The Wild Guys

Stan Chung teaches English at the College of New Caledonia in Prince
George, B.C.

The first thing that strikes the reader about this delightful two-act
play is the level of comedy writing: the humor is bang-on, with its
gentle but deadly satire on the men’s movement, and more specifically,
the hilarious problems of four men on a “wildman” weekend. But sharp
and very current dialogue does not save the fact that the characters
remain sketched out at best, like those in an American sitcom—not that
that is necessarily an insult in this crowd-pleasing play, but the
reader wants more about what’s really at stake for these men. Beyond
the humor, the serious message seems unrealized: that men’s issues are
at best light comedy, not tragedy. Just how funny can a play be that
points out our willingness to laugh at four men who don’t know who
they are? From that perspective, The Wild Guys is as funny as it can be.