onstage is usually not my bread and butter.”
Blakewell had never tried stand-up comedy, but early in the process of scripting, Hinderaker wrote a 10-minute set that she performed during the Gift Theatre’s annual 10-minute play festival.
“That was my first actual stand-up experience,” she said. “I just remember getting up there, the lights coming up, maybe my first line, and then I don’t remember anything else. Then, I walked offstage and I was just drenched in sweat. And that’s not usually how I roll onstage.”
But she powered through. Hinderaker said they got 10 practice runs in front of a live audience during the festival. He would mix it up and have Blakewell try the set using different emotions. He said she built a natural relationship with audiences over the performances.
“It was terrifying,” Blakewell recalls of the experience, chuckling.
Thornton, who had performed improv in Chicago, had a different relationship with comedy. He performed a comedic pre-show introductory speech before performances of “Macbeth” during his Broadway debut in 2022.
“Everybody got COVID,” Thornton recalled of the production that starred Daniel Craig and Ruth Negga. So many cast members got sick that at one point, director Sam Gold had to perform Thornton’s role. Gold had written a seven-minute pre-show opener to warm up the audience and introduce the Shakespearean characters. While Gold was taking on Thornton’s role, he asked Thornton to give his own opening speech.
“I was so dumb and so awe-stricken by my Broadway debut that I think only halfway through, I was like, ‘Oh man, I’m doing stand-up comedy on Broadway,’ ” Thornton said.
He performed the opening set eight times each week to close to 1,000 people. About half of it was written, and the other half he improvised night to night.
For Hinderaker, writing stand-up sets was not easy. The Wisconsin native frequents Comedy on State, Madison’s most prominent comedy club. There, he fielded advice from stand-up vets like Neal Brennan (co-creator of “Chappelle’s Show” on Comedy Central), Sarah Silverman and Beth Stelling. Besides offering advice and notes, Silverman also contributed words — she voices the pre-show announcements aired in the theater before performances.
Hinderaker says theater still allows him to create an experience that television — and streaming — doesn’t. “In theater, you’re not playing a numbers game,” he said, recalling a Netflix show he wrote that was canceled after its first season. “The thing you can do in theater is create an experience that the people watching the Netflix show cannot have. I’m interested in that — even if it means the show is done once, twice or three times for 1,000 people, instead of being done 40 times for 20,000 people. That is fine if we’re creating something miraculous or transcendent.”