Have they even heard of a Faustian bargain?

Sunday's theatre lesson:
Sexual Perversity Is the Least of It
By CHARLES ISHERWOOD

"EARTHQUAKES! Terrorist attacks! Annihilating wives! Calamities of every size and shape are being threatened, averted or endured on stages in Chicago this winter. Audiences seeking to exorcise the demons that plague us in the midnight hours can face down their fears a little earlier, in the collective warmth of a theater, and emerge cleansed of anxiety when the lights come up and the world rearranges itself around us, still intact for the time being. . .

The audience all but sings along, too, with some raising cigarette lighters in tribute at the show's climax, when the dire plot to destroy the city has been defeated. This congenial rapport between audience and performers provides a theatrical kick in itself: at one recent performance, the kids who attended from the Catholic high school jeering at the masked villain, the guy in the hat made of Coors cans grinning wildly at corny jokes.

Recall the rowdy groundlings of Shakespeare's day, releasing the strains of workaday life in gasps of wonder at the joys and sorrows roaring across the stage before them."