PREVIOUSLY:
1. "Speaking of family," says Hedy Weiss [to her husband Chris Jones], "don't forget we have my sister's birthday dinner tonight."
2. "But what if I had reason to suspect[," says Olive, "]that I had been sent, through the ordinary postal system but with no postmark and no return address, Andrew's suicide letter, the latest in a string of strangers' suicide letters that I had received over the course of several weeks for reasons unknown and that I had begun to suspect, further, that my mailbox has become some kind of supernatural repository for the final thoughts of depressives about to off themselves, and so I needed to confirm that Andrew had indeed killed himself so that I might confirm, in turn, that I hadn't lost my mind? What then?"
AND NOW, THIS WEEK'S INSTALLMENT:
"As you know," says Chicago Sun-Times theater critic Hedy Weiss, in the tone she adopts when about to deliver some exposition, "I am your aunt, which is why I am here, at the birthday party of your mother, who happens to be my sister."
"That I know," says Olive. "What remains unexplained is why you have pulled me aside for a private conversation."
"Because you, my dear, seem troubled," says Hedy Weiss. "I hope you don't mind my saying that, but I calls 'em like I sees 'em. If you want a local newspaper columnist who's going to coddle you and tell you a bunch of bullshit that makes you feel better even though it lacks any substance, go talk to Mary Schmich. But if you want the truth, even if you're not ready for it--even if the truth is still in previews (which is a reference to a past dust-up I'd rather not talk about at the moment)--if you want the truth, good ol' Aunt Hedy's gonna give it to you. And the truth is, you seem troubled. And believe me: I know from troubled. I work at a newspaper, after all."
"Well, I appreciate your self-referential, joke-laced concern," says Olive, "but I'm fine."
"Tell me what's wrong," says Hedy Weiss, "or I'll have my husband, Chicago Tribune theater critic Chris Jones, perform his one-man show, 'Jonesin': Music and Laughter from across the Pond.'"
"That doesn't sound so--"
"I think you'll feel differently once you've heard his rendition of 'Three Little Maids from School Are We.'"
"All right, all right!" says Olive. "I'll talk."
ELSEWHERE:
My reviews of City Lit Theater's Old Times and The Gift Theatre's Talk Radio are in this week's issue of Time Out Chicago.
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