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First Look Repertory of New Work
At Steppenwolf Theatre’s Garage Theatre
1650 N. Halsted
Chicago, IL
“First Look continues Steppenwolf’s commitment to new plays for the American theater: three exciting productions presented in rotating repertory, accompanied by a series of readings, lectures and events around the development of new work.” -- Ed Sobel, Program Director
100 Saints You Should Know
By Kate Fodor
Spare Change
By Mia McCullough
The Butcher of Baraboo
By Marisa Wegrzyn
100 Saints You Should Know
by Kate Fodor
Directed by BJ Jones
Thursday, July 27 at 8 PM
Sunday, July 30 at 3 PM
Saturday, August 5 at 8 PM
Friday, August 11 at 8 PM
Saturday, August 12 at 3 PM
Running time is 2 hours with intermission
New work delves into the search for faith and meaning of life.
Following the success of her first play, Hannah and Martin at Timeline Theatre, Kate Fodor has delivered another gem with 100 Saints You Should Know. This play, while still in development, has enough power and dramatic essence to be worth seeing. Under the tight direction from BJ Jones, 100 Saints is an engaging story of faith, love and the search for meaning in one’s life. Fodor has developed complex, empathetic characters within a nice mixture of humor and serious drama.
The play deals with a devote, stoic priest, Matthew (the intense and commanding John Hoogenakker) who is asked to leave his parish following a scandal. The cleaning lady, Theresa (K.K. Dodds), a thirty-something mother of an unruly teenage daughter, Abby (Kelly O’Sullivan, in a richly humorous and ironic turn) is smitten by the priest’s holiness. Theresa and her daughter, Abby have a love-hate relationship will with foul language and guilt. Theresa travels to the priest’s family home to return a book he left at the rectory. She really wants to get Father Matthew to enable her to find faith in God after years of being an atheist.
Matthew’s return home finds his Irish mother, Colleen (terrific comedic wit from the fabulous Mary Ann Thebus) ordering food as she gently but firmly attempts to find out why Matthew has left his parish. Thebus almost steals the show with her lovable Irish mother. Add the grocery boy, Garrett (fine work from high schooler Bryce Pegelow), who is struggling with his awareness of being gay and his chance encounter with Abby outside the priest’s mother’s house and 100 Saints becomes a smart and complex work about finding meaning in life with the aid of faith in God.
Abby things she’s evil and acts that way, yet she is struggling with loneliness (as are all the characters here). While she quickly likes Garrett’s innocence and pure honesty, she gets him drunk in an attempt to humiliate him. Meanwhile, Theresa tries to get Matthew to help her find God but Colleen believes she is trying to seduce the priest and gets in the way.
Matthew struggles with his apparent loss of faith and can’t find it in his heart to help Garrett or Theresa. His obsession Robert Mapplethorpe’s male nudes and his quest for beauty in the form of wanting to be touched and his strong urges for sex are over coming his faith in God as he questions his calling. Hoogenakker is powerfully in the emotional confessional scenes.
When events cause a tragedy, the characters come to grips with their demons as Fodor resolves the conflicts in a plausible manner. This is a powerful, moving work that will haunt you long after the show ends. It’s a marvelous piece of theatre.
Highly Recommended
Tom Williams
Date Reviewed: July 23, 2006
Spare Change
By Mia McCullough
Directed by Lisa Portes
Friday, July 28 at 8 PM
Saturday, July 29 at 3 PM
Thursday, August 3 at 8 PM
Sunday, August 6 at 3 PM
Saturday, August 12 at 8 PM
Running time is 85 minutes with no intermission
Chance encounter offers chance for lifestyle change for one man
Mia McCullough, a local Chicago playwright, likes to do uniquely original works often with a biting comedic edge. Spare Change fills that description as it is a funny play with a worthy message. Brad (Paul Noble), an investment banker en route via the Blue Line EL home to his wife, has a chance encounter with Michael Ann (Yetide Badaki), a young African-American mother in dire straits. Michael Ann describes the abusive man who beat her in Portland, Oregon who she is deathly afraid of resulting in her traveling five days with her two children on a bus to Chicago. Braid is full of white liberal guilt as he becomes obsessed with helping her more than the use of his cell phone.
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Braid and his wife Claire (Janelle Snow) is the career-oriented motherless woman who spares with Braid when he tries to tell her that he feels unfulfilled with his job despite his large salary. Claire has her plan for the couple including a home in the burbs and a child. Braid doesn’t seem as enthusiastic as he questions his life choices. He is going through a sort of idealistic epiphany. He needs to feel that what he does makes a difference and he needs to be needed. His obsession with being a ‘do-gooder’ has his trying to find Michael Ann at the shelter but he ends up bring home a look-alike for Michael Ann who is obvious prostitute. Claire finds the whore in the apartment and the trouble begins. McCullough has produced some hilarious dialogue in this show that Paul Noble and Janelle Snow deftly deliver. Alana Arenas in multiple roles is terrific as the voice of reality toward Braid’s folly as a do-gooder. This quickly paced and funny work zips along as it delivers enough humor and social commentary to work nicely.
Recommended
Tom Williams
Date Reviewed: July 23, 2006
The Butcher of Baraboo
By Marisa Wegrzyn
Directed by Dexter Bullard
Saturday, July 29 at 8 PM
Friday, August 4 at 8 PM
Saturday, August 5 at 3 PM
Thursday, August 10 at 8 PM
Sunday, August 13 at 3 PM
Running time is 2 hours, 30 minutes with intermission
The Butcher of Baraboo reminds one of Fargo on crystal meth
Marisa Wegrzyn is an amazing new voice with an appetite for violently dark comedy in the style of Martin McDonah. She fills her Baraboo, Wisconsin town with a wacky female cop, a meat clever wielding mother and her pharmacist daughter who has a private teen clientele for her drugs. Add the brother with the young wife and six kids who just returned from Utah and we have the ingredients for a wacky dark comedy/mystery. This is a troubled work in need of serious cuts (at 2 hours and 30 minutes it becomes tedious) and a clearer, more focused plot. The show takes too long to build the suspense necessary to sustain a mystery. While the characters are zany enough and colorful enough, too much time is spent introducing them to us.
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That said, I liked The Butcher of Baraboo due to the terrific cast of misfits led by the female Barnie Fife-like cop, Gail (Natalie West in a way too over-the-top performance). Annabel Armour’s Valerie is the understated yet dangerous butcher who can’t get over the disappearance (and presumed death of her husband). She is a bomb waiting to explode. Armour is outstanding as the nasty, unpredictable clever-swinging widow. Rebecca Shon, as Midge, the 32 year old daughter of Valerie is the complex single pharmacist whose role in her father’s disappearance adds zest to the plot. Gail, the town cop and sister to Valerie and Donal (John Judd) and aunt to Midge is determined to solve the family’s secret and lies.
This show pays off for out patience with rich humor through over played characters, especially Natalie West’s Gail, the Fargo-styled cop. Once cuts are made to hone the pace and rhythm of the show and the over acting toned down a tad, The Butcher of Baraboo will become a darkly funny comedy/mystery. Wegrzyn’s talent for macabre characters and weird situations unfolds her fresh talents. She is someone to keep an eye on.
Somewhat Recommended
Date reviewed: July 23, 2006
Tom Williams
Tom99@chicagocritic.com for comments
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