Latest from Chicago Critic

By Chelsea Marcantel

Directed by Thrisa Hodits

Produced by The New Colony

At The Den Theatre, Chicago

A Story We’ve All Heard Before

The New Colony has a very in-depth, methodological approach to creating their own collaborative works, one that begins with a short story and character sketches and, over a period of four to six months, evolves into a full-fledged production. This means that all of their work is new and, as the Co-Artistic Director Evan Linder says, written by and for The New Colony ensemble.

Though I’m not sure of the exact process whereby Chelsea Marcantel’s Even Longer & Farther Away came about, if it was through such a collaborative process it doesn’t seem to have helped. A quintessential coming-of-age story about a young man on a quest for closure following the death of his father, Even Longer & Farther Away is shockingly shallow and transparent in its uninspired use of clichés and tropes—long stale and molded—that try one’s patience and credulity in their bland representation of emotional truth.

The story focuses on Elliot (Patriac Coakley), a youthful 30-year-old man who, at the dying request of his distant father, is hiking the Appalachian Trail to bury his father’s ashes at the top of Mount Katahdin, the one place he felt truly at home. Elliot never got to hike the trail with his father, so, for him, this journey is not only about closure but about finding connection with the father he never really felt he knew. Accompanying Elliot is Roy (Omer Abbas Salem), his boisterous best friend; and stalking behind them on the journey is Elliot’s estranged half-sister Alexis (Amanda Raquel Martinez) and her boyfriend Jack (Joe Lino) who pursue Elliot with one-half of their father’s ashen remains in the hope of forging some sibling relationship with him.

The play begins about 400 miles into the trek, when “the mountain” (non-ironic quotes) mysteriously leads them all to a “resort” (ironic quotes) whose proprietors are an old, mystical, story-weaving woman named Trudy (Deanna Reed-Foster) and her youthful-looking sister Nayda (Morgan McNaught). Elliot doesn’t care to rest or listen to Trudy’s stories (right there with ya’, brother!), but Roy and the others are tired and eventually convince him to stay the night. After all, tomorrow is the Spring Festival, which is the umpteenth year anniversary of when Nayda’s husband left her—plus, as Trudy tells Elliot, the mountain has brought him here for a reason.

The mountain (and Trudy) indeed know better than Elliot what he needs, and, after about a half-dozen stories, the stubborn-minded Elliot finally discovers the truth about his father and comes to forgive him and reconcile with Alexis—and the equally-stubborn Nayda, too, finally finds peace for her pining heart.

Everything neat and tidy, tied in a bow, and laid at our feet as enlightenment—no tangled conflicts, no residual resentments—just pure accord and a Spring Festival. Just like life.

Understanding that, as with them all, much time went into this production, one is discouraged to find so much to be disappointed in. Most of the responsibility here falls on Mercantel’s script: it is shallow, transparent, and singularly contrived. Not only does “the mountain” (and, by extension, Trudy) design against Elliot’s intended quest by magically confining him to the “resort” even after he tries to hike away, but Marcantel herself shows her author’s hand in how she manipulates the path of Elliot’s fate by spiriting away every interpersonal conflict that arises with either comedic diffusion or swift, mutual understanding. Herein, too, lies both the script’s shallowness and transparency: with their conflicts stamped out, Marcantel’s characters quickly become flat and uninteresting; and once I saw through their shallow souls, I saw plainly the easy inevitability of Elliot’s happy resolution. All the mystery and suspense of “How will he do ‘it’?” was melted into a weary anticipation of when he surely would and when I could finally leave.

The acting didn’t help much, either. With the exception of Omar Abbas Salem, who embraces his comedic supporting role with enthusiastic gusto, the other, more principal roles feel barely lived-in. I felt no history between Alexis and Elliot or even the older pair of siblings, Nayda and Trudy, who argue with each other more like polite strangers than sisters who have lived in close quarters for many years. Some of this is surely due to the limitations of the writing, but when I looked into the eyes of the young lovers, Alexis and Jack, all I saw were the blank stares of actors. Way on the opposite end of the spectrum, however, Deanna Reed-Foster, indulges in her character’s trope too heartily, and what begins as a hokey exaggeration of a mystical mountain woman, in the end crosses over into a caricatural farce.

Even Longer & Father Away is a fantastical quest of tropes in search of a cliché: the angry, young man gone native—accompanied by his comedic confidant, his young-but-mature sister, and her happy-go-lucky boyfriend—quests stubbornly for what he thinks he needs, but instead encounters a wise, mystical woman on a mountaintop whose perfectly felicitous stories lead him exactly to what he always really needed. We’ve all seen this story in one form or another, so why tell it again? With exactly zero unique twists or insights to offer, this play is unentertaining and eminently forgettable.

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By Jackie Taylor

Directed by Reuben Echoles

Produced by Black Ensemble Theater, Chicago

To An Idol, For Her Fans

In honor of its 40^th anniversary, Black Ensemble Theater is producing seven of its most popular and critically-acclaimed productions from its history—all of them written by the founder and executive director of the Black Ensemble, Jackie Taylor. The third in the series, Don’t Make Me Over (In Tribute to Dionne Warwick), is just what it advertises itself to be: a full-fledged, live-band, feel-good tribute to the soulful pop singer Dionne Warwick and her extensive career. With two hours of popular classics, dancing, good-natured humor, and historical anecdotes and factoids, lifelong fans of Warwick will find much to love about this musical spectacle. The rest of us will enjoy the music.

Don’t Make Me Over is essentially a playlist of some of the best and most memorable Dionne Warwick songs performed by professional singers and a live, 8-piece band. Additionally, the dozen-plus hits are interspersed with short vignettes from Warwick’s life that are introduced and commented upon by the “mistress of ceremonies” Ms. Divine (Alexis J. Rogers) who guides us with a boisterous charisma down Warwick memory lane, often adding a endearing zest to the proceedings with her sharp sense of humor and interesting anecdotes. Accompanying Ms. Divine are “three Dionne’s” adorned in splendid dresses who each lend their voices to some of Warwick’s songs. The production thus weaves together music and historical sketches—we see, among other moments, Warwick in her early years as a background singer with her family, her discovery by Burt Bacharach (William Dale Rowland), and her return to eminence in the 1980s. The production then concludes—as all musical tributes ought—with a swelling ensemble performance of one of Warwick’s most recognizable collaborations.

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By Walt McGough

Directed by Rebecca Willingham

Produced by Tympanic Theatre Company

At Profiles’ The Ally Stage, Chicago

Sci-fi dark comedy more confusing that dark comedy

Doing sci-fi dark comedies on stage is a daunting task, and Tympanic Theatre Company tried to make Paper City Phoenix work, but they were overwhelmed by the confusing script. There are too many strange and improbable plot twists, which included the main character climbing to the top of a cell tower to kill herself but being “saved” by being hit by lighting and becoming infused with infinite Internet trivia knowledge. There is a women obsessed by grief for her missing brother so she actually is printing all  the content of the Internet. (That is like counting all the pebbles on a sand beach!) There is an anti-technology cult which dress in brown robes and live together like cloistered monks and two hyper city agents who spy on folks for unclear reasons. City residents get blown up by the Internet girl, yet one of the investigators becomes a sort-of robot internet zombie. I could go on with the elements that make absurdist work seem natural but I think you get the point.

With the players screaming and foul-mouthed dialogue, plus many black-outs for set changes and weird visuals and strobe lighting, the confusing plot just rambles on toward a sort of redemptive ending that finds the Internet girl being transformed back to a human after sacrificing her soul mate to save the world. Of course, by that time I had become anxious for this convoluted work to end after it self-destructed early on. The acting was amateurish and the production values were ahead of the script and the character development. With so many stage worthy plays available, I wonder why Tympanic Theatre would mount such a dud?

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By Deborah Brevoort

Directed by Robert Tobin

Produced by AstonRep Theatre Company

At Raven Theatre’s West Stage, Chicago

“Hatred will not have the last word.”

Gripping drama of making peace with tragedy

The Chicago premiere of Deborah Brevoort’s The Women of Lockerbie, now playing at Raven Theatre, is an emotional  look at  the grieving process for the women of the Scottish town of Lockerbie who survived the crashing of a bombed 747 Pam-Am Flight 103 in 1988. Seeing and reacting to the damaged homes that killed 11 Lockerbie residents and the horrors of 259 passengers whose bodies and parts there of were peppered around the Scottish town environs, the women became traumatized for the past seven years. Add an American couple, Madeline (Amy Kasper) and Bill Livingston (Jeff Brown), who after seven years can’t stop morning their lost son from the bombing. Olive roams the Scottish hills while Bill tries to comfort her.

The women of Lockerbie try to resolve their grief by attempting to salvage the victim’s clothing and washing and returning them to the heirs. Vowing that “Hatred will not have the last word,” the women organize a demonstration to demand that the American investigator, George Jones (Ray Kasper), allow all the clothing to be washed and returned to the victim’s family as a “closure” gesture for all that will allow love to conquer hate.

The dramatic tension is highlighted by the philosophical pronouncements by the women and the wild grieving by Madeline Livingston. This 80 minute show is emotionally packed, profoundly sad, yet is a spirited look at strength of the Scottish women determined to make sense out of tragedy. The ensemble acting is terrific, with Amy Kasper and  Jeff Brown particularly effective. The tone and message is clear and powerful. The show is worth experiencing.

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By Thomas Bradshaw

Directed by Benjamin Kamine

Produced by Goodman Theatre, Chicago

What’s Onstage is Only the Tip of the Satirical Iceberg

Local playwright Thomas Bradshaw has gained a reputation for being something of a professional troll. But in Carlyle, now in its world premiere at the Goodman, Bradshaw uses his ability to offend to create uproarious political satire. This is the story of how a black man becomes a member of the Republican Party, as told by himself in a fourth-wall-breaking performance with his friends and family. The point of Carlyle/Bradshaw’s jibes are often frustratingly elusive, for Bradshaw often uses Carlyle to make a reasonable, although well-agreed upon point, only to make him look ridiculous immediately afterward. But it is a play which provides great amusement to the audience, as well as plenty of occasions for nervous glances to their neighbors.

Carlyle Myers (James Earl Jones II) is first seen in a video from the Goodman’s dressing rooms, in which he frets to his wife, Janice (Tiffany Scott), over the hostile response he anticipates from the liberal theatre audience. But she reassures him that he’s attractive and charming, and he arrives onstage nervous, but determined to fulfill his mission of explaining himself to us. Carlyle was born in Greenwich, Connecticut, and was raised by his wealthy widowed father (Tim Edward Rhoze). For a while the only black student at his elite private school, Carlyle first became aware of race as a teenager, when students from the ghetto were brought in as part of a ham-fisted attempt at integration (the kind Antonin Scalia called “mismatching”). These students made Carlyle ashamed of being a sell-out, and he briefly sought to emulate them, but their failures and expulsion, along with some tough love from his friends and father, set him back on the path to the Ivy League.

At Harvard, Carlyle’s opinion of affirmative action further deteriorated. He joined the 1992 Clinton/Gore campaign, but got into an argument with his black roommate about whether it made sense to consider race an advantage or disadvantage without regard to class, and about the existence of black slaveowners and the relative scarcity of slaveowners in general compared to the nineteenth century population. For these departures from leftist orthodoxy, he was expelled from the campaign, and with the guidance of his conservative father and new girlfriend, he quickly wound up on the side of the Republicans. This is the segment of the show which is treated the most realistically, and while it’s a good illustration of how somebody could become disillusioned with campus radicals, I find it insufficient to explain why someone would become a Republican. In the first place, radical leftists would never work for Bill Clinton. When they vote at all, it’s usually for third party candidates. Furthermore, Carlyle’s opinion that affirmative action should advantage rural and rust-belt white kids over upper-middle-class African-Americans and children of African immigrants has been explicitly endorsed by Barack Obama, while Republicans usually oppose class-based affirmative action as stridently as when it is race or gender-based.

As Carlyle goes into other reasons for being a Republican, his presentation becomes steadily more bizarre. Bradshaw’s humor is at its finest and most obscene in the latter portion of the play, and audience members at the opening got riled up more than usual. Some of them were plants who bowed at the end of the performance, but some weren’t, or at least, weren’t revealed. The fun and the danger of the show is seeing how the people around you will respond to Carlyle’s bashing of Anita Hill, and his claim that the way to prevent unarmed black men from being gunned down is to require everybody to always be armed.

James Earl Jones II leads the entire cast in genial performances, and director Benjamin Kamine further sharpens the text’s satire (as does work from Kevin Depinet, Rachel Healy, Heather Gilbert, and Christopher Kriz on the design team which would make sketch comedy theatres proud). He, Jones, and Bradshaw are clearly on the same wavelength. A difficulty of the play is that, at the time when the rift between the Republican Party establishment and its base is wider and more obvious than ever, Carlyle seems to represent both. His personality is reminiscent of Michael Steele’s, and he claims to be a counter to Donald Trump, but the things he says out loud are often just as outrageous. Whether Bradshaw is making a point about the Republican leadership, or despite his desire to present a balanced perspective, just couldn’t find anything remotely sympathetic in the conservative platform other than fixing affirmative action, is open to interpretation. But the results will have most audience members laughing and cringing in equal measure, and perhaps, learning more than they thought they wanted to.

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By Tracy Letts

Directed by Anna D. Shapiro

Produced by Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Chicago

Fragmented Life Greater Than Sum of Its Scenes

In the marketing materials for Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy Letts’s new play Mary Page Marlowe, Steppenwolf Theatre Company emphasizes that the titular character is unremarkable. I find it incredibly sad that so many people seem to think that this woman’s disaster of a life is normal. From infancy until death at what is today a relatively young age, Mary Page and her closest blood relatives battle addiction and wreck their relationships, finding peace only near the end. Letts and director Anna Shapiro tell this story non-linearly, and use six actors to represent the main character at ten points in her life (we also see her as a baby). Those devices force us to figure out what is going on in each scene, ironically resulting in us thinking more critically about Mary Page’s life than she does. It’s a satisfying puzzle, even with its dark picture.

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