The George Washington Bridge has collapsed into the Hudson River. One of the tunnels into Manhattan has sprung a leak and filled with water. And the typical luxe condo on the island of Manhattan is now worth less than $50,000.

The urbane, well-heeled characters in Kristoffer Diaz’s absurdist black comedy “Things With Friends,” now in its world premiere at American Blues Theater under the direction of Dexter Bullard, say that they aren’t living through the apocalypse, but it’s clear that something pretty drastic has happened, given that New Jersey apparently has become the gateway to the world with the former self-professed center of the universe now cut off and well, unfamiliarly impotent.

A notion that always plays well in Chicago.

People can still get wine, cook steak and listen to So

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