Review: Another Shot Shows a Radio Host Stumbling Toward Sobriety

Watching reruns of Cheers might not seem like the best pastime for folks in recovery, but that’s the highlight of the day for the residents of a rehab facility in Another Shot, running at the Pershing Square Signature Center. “Tonight is the episode … where Sam Malone relapses,” says Isaiah, played by Gregg Mozgala. “Must see TV.”

The joke is funnier when you realize the wink at Dan Butler, who played Bulldog in the Cheers spinoff Frasier and stars here as Harry, the namesake of one of Another Shot’s authors. For most theatergoers, Butler will be the big draw in Spike Manton and Harry Teinowitz’s contribution to a burgeoning genre of plays dealing with addiction and recovery — Catya McMullen’s Georgia Mertching Is Dead and Sean Daniels’s excellent The White Chip being two recent examples.

While both of those plays look at recovery in provocative ways — the first as a road trip, the second as an episodic autobiography — Another Shot is about as straightforward as you get. It takes place over the course of several months in a Chicago recovery house and doesn’t offer much in the way of surprise. But the terrific cast and peppy pacing keep things moving for 90 minutes, and there’s a big enough gut-punch at the end to get some important points across.

The play is inspired by Teinowitz’s experience in rehab after he got a DUI and had to get his act together or lose his job as a sports radio host (co-writer Manton also spent time in recovery). When Harry arrives, he meets his no-nonsense counselor Barb (a friendly but stern-faced Portia), who wants him to write a letter to his liver. She used to perform magic tricks at cocktail parties, but now she spends her time making delusions about easy recovery disappear. Addressing the audience, Harry introduces us to his fellow travelers: Ketel One enthusiast Vince (Chiké Johnson), opioid-addicted pharmacist Isaiah (Mozgala), whiskey-loving Andrea (Samantha Mathis), and 25-year-old George (Quentin Nguyễn-Duy). “He would drink anything mixed with Red Bull,” Harry narrates. “He liked the taste of his heartbeat.”

Though at first he denies needing help, it soon becomes clear to Harry that he’ll relapse if he doesn’t see this thing through. A drawing he receives from his young daughter convinces him that his behavior affects not only his job prospects but also his family’s happiness. Unfortunately, even though he and the others in the facility successfully navigate some personal bumps in the road, one of them has a tragic relapse that casts doubt over whether recovery is possible.

Of course, it is, and that’s something that Teinowitz and Manton want to make crystal-clear through Harry’s success (sober 13 years). But the play also hits us hard with how difficult the journey to sobriety is and how people can appear to be doing well even when they’re crumbling inside. Johnson plays Vince with fatherly strength that belies an emotional vulnerability. Mozgala, tapping his forearm nervously with a spoon like he’s prepping for a fix, keeps us wondering whether a man who chose drugs over a fiancée has what it takes to make it. Mathis plays Andrea with high-strung anxiety; we’re not surprised to learn this is her fifth rehab. And Nguyễn-Duy is marvelous as the wild card George, stumbling in drunk after a bender and topping our list of those who will tap out.

In that respect, Another Shot does offer a modicum of tension as we root for everyone. Director Jackson Gay paces the play’s short scenes briskly so that therapy sessions and group conversations never have a chance to drag. Between scenes, we hear testimonials, presumably by real people who have gone to rehab, with names and sobriety lengths displayed as projections (by Stefania Bulbarella) on the back wall of Beowolf Boritt’s perfunctory rec-room set. Mextly Couzin’s bright lighting design dramatically fills the theater with cop-car flashes when we hear about Harry’s arrest, and Daniel Baker & Co. creates emotional moments with subtle music and sound design. Alejo Vietti gets a star for keeping the cast in a smart, ever-changing array of working-class couture from one scene to the next. With mismatched styles and colors, we see how these folks have more on their mind than what they put on their backs.

When Another Shot premiered in Chicago in 2021, it was titled When Harry Met Rehab. Renaming the play was a good move, since it’s less about Harry specifically than about the group effort it took to make his and other recoveries possible. If the play says anything, it’s how important it is not to give up on people even when they might have given up on themselves. That’s not something you need rehab to appreciate.