“Come on, people!” Rich Cotovsky shouts through a black toy megaphone in his distinctive drowsy style. “Abbie Hoffman died for your sins!” But the people passing by Daley Plaza don’t even raise their heads.
This is the fourth year in a row that Cotovsky and company have kicked off their three-day, more or less round-the-clock festival with a procession from Daley Plaza to the Mary-Arrchie theater space, a block south of Irving Park.
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In past years Cotovsky worked harder at making himself look like the quintessential 60s radical and yippie leader, letting his beard and hair grow, wearing a worn red, white, and blue shirt. This year he looks like a 70s-era Vietnam vet, with sideburns, mustache gone wild, and army fatigue pants–a look prompted by Tracers, the play about Vietnam war veterans that’s now having a good run at Mary-Arrchie.
He seems more reserved and solemn than usual, and his attempts at comedy are tinged with bitterness. The only time he gets aroused is when the ragtag procession passes someone selling StreetWise. Then he gets positively livid. “Come on! Give this man a break! Forty-five percent of the homeless in this country are Vietnam veterans! Help this guy, people! He just wants to get a meal tonight!”
“Nahhh!”
Cotovsky enters, a ratty flag draped over his shoulders, the stripes faded to pink, the stars gray on a field of dirty blue. His impersonation consists of a pastiche of Hoffman material, much of which makes sense only if you remember the minutiae of the 60s. “My name is Abbie, and I am from Muskogee, Oklahoma. Actually I was born in Worcester, Massachusetts. Me and the birth-control pill were the only things to come out of Worcester–and a lot of people wish the pill had come first.”
The first evening of the fest is one brain-numbing show after another. The only consistently decent work turns out to be Rush Pearson’s one-man show Diary of a Madman, which has been performed every year.
