There's this big cache of money, you see, or maybe a few people just think there is—it doesn't really make any difference. Once the alleged existence of a fortune in stray cash has been clearly established, it's only a matter of time before guns appear, fugitives flee for the border in the night, betrayal follows on betrayal, corpses pile up and at least one poor schnook is warned "you're in over your head" before succumbing to existential despair.
Increasing our slippery foothold on the events transpiring during an already brief time span of three days in 1971 is playwright John Henry Roberts' decision to present the facts of The Sweeter Option in non-sequential order. In the first scene, we are in a lakeside cabin near Eagle Creek, Wisconsin, where a mysterious man claiming to be an insurance investigator has brought an unconscious nightgown-clad wife who may—or may not—know where her missing husband has stashed the you-know-what. The second scene takes us back to the previous day, when we watch as the husband's mistress persuades a stranger to masquerade as the false insurance rep. The third then leaps ahead to the wife and her bewildered escort in a car bound north on Sheridan Road, where a gas station attendant recognizes one of them. Oh, and did I mention disconcerting interruptions by a small-time thief, his teenage sister and the cabin's owner?<
Fortunately, the pulp-noir aesthetic is characterized by elevation of atmosphere over coherence. A plot premised on the art of the double-cross can tolerate any number of unexplained occurrences—especially after our hero begins to experience hallucinations and blackouts following 72 sleepless hours—as long as it delivers a requisite number of lurid thrills. These Roberts provides with alacrity, assisted by Ryan Bourque's imaginative violence design and technical teamwork replicating the exterior soundscape with an accuracy forestalling any temptation to spoil the fun with disruptive contemplation.
Roberts' personnel adheres to generic types, but the cast assembled by director Marti Lyons embrace their hackneyed mannerisms with a steely-eyed concentration that grabs our attention and keeps us riveted in anticipation of each sudden reversal. (Is there a more alluring femme fatale on the storefront circuit than Michaela Petro? Or a likelier candidate for fall guy than Rudy Galvan?) The results make for a yarn that unspools swiftly and relentlessly for the 80 minutes it takes to arrive at a conclusion still curiously satisfying, for all its loose-ended enigma.
