Tears just a keystroke away in satire on life at the office

By Joseph T. Rozmiarek
Advertiser Drama Critic

•	'Ideas Men' by Ridiculusmus 8 p.m. Thursday, 7 and 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday The ARTS at Marks Garage $18 advance, $20 at the door on Thursday $20 advance, $23 at the door Friday and Saturday 545-2820, 521-2903

"Well, you can't beat that!"

It's late in the performance, and two corporate idea men have hit rock bottom. They've even tried dropping their pants and simulating sex. They are empty, truly empty. Nothing left but to choke down a box of chocolate éclairs and dwell on infinity.

And it's still 90 minutes before lunch break.

The production is "Ideas Men," by a company called Ridiculusmus (really just Britishers Jon Hough and David Woods, who wrote and appear in this production.) Woods and Hough began in 1992 with a uniquely zany approach to comedy and theater and are in Honolulu until Saturday.

The show is not for the politically correct. It's a satire on office life and the overwhelming need to come up with something new, something packaged and slick that will make huge profits for somebody else. That need drives the two chaps in the 75-minute skit to desperation.

Looking like a pair of three-button suits that sat up on a long night flight and sporting frightful Beatles wigs, the men attack the stage on wheels, initiating a game of tag on rolling office chairs around a large desk. They sit down to work at computer keyboards, but work seems to be the last thing on their agenda.

They kill time drawing lewd doodles.

They put their coats and ties on backwards, make animal noises and go for imagined walks in the country.

They get stalled in a long awkward pause.

But if most men lead lives of quiet desperation, Woods and Hough compensate by turning desperation into an over-the-top circus act of naughty exaggeration.

They attack each other, steal ideas and impersonate widely and wildly.

One moment they're teaching a creativity seminar for the audience. The next, they're blaming their troubles on their mates, their fellow workers and their bosses.

Hilarious though it is, the show is also not for the squeamish.

At one point, Woods photocopies his bare bum and tapes the image to Hough's forehead. Then, he destroys his keyboard with a hammer. The hammer next becomes a telephone and a call to his wife leads to Woods passionately kissing the hammer while Hough looks on in deadpan disbelief.

Like all classic comedy, there is great pain close beneath the surface.

These office characters seem to be spiritually, as well as creatively, running on empty. Nothing is pure or sacred, and everything is open to be exploited, used and wrung out.

While we're busy laughing at the absurdities, we're also recognizing the truth beneath the exaggeration and sense that we're giggling on thin ice. Woods and Hough use humor instead of fear and anger. They hit all the right buttons for laughter, but tears are just a keystroke away.

"Ideas Men" is fast-paced and irreverent — and not above the occasional bathroom noise.