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I’ll admit that I had to Google “Venture Stores” before seeing The Factory Theater’s world premiere of “Lane Call: A Night of Closing,” a nostalgic workplace comedy about the Midwestern discount department store chain that thrived in the 1970s and ’80s before going bankrupt and closing in 1998. To my knowledge, my small Illinois hometown never had a Venture; ours was a Kmart and Shopko kind of town until competition from the new Walmart Supercenter proved too fierce.
The transience of the retail world is key to “Lane Call,” which playwrights Len Foote and Scott OKen based on their experiences working at a Venture in the northwestern suburb of Norridge, where they met in 1984. Young employees come and go, using the job as a steppingstone to “real” careers, while the threat of store closures or buyouts is ever-present. “Stores change; job stays the same,” muses Greg Gerstenberger (Timothy C. Amos), the middle-aged manager of the Factory’s fictionalized Venture.
Directed by OKen, the high-energy ensemble conjures up a colorful range of characters. To name a few of the workers, There’s Todd (Ryan Hake), the uptight management trainee whom everyone loves to wind up; Gladys (Abbi Bryson), the nosy cashier with a loud voice and little self-awareness; Remi (Garrett Wiegel), who is always nonchalantly munching on pilfered snacks; and Glynn (Ian Saderholm), whose nice-guy persona might be hiding some secrets. Theresa Liebhart and Amos each play several customers; their caricature-like antics are a sendup of the odd personalities retail employees encounter on a daily basis.
Foote and OKen’s script plays like a sitcom, with rapid-fire dialogue and a plot comprising short vignettes that capture the absurdities of the job — the unreasonable demands of customers, the mundane tasks such as hand-labeling individual sticks of deodorant, and the high jinks that bored 20-somethings get up to while on the clock. The cast includes some talented character actors who are quick thinkers; at last Friday’s performance, several of them improvised a broken set piece into a recurring comedic bit.
In the show’s one serious plotline, two graduating college seniors try to determine the future of their relationship when Becky (Katy Campbell) gets a job offer in Dallas and Billy (Alex Poe) is identified as a management prospect by his bosses at Venture. While their story takes a back seat to the shenanigans swirling around them, it’s a sweet, earnest portrayal of young adulthood — that heady optimism when your whole life is ahead of you, coupled with internalized pressure to make the perfect decisions, as if the course of your future entirely depends on what you do immediately after school (which, as this wizened millennial can attest, is both extremely accurate and completely rubbish).
In addition to evoking nostalgia about feeling 22, this production is a throwback to the heyday of discount retail. Although I never saw Venture’s burnt-orange interiors, Rose Johnson’s set is immediately recognizable to those who grew up strolling the scuffed, tiled floors of Midwestern department stores. The bright fluorescent lighting (by Ellie Humphrys) and blaring intercom announcements (sound design by Sebby Woldt) add to the authentic ambiance. I’m too young to remember the ’80s slang in the script — such as “choice,” the favorite adjective of 34-year-old middle manager Paul (Matt Chester) — but Gen X should feel right at home.
However, I don’t think the appeal of “Lane Call” is limited to those generations that lived through the era of Venture stores. Given the popularity of sitcoms like “The Office” and “Friends” with Gen Z, it’s clear that comedies set a few decades before their time are still finding younger audiences. Most of the characters in Foote and OKen’s play are in their early 20s, and despite their side ponytails and lack of cellphones, many of their experiences are evergreen.
Plus, adolescents and young adults are most likely to benefit from the show’s hopeful message: In short, you don’t need to have everything figured out. This nugget of wisdom unexpectedly comes from Remi, who tries to reassure Billy about his uncertain future. “You’re in the foreword of your book right now, not chapter 86,” he deadpans around a mouthful of chips. Whether this screwball comedy prompts you to look back on (hopefully) fond memories or to relax a bit about the years ahead, Remi’s words are a pithy reminder that it’s OK to simply take each stage of life as it comes — and laugh about the ridiculous situations and eccentric people you encounter along the way.
Emily McClanathan is a freelance critic.
Review: “Lane Call: A Night of Closing” (3 stars)
When: Through July 22
Where: The Factory Theater, 1623 W. Howard St.
Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes
Tickets: $25 at 312-275-5757 or TheFactoryTheater.com