Author: Tom Williams

The setting is a clock and watch repair shop on Chicago’s North Shore (terrific set designed by Simon Lashford). A middle aged man – Jimmy (Thomas Gebbia) is busy repairing clocks and watches. His daughter Dale (Cathlyn Melvin) – a moody 17 year old announces she is not going to college. She thinks she has little time left on earth. Does she know about mortal clocks – which are physical watches everyone has implanted behind the heart that can tell us precisely the time of our deaths?

Now in its USA premiere at Stage 773, Calderon’s 1635 powerful work as been hailed as a masterpiece of the Spanish Golden Age. The work reminds me of Shakespeare with its rich, lyrical, almost poetic language and its universal themes of social justice, the use of power and ambition verses personal gain.

As the tension rises and the emotions erupt, the party devolves into a painfully raucous night of revelations as several family members struggle to reckon with the accusations. The play manically moves between celebration and pathos, from exploding repressed emotions to acknowledgment of long held secrets.