Author: Tom Williams

The artists’ program bios are a long list of persecutions they have suffered for protesting the revived Soviet regime and refusing to submit to government control. Even the fact that the production is in Belarusian carries significant weight in Belarus, which many of the company members are exiled from, and where their ensemble performs secretly. I advise theatre-goers to brush up on King Lear before seeing this version of it, in order to focus more on the specifics of director Vladimir Shcherban’s presentation.

Those who were most active in taking command and matching the game’s rapid pace seemed to have had the most fun, and nostalgia for eighties titles like War Games seemed to help a lot, too. The only one of Sandor Weisz’s puzzles I saw through from start to finish looks ridiculously easy in retrospect, and the difficulty was created mostly by the chaotic environment of the room. But it may have been unique in that regard, or maybe that’s just the nature of mind puzzles. As usual for the House, the event has incredibly cool aesthetics. This game is definitely a must-play for puzzle nerds, and is worth checking out for anyone whose interest is piqued by the premise.

I recognize that this play has generated some interest, and that gay people may enjoy having come far enough to be subjects of a romantic comedy instead of high tragedy (this play’s themes are like a lighter take on Mothers and Sons, now at Northlight). But I still maintain that if I’m hoping that the main relationship fails, something’s wrong in the writing.

Chicagoans had the opportunity to enjoy a miniature unofficial Terrence McNally festival last year. Eclipse Theatre Company dedicated their season to the AIDS-dramas he wrote in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and some other non-Equity companies mounted productions of his musicals. For those who know the works, as well as newcomers, the capstone is Northlight’s regional premiere of Mothers and Sons, a drama McNally wrote in 2013. The play is directed by Steve Scott, who also directed Eclipse’s production of The Lisbon Traviata, and recognizing the opportunity for a tie-in, Scott and Northlight artistic director BJ Jones hosted McNally at Bookends and Beginnings last fall for a signing of his latest anthology. Selected Works: A Memoir in Plays includes Mothers and Sons and the three plays Eclipse mounted last year, among others. The major theme that emerged from the interview and his recollections in the book is how McNally has documented great changes in gay life in American over his long career. Now seventy-seven, he writes in the anthology, McNally does not intend for Mothers and Sons to be his last play, but he wrote it knowing it might be, and he wanted to contextualize his works’ place in history.