Author: Tom Williams

Mai Dang Lao uses its subjects for dark comedy for seventy minutes, and then attempts to shift into an overwrought, picturesque validation of their suffering at the very end. It’s a jarring conclusion, but not one which completely spoils the insights, enjoyment, and drama which came before.

Director John Ross Wilson, who also designed the set, guides these characters along a journey that makes us empathize with them, while still recognizing the flaws on all sides. Ideally, this production would move to Uptown, since doing it in hipsterville complicates its message. But Ride also deserves to be in a venue where it will get attention, and hopefully, Under the Rug Theatre Company will continue to build on their success.

Even with the end of The Troubles in sight, the characters in Mitchell’s drama, set in his own hometown of Rathcoole, exist in a world of clannish retaliation and communal violence. Transplanted to Irish Theatre of Chicago in 2016, the drama becomes a thriller that unfolds with a feeling of inevitability, and which depends on assertions about the culture in Rathcoole that sound very odd to outsiders.