11-23-07
Great Scene Work in Mary Arrchie's Prayer
Before saying anything positive or not about Mary-Arrchie’s production of A Prayer For My Daughter, by Thomas Babe, I have to offer up my simultaneous admiration for the concentration of the cast and frustration with thoughtless members of the audience. In the front row sat a young woman who managed a solo argument against a BYOB policy simply by being too drunk to shut up as she kept attempting to strike up conversations with her friends. When she was finally escorted from the theatre by her only-slightly-less-intoxicated companion, the crashing from the lobby sounded as though she had overturned every piece of furniture therein.
Despite the first act disturbances, the cast soldiered on, maintaining their focus, and in the quieter (at least in the audience) second act, they proved to be the strength of Mary-Arrchie’s production of this difficult play.
Kelly and Jack, two NYC police detectives, have arrested Sean, a gay ex-con, and Jimmy, a young man and “student” of Sean’s, in connection with a robbery and fatal shooting. Shortly after the arrest, Kelly gets a phone call from his daughter informing him she plans to take her own life. Rather than go to her, Kelly sends someone from the force who’s trained to deal with suicides.
The rest of the play follows the twin storylines of the interrogation of Sean and Jimmy and the question of what has happened to Kelly’s daughter. As Sean, Ron Wells captures the smooth fa?ade and the pain below the surface. Garrett Matheson transcends the addict stereotype as Jimmy, revealing a passion that borders on insanity. Karl Potthoff and Paul Joseph as Kelly and Jack respectively don’t reach the same kind of depth, but both offer strong character studies and effective emotional vulnerability as the play concludes.
Si Osborne makes his directing debut, and his work shows the typical signs of an actor-turned-director. His cast shows strong moment-to-moment work, but the play lacks overall shape. This isn’t entirely Osborne’s fault, as Babe’s play has little forward motion for most of its two hours.
Still, the scene work keeps A Prayer For My Daughter more than watchable despite the script’s flaws. It’s not enough to recommend Babe’s work, but as an extended scene study Mary-Arrchie’s cast succeeds in bringing four characters to fully realized life.
A Prayer For My Daughter, Mary Arrchie-Theatre Co.
Jack Helbig, Reader—“In the 29 years since Thomas Babe’s gritty police drama opened in New York, most of its shocking moments and characters have become clich?s—notably the two dysfunctional cops at the center of the story. But that doesn’t keep actor-turned-director Si Osborne and his superb four-person cast from turning out an intense, well-paced, well-acted production. Osborne’s ensemble repeatedly finds ways to make Babe’s forced dialogue and well-worn material seem fresh.”
Mary Kroeck, New City—“Through this twist, which is paralleled in other ways throughout the play, one is forced to ask if the bonds of love and family are stronger in life or in death. Either way, it makes the point that if one is afraid to face the truth it’s usually easier to live a lie. The four-person cast of Kurt Pothoff, Paul Joseph, Ron Wells and Garrett Matheson play well off each other and are able from time to time to sneak a bit of humor into a story that is otherwise serious.”
Brian Nemtusak, Time Out—“Osborne’s direction is quietly effective; Potthoff is good enough as burnt-out officer Kelly, Wells gets better the further he goes as suspect Sean, and Matheson has a lot of presence for a kid. But Joseph’s turn as jaunty, chemically enhanced cop Jack makes him the compulsively watchable life of the show.”
Mary Shen Barnidge, Windy City—“This scenario stretches the credulity of audiences savvy in police procedurals (as who isn’t, in 2007), and long-time patrons of the Mary-Arrchie Theatre Company have lost count of the occasions requiring onstage personnel to haul out the hooch and hypodermics. But who cares? For all its testosteronic pretense, A Prayer For My Daughter is what’s known as an ‘Actors’ Play,’ its narrative logic wholly subordinate to the opportunities it offers for performers to display their skills at illumination of interpersonal dynamics.”
Lost Love, Hypatia Theatre Company
Zac Thompson, Reader—“Peter Papadopoulos’s comedy follows a bride, a parking valet, and a lesbian couple after a devastating flood. At first Papadopoulos seems to be drawing a dubious parallel between the end of a love affair and the end of the world, but ultimately he’s more concerned with exploring loss than comparing disasters. Unfortunately the diatribe-heavy dialogue leaves the characters treading water, chattering about nothing. Hypatia Theatre Company’s world premiere is visually spare, but the cast finds the right comedic balance.”
Brian Nemtusak, Time Out—“Judging from an overwrought program note, the Hypatia kids think this absurdist romp’s a lot deeper and darker than it is. Its deadpan-apocalypse backdrop and hysterical vibe strike chords with the apathy/apprehensions of the fraught aughts, but they’re more an expressionist reflection of the play’s disintegrating-relationship center than anything else. Its riffs on consumerist distraction, though articulate and up-to-date, are ultimately facile exercises in rhetorical dexterity. Fortunately, whatever they think it means, director Weiss and her ensemble have a perfect grasp on how it should read. And something-of-a-put-on pretensions aside, Papadopoulos’s script is a smart, silly gem.”
The Nutcracker, House Theatre of Chicago
Chris Jones, Tribune—“House is off on another of its regressive theatrical journeys into the mysterious mind of a child. If you’re one of the 20,000-plus people who’ve seen The Sparrow, you’ll be familiar with that obsession and you’ll already know whether you find it manipulative or moving. Although its new production at the Steppenwolf Theatre is a more expansive version of the House aesthetic, this is another take on an iconic story centered around the emotional jugular. When you dare to do that at Christmas, your audience’s emotional veins gape especially wide open. Even though this new theater piece has some demonstrable flaws, this thing had me sniffling within the first ten minutes.”
Hedy Weiss, Sun-Times—“Talk about reinventing a classic. The House Theatre has now taken possession of The Nutcracker. For two centuries now, E.T.A. Hoffmann’s European fairy tale has served as the source of ballet interpretations, puppet shows and more. But here it has been given a riveting twist that puts the fantasy in the service of a hard-core 21st century American reality. And it does so in a stunningly inspired way.”
Laura Molzahn, Reader—“House Theatre of Chicago’s ambitious adaptation of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s tale takes off in too many directions: writers Phillip C. Klapperich and Jake Minton add family tragedy to a story that’s already pretty dark, then aim for the ‘uplifting, funny and family-friendly.’ Abrupt shifts in tone (flippant jokes follow terrible trauma), pop psychologizing, and physical clowning create an awkward amalgam of children’s show and ham-fisted emotional allegory. A perfunctory ‘resolution’ falsifies the reality of dealing with death.”
Dennis Polkow, New City—“The endlessly adaptable appeal of the likes of rare gems such as A Christmas Carol and It’s a Wonderful Life is the brilliant way that both are able to straddle both joy and terror, but few yuletide works are able to walk that tightrope effectively without polarizing over into one or the other. House Theatre’s world-premiere version of The Nutcracker is able to do so in a manner that is so fresh, so imaginative and so convincing that it seems destined to become a true holiday classic.”
Kris Vire, Time Out—“This Nutcracker has a lot worth recommending, not limited to Laura Grey’s spirited Clara and other faces new to the House’s season proper (Geoff Rice and Fannie Hungerford manage sympathy in the unsympathetic, fretfully disbelieving parent roles); Allison Daniel’s puppet and toy designs, particularly those voiced by Minton and Joey Steakley, are mightily impressive. The trouble is that, even through Rapley’s often dazzling staging, the House’s seams are starting to show. Like the eponymous wooden contraption, this Nutcracker occasionally seems hammered together from brightly painted scraps.”
Lawrence Bommer, Free Press—“It’s tempting to dismiss this playful parable as Toy Story meets Gift of the Magi meets PeeWee’s Playhouse. But, beyond paying tribute to the original with dances, this Nutcracker breaks new ground: It addresses our fear of fear as much as Clara’s need to accept the finality of her brother’s death… This Nutcracker may not be perfect for kids but it sure suits adult Americans.”
Tesla’s Letters, TimeLine Theatre Company
Chris Jones, Tribune—“The early sections of Tesla’s Letters are tough going, not least because of extensive exposition about as subtle as Edison’s execution of dogs and cats to demonstrate the ‘dangers’ of AC power. Moreover, the sense I was watching a dramatic vessel that was not quite up to carrying all that its creator wanted never fully left me at Sunday’s performance. But even though it is sometimes shrill, predictable and overly cinematic, Tesla’s Letters eventually wins you over by the soundness of its conceit and the human weight of its arguments.”
Hedy Weiss, Sun-Times—“But while it is smart and insightful, the play also is problematic, despite a very able quartet of actors under the sure hand of director Nick Bowling. Though filled with believable characters, it comes weighed down, perhaps of necessity, by far too much background information.”
Kerry Reid, Reader—“Jeffrey Stanley’s play is yet another entrant in the ‘naive American confronts atrocities abroad’ genre. Grad student Daisy Archer arrives in 1997 Belgrade bent on reading the letters of electrical scientist Nikola Tesla, but the museum director sends her into war-torn Croatia under a pretext that strains credibility—and our patience. Nick Bowling’s schematic staging adds little visual interest to this wearying exercise—Tesla wouldn’t approve of a contraption that creates so much heat but sheds so little light.”
William Scott, New City—“Director Nick Bowling has taken great care in shaping this story as much about American complacency as it is a lesson on Tesla’s biography. The small cast exercises tight control over their characters with rich specificity and a real sense of inhabitation. Janet Ulrich Brooks stands out as Biljana, the matriarch of a family mauled by war. Collette Pollard’s scenic design is infused with subtle detail and Mike Tutaj’s name is one more for the list of innovated projection designers throwing images all over Chicago stages.”
Kris Vire, Time Out—“Stanley’s real target, then, is American complacency, our proclivity to dismiss the world’s atrocities as more bad news from elsewhere. He doesn’t take a side in the Eastern European conflict, deftly illustrating that there are too many sides, and the conflicts too many centuries old, for any one to be right. His point, it seems, is that attention must be paid. The play of ideas is rescued from the weight of its didacticism by Bowling’s strong direction and its four skillful actors, who succeed in putting a human face on man’s inhumanity to man.”
Brian Kirst, Free Press—“While heavy-handed at times, Stanley ultimately creates an intriguing emotional thriller. Every character, from Daisy to her handsome young guide, has ulterior motives and perspectives. The devastation of war reflects throughout their every calculation, though, and the chilling realities behind their deceptions linger with you long after the lights have faded. Nick Bowling directs his committed ensemble with steely verve and heightened calculation. Most impressively, his build to the cliffhanging first act is one of grand emotive fortitude.”
Catey Sullivan, Windy City—“With Tesla’s Letters, TimeLine Theatre offers a brainy feast that uses the Tesla as a switch to illuminate a rich, multi-faceted examination of matters historical, philosophical and political… Tesla’s Letters skirts the edge of didactic too closely to be a great drama, and by ending the first act literally with a bang, Stanley pens a manipulative cliff hanger that isn’t necessary. But TimeLine’s production has depth, insight and intrigue, welcome additions all in this season of singing Santas and dancing reindeer.”
Quote of the Fortnight:
“Cue the sound of me sighing with exasperation.”—Catey Sullivan reviewing Profiles’ production of Things We Said Today in the Tribune.