The first half of Theater Oobleck‘s A Memory Palace of Fear is ingeniously disappointing. After checking in with an officious loan officer who poses problematic questions (“Why are you?” came my way), skittish, white-haired real estate agent Constance arrives, welcoming you to the open house. It seems you’ve signed up to tour a dilapidated home, its massive cardboard facade a jumble of cliches from commercial haunted houses and bad horror movies. Constance immediately offers reassuring words: “The seller is motivated.”
Leaving the haunted house, you enter a bare industrial space where four engrossing installations await. You can watch Gabriel X. Michael’s seemingly endless slide show of disturbingly beautiful boarded-up homes marked for demolition. You can pick up a telephone receiver and listen to messages—left for podcaster Billie Howard—describing harrowing housing experiences (hearing a neighbor commit suicide, living “trapped” in a house with an underwater mortgage, confronting a roommate who steals things and throws them in the Dumpster). You can cower before Heather Gabel’s unaccountably menacing sculpture of a tethered claw hammer and a few nails under a dimly lit blood-red tarp. Or, if you’re feeling particularly brave, you can stand before the most trauma-inducing image of all: Sara Heymann’s cut-out diorama of a perfect WASP Thanksgiving dinner.
Entry every 30 minutes Thu 10/26-Sat 10/28, 6 PM-10 PM, Sun 10/29, 1 PM-5 PM, Tue 10/31, 6 PM-8 PM, special performance by Kevin Drumm at 9 PM Silent Funny 4106 W. Chicagotheateroobleck.com $15; $10 for Drumm’s performance; more if you’ve got it, free if you’re broke
