Anthony J. Mangini

And the audience, following two flag-laden guides, is led along for the adventure. Not that we’re complaining. Even on the leisurely strolls taken between scenes, there’s plenty to absorb here: sentimental rows of late-blooming summer flowers, families of ducks swimming along the shoreline, passersby on their bikes, and the impressive skyline off North Lakeview Avenue. Yet Alice—far from treating its environment as a series of distracting hurdles—incorporates every diverse Chicago happening into its folds, reaching every corner of Lincoln Park to create a theatrical tapestry as rich and textured as the city itself.

For when it comes to fully realizing the ominous violence lingering always at the margins of this play, one could certainly do worse than with Proud Kate Theatre Project’s current production, now on view at The Alley Stage. Under the direction of Charlie Marie McGrath, actors David Winkler and Shane Michael Murphy deliver two intimately compelling performances, moving together with the rhythmic pull of a yo-yo between the easygoing and the emotionally fraught.

But were it that easy. As The Gospel of Franklin makes clear, the truth isn’t always so easy to say. Buried underneath years of repressed memories, falsehoods and dissembling appearances, the truth—even of those we love and know best—becomes fractured, woolly and hard to sort through. Aaron Carter’s play is hence not unlike a jigsaw puzzle whose pieces don’t quite fit together but which nonetheless form some exhilaratingly incongruous biographical snapshot.

The deliberate and pointed contrast being made between the first and second acts results in something of a slowly plodded and (at times) underwhelming first act. Be advised, those unfamiliar with Enchanted April may have to be forcibly cajoled to stick it out. But rest assured, the second act more than amply compensates, so slowly catching you off guard that you have hardly time to realize the extent of your involvement in its story and in the lives of its characters.

So ultimately despite Inventing Van Gogh’s more obtuse qualities, I’ll venture to say that Strange Bedfellow’s current mounting is still worth the price of admission. At times as wildly out-of-control as Van Gogh himself, there’s nonetheless something intoxicating about its particular brand of madness. Never content to simply tell us what it’s trying to say, the play requires that we actively wade through the muck to find it out. And only even then do we find ourselves reflected back at us. Much like the action internal to the play itself, extracting meaning from Inventing Van Gogh is its own form of self-portraiture.

So sure. Kokandy’s Last Five Years is a tad underdeveloped and doesn’t always take dramatic advantage of the openness of its material. But at the same time, it also doesn’t obfuscate or overcomplicate the show’s purposely lean emotional through line. Powerful and resonant when it matters most, more than anything, this production is a solid testament to the enduring power of Brown’s revelatory score.

Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s current production, being performed for free throughout the city’s neighborhood parks as part of this summer’s Chicago Shakespeare in the Parks, thankfully fulfills our expectations. This rapid-fire 75-minute adaptation by Jeff Award-winning director David H. Bell eschews too ponderous a conceptual approach in favor of a boisterous and slapstick romp, replete with wild acrobatics, juggling and light-hearted sight gags.