Ren Faire! A Fistful of Ducats

DRAMATIC FOIL Engle, right, raises his sword to Matt Kahler.

Photo: Paul Metreyeon

Even if you’ve never been to Bristol and wouldn’t know your doublet from your hose, you’ll find plenty of lunacy to savor in the Factory’s latest, about the feud between a Wisco-style wenchin’ convention and the shoot-’em-up Wild West show across the interstate. There are rennie in-jokes that will have special resonance for ren-faire types—particularly those who’ve worked the one to our north—but Ren Faire! is mostly an excuse for adding swordplay to the Factory’s trademark screwballs-out satire.

We’re introduced to the faire via new swordsgal Andy (Justine C. Turner), who’s been hired because slumping hero Hero (Engle) has accidentally stabbed his eighth opponent. It seems Hero just hasn’t been the same since his longtime partner Xander left to become gunslinging Lucky Jim (Bobby Hoffman) across the expressway. The diabolically jingoistic proprietor of the frontier park wants to shut down the faire and grab the land for an all-American flume park (a plot hinge evoking comedic ancestors from Blazing Saddles to One Crazy Summer).

Among the many things first-time playwright Engle gets right is one that the Factory rarely does: He keeps it short. At a trim 90 minutes, Ren Faire! seems under tighter control than the company’s beer-fueled, often bloated antics can be (we’ll credit both outside director Hamman and all the weapons for that as well). But there’s still plenty of room for the caffeinated high jinks, dick jokes and mischievous taunting of Chicago theater’s more uptight tendencies, without which a Factory comedy would be like Bristol without mead.