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The Wooden Breeks
By Glen Berger
Directed by Heidi Stillman
At Lookingglass Theatre
Water Tower Water Works
821 N. Michigan Ave.
Chicago, IL
Call 312-337-0665, tickets $20 - $50
Tuesdays at 6:30 pm
Wednesdays at 7 pm
Thursdays at 6:30 pm
Fridays at 7 pm
Saturdays at 3 & 8 pm
Sundays at 3pm
Running time is 2 hours, 30 minutes with intermission
Through March 11, 2007
Enchanting Scottish dark tale presents as a showcase for terrific acting
Lookingglass Theatre has mounted a refreshing new Celtic gothic fairy tale written in 2001 by Glen Berger on Brian Sidney Bembridge’s stone-based highland set complete with lighthouse, grassy knoll and grave yard. We are in Brood, where playwright Glen Berger reminds us, “means not only to mull over events long ago, but to await for new life to hatch.” This show takes some dedicated listening but it delivers an enchanting journey into dark storytelling. Using multi-layered patterns of imagery and symbols together with ascorbic language including a rich assortment of puns, rhyming couplets and blank verse, Berger has written a whimsical fable befitting the Celtic traditions. 
We meet Tom “Chimney” Bosch (Phillip R. Smith), a tinker, mired in the muckish memory of his beloved and departed Hetty Griggs (Louise Lamson). Bosch is trapped in his own storytelling as her tries to invent the final chapter in his saga to rid himself of any memory of his lost love. His magical fire casts a spell when the last ember of flame becomes a beacon in the lighthouse in the hamlet of Brood on the Scottish coast. Together with his little bastard boy, Wicker Griggs (played with maturity and wit by Abigail Droeger), Bosch unravels the eccentric characters from the village. There is the scholar, Jarl van Hoother (Andrew White) who lives on tea, reads books and never leaves the lighthouse. The old lady innkeeper, Mrs. Fanny Nelles (Eva Barr), who laments her dead daughter and the brute gravedigger, Toom the Stoup (Troy West). There is Tricity Tiara (Marika Mashburn) the laundress who loves Armitage Shanks (Brendan Donaldson) the painter. The victor, Enry Leap (Raymond Fox) tries to keep order in the wacky town.
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Everyone here laments their dead, pins for love and struggles for survival and to preserve their past memories. When a beautiful and mysterious saleslady arrives, their world disintegrates into chaos as she sells a bell device that will allow those buried to ring for help if they ever wake up from their death. Bosch’s determination to extinguish the last remaining flame from the magic fire demands that he find a way to enter the locked lighthouse, get around the recluse scholar and douse the flame thus allowing him escape from the despair of his memories of Hetty. 
The Wooden Breeks charms us with its verbose script, wit and humor as it tells a complex unpredictable fable in a mystical world of superstition set in a 18th Century comically miserable town in rural Scotland. We commiserate in the trials of these weird Dickens-like characters. Berger uses unique devices to deliver his tale of humor, heartache and idealism. The nature of loss, especially lost loved ones and the haunting power of memory, are smartly presented. This melancholy fairy tale is colorfully told in rich brogues and quaint speech patterns. It celebrates old-time storytelling, is rich in strong acting (especially from young Abigail Droeger, Raymond Fox and Philip R. Smith) as it creates engrossing atmosphere that transfixes us into the world of fable. This is an enticingly fine show with strong production values.
Recommended
Tom Williams
Tom99@chicagocritic.com for comments
Talk Theatre in Chicago podcast
Date Reviewed: February 7, 2007
Jeff Recommended
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