1985

WINSTON HAIL ’EM Vrba is a captive audience.

Photo: Paul Metreyeon

It’s (you guessed it) 1985, and Chicago’s beloved Bears have never looked so poised for greatness. But behind the season’s mighty team lies an equally mighty Orwellian dictatorship, Bear Nation, which aims to eradicate anti-Bear energy circulating in Chicagoland. The Nation dictates every detail of its citizens’ lives—right down to household bobblehead placement—in an unrelenting effort to ensure Bears victory.

1985’s beyond-absurd premise has some crucial shortcomings. The hero, Winston (Vrba), is a journalist forced to propagandize even the Bears’ most humiliating losses. The other characters are harder to identify: They seem at moments like a Sunday football club, and at others like members of a military tribunal. Where and why do they interact? Vrba ignores such questions, focusing on the awe and ire he can inspire simply by evoking an athlete’s name (“Payton!”). The story that unfolds—in which Winston conspires with fellow skeptic Julia (McKenzie) to steal the Bears’ playbook—is often incoherent.

The piece nonetheless has its successes, including an ebullient cast and a set that evokes the suburban rec room to a tee. Vrba’s Winston is a doughy schlump, made winning by his efforts to fashion himself a slick detective. McKenzie portrays Julia with a mix of imperiousness and nutso fanaticism. And OKen renders Winston’s pal O’Brien in the no-holds-barred, Chris Farley vein. As written, O’Brien is both minor dictator and ardent disco-lover: Like much of 1985, it’s sheer, outlandish Dada, conveyed with zeal and, better yet, an utter lack of cynicism.

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