“Drinking worked for me —until it didn’t,” says Steven, the central figure of The White Chip, a smart and surprisingly entertaining study in chronic alcohol abuse that opened on Sunday at 59E59 Theaters.
Presumably a semi-autobiographical piece by Sean Daniels, whose program credits as a writer-director-producer are traced by the character Steven’s career in the theater, The White Chip gives a humorous spin to alcoholism—until it doesn’t anymore.
The play’s title refers to a token handed to people when they attend their very first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. The white chip also is handed out to people when they attend their next meeting following a relapse. Repeatedly falling off the wagon, Steven collects plenty of chips until a crisis lands him in a rehab facility and he manages to stop drinking.
A blithe spirit before he hits the wall, Steven enjoys a productive, albeit increasingly befuddled, life as a regional theater professional. A non-observant Mormon, Steven had his very first drink—a beer—at the age of twelve and discovered, after the third gulp of brew, that he liked it a lot.
Although The White Chip chronicles one man’s high and low times as a functioning alcoholic in show biz, it is not rendered as a solo show.
Joe Tapper, a boyish-looking actor in his 30s, nimbly portrays Steven, while Genesis Oliver and Finnerty Steeves capably depict everybody else within Steven’s world. Their characters include Steven’s mild-mannered dad and brusque mother, his distant wife, his boss, and various associates, friends, drinking buddies, and, of course, bartenders.
The narrative is mostly presentational, but the dynamic presence of two other actors allows for quick back-and-forth interplay and prevents the 90-minute piece from seeming like too much of a me-me-me affair. The story is a relatively familiar one of a devil-may-care drinker whose life gradually turns desperate, and even dangerous, but the breezy tone of Daniels’ mostly humorous writing and the trio of brisk, animated performances cultivated by director Sheryl Kaller makes it all go down easily.
Several chairs that are frequently rearranged by the actors and a dusty chalkboard constitute the minimal setting that vaguely suggests a room where an AA session might be held. Casual everyday clothes are augmented by sweaters and jackets as Oliver and Steeves change their characters. Such unobtrusive visuals designed by Lawrence E. Moten III (set) and Robert C.T. Steele (costume) give the actors ample flexibility to bring Daniels’ comical though cautionary story to life.
Not incidentally, the good friend who accompanied me to The White Chip went through AA and rehab. Sober for more than a dozen years now, after the show he remarked that the saga of Steven’s experiences struck him as being “excruciatingly funny and true” in its depiction of one man’s spiral into alcoholism.
