“Downstate” is a bit of a dog whistle for Chicagoland, suggesting a cultural distinction between urbanites in the north, and the vast agrarian expanses to the south – downstate - where trash goes, sewage flows, and where the state government builds prisons.

The word becomes generalized in Downstate, a new play by Pulitzer Prize winner Bruce Norris, which looks at the fraught issue of finding housing for convicted pedophiles after they serve time for their crimes. During parole, these men are returned to the” community,” but not to their home.

Instead they live in halfway houses operated by non-profits, sited in carefully proscribed areas that must be so-many hundreds of feet away from schools and other areas children may gather. The inhabitants are not allowed to go online, or possess a smartphone, keep alcohol, use Facebook, or move about freely.

Norris takes the less politically correct position of empathy in showing the suffering imposed on these pariahs, who in the world of #MeToo are unlikely to get a second thought. They are subject to regular inquisitions by parole officers, and a concatenation of rules and restrictions means there are few locations for them to live in such transitional halfway houses. So, they are shipped Downstate.

“I started doing a lot of reading about the things paroled sex offenders increasingly face– registries, residency restrictions, neighborhood watches, self-appointed vigilante groups,” says Norris. “These are post-incarceration punishments, that don’t exist for any other category of criminal.”

That in a nutshell is what Downstate is about: four men holed up in a house run by a Lutheran social service agency. They can go to work and come home, and that’s about it – even the local IGA grocery store is only 2,450 feet from the elementary school. They are indeed strange bedfellows, and Norris gives us the nuance of the caliber of their individual violations:

• the piano teacher Fred (Steppenwolf stalwart Francis Guinan) who had sex with two adolescent male students. Guinan, in an understated performance, shows the range that can be expressed within a very constrained character.

• Gio (Glenn Davis in an amazing, hyperbolic performance) a frenetic man on the make with a plan in his hand, whose crime was considered Category 1 (lower level) statutory rape of a young woman below age.

• Felix (Eddie Torres) who was convicted of incest with his daughter. Torres conveys the abject suffering and torment as he loses access to his family.

• A Broadway choreographer and accomplished promoter and musical artist, Dee, who fell in love with a 14-year-old boy in a road show of Peter Pan.

As Dee, K. Todd Freeman gives what will certainly become a definitive expression to the role. He is the settled voice of reason and a nurturant center of gravity within this ad hoc family of men, shopping for them and helping to make a home for them. As audience, we listen to Dee: he dishes and gives back as good as he gets – and he becomes our guide and the closest thing to a voice of reason.

Norris may be toying with us, then, by making Dee a very sympathetic character, while at the same time making him an unrepentant advocate for man-boy love – the movement that sees adult male love of minor boys as a victimless crime, and which advocates for release of those convicted of it. 

“There’s not many cases of death by blowjob!” Dee asserts. Gio, for one, abhors Dee both for his gayness and for his pederasty, with some violent outbursts in the house as a result.

Norris focuses this tension with the introduction of Andy (Tim Hopper), a Northshore suburbanite who with his wife Em (Matilda Ziegler) comes to visit Fred to seek redress, to “process” the issue and obtain formal emotional closure by getting him to sign an explicit statement acknowledging his wrongs. Norris contrasts Andy’s suffering with the experience of Dee, who comes to the defense of Fred, while revealing that he, too, was abused as a child – and claims to be none the worse for it. Fred and Em bring all the conventional middle class psychological expression to their claims - but framed within the context of Downstate, it begins to sound more like "white people's problems." 

Norris seems fearless in treading into such troublemaker territory. His Pulitzer winning Clybourn Park visited historic efforts in 1959 to block African Americans from moving into a white Chicago neighborhood, then returned 50 years later to watch a reversal of prejudice as whites tried to gentrify the same now-black area. Downstate will test its audience even further, since pedophiles are largely today's lepers.

Downstate is directed by Pam MacKinnon, and she had her hands full to balance the energy emanating from this remarkable company of performers. A call out to Cecilia Noble as parole officer Ivy - it's almost a thankless role to play the character who has a thankless job, in a play like this. But thank you, Ivy, for very good performance. 

Of particular note, the production is a joint effort by Steppenwolf and the National Theatre of the U.K. It may surprise you to learn the cast is transatlantic. The flawless, broad, working class accent of extreme south suburban Effie (played by Aimee Lou Wood, a Manchester, England native) and the dulcet Kenilworth articulation of Em (played by Londoner Matilda Ziegler) were learned right here on Halsted street, under the tutelage of Gigi Buffington.

Downstate plays through November 18 at Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago. After that it moves to the National Theatre London in January 2019.

The new show running at the Den Theater, Fun Harmless Warmachine, may surprise you. While treating the world of video games, which struggles for recognition against more established art forms, it delivers an important commentary on a powerful social phenomenon.

Video games are a cultural mainstay; when a new game “drops” it can earn $1 billion, far more than a typical Hollywood blockbuster. Often dismissed as trivial, video games are full, multi-media expressions, and they truly merit our attention.

Fun Harmless Warmachine is also seriously good, I dare say even an important play. But its setting in the social world of virtually-interactive video game players could not be further afield from the living, breathing world of live theater. Playwright Fin Coe has successfully brought that extremely virtual world to its polar opposite, the location known IRL (In Real Life) as the Stage.

The story tracks Tom, a realistic gamer who is one of the many loners, men (and a few women) who could be located anywhere in any location and time zone on earth, and who bond in massively interactive competitive battles, as a rule, without ever meeting each other.

The show’s production at Den Theater is wonderful largely because of great performances. Ayanna Bria Bakari lights up the stage from the moment she enters as Ekaterina. It is impossible to stop watching her performance, as she presents the essence of an empowered, emancipated coquettishness, providing a dramatic pivot point for the play, and for Tom, an everyman gone astray played convincingly by Daniel Chenard. We also witness a jaw droppingly powerful delivery in the closing soliloquy by Emily Marso as Melissa. 

Fun Harmless Warmachine looks at the horrible undercurrent of the misogynist male gamer, which rose to public awareness during the 2013 and 2014 scandal of #GamerGate, years before #MeToo, when women begin to complain about misogyny in the games, and others complained about their gratuitous violence.

This brought to public attention a group of violent gaming advocates, not so different from guns rights militants, who harassed their critics and attempted to stifle the discussion. 

In Fun Harmless Warmachine we meet Tom (Chenard), a wandering, disaffected youth, turning ever more cynical as he realizes he has been captured on a treadmill of a dead end job with an overbearing boss. The more trapped he feels, the more he escapes to the world of gaming, withdrawing from his real relationships with work friends, leaving calls from his family unanswered, and becoming further depressed by a lack of romance in his life.

Tom's world devolves ever more into role playing games, where he poses as an alpha male warrior in a popular mass-participant game known as “Iron Fate.” During a match, Tom is discovered by a secret group of alt right gamer rights advocates – the "Order of the Sword.” The whole thing might remind you of an online version of the Fight Club. Indeed members are sworn to secrecy.  

This group's leader is Hunter, that familiar dominant male presence who can also fortify a weak ego (played with perfect menace by Robert Koon). Hunter woos Tom, enlisting him in Order of the Sword's efforts to stalk, shame, and harass activists who protest gaming for its celebration of violence. It's testosterone-fueled agenda also feeds Tom’s emotional void, giving him a sense of purpose and belonging. Buoyed by the group, his self-esteem rises, and he begins to find success in a new job and in his love life with Ekatarina (Bakari).

As Tom succumbs and becomes part of the group’s sinister pursuits of degrading, stalking and harassing women through social media, he finds a purpose that boosts his ego. 

Ultimately the play comes to a satisfying resolution, and Tom faces up to the evils he has wrought. While it is an Everyman story and a moral fable, this does not diminish Fun Harmless Warmachine as a satisfying dramatic work. 

Though hundreds of millions of people play video games for recreation and enjoyment, there truly is a subset of hyper-masculine, frequently misogynistic communities who combine into teams formed in this world of massively interactive video gamers.

By trial and error such kindred souls bond, and in this social landscape some less healthy individuals do actually form small, and insidious groups of alt right meanies. The groups coalesce into a terribly unhealthy social cliques, often choosing women as targets of their uncivilized behavior.

These folks increasingly transferred their virtual cruelty into real life harassment of harmless individuals who had the misfortune of being caught in their crosshairs. As gamers began to be called out for their misogyny, the term Gamergate arose - resonating too in the pre-#MeToo complaints about Silicon Valley misogyny.

“I finished it in 2015, and I was afraid it wouldn’t be relevant anymore,” says playwright Coe. But given the #MeToo movement and the recent tribulation of the Supreme Court appointment hearings, the world is even more ready for this play. After its run at Den Theater, it would not be surprising to see Coes work reappear at someplace like Steppenwolf Garage or another new voices program. Dramaturgs take note!

Don't miss your chance to see Fun Harmless War Machine through November 4 at The Den Theater in Chicago.

The story of the aftermath of the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War has been told and retold, but never in such a lively and colorful manner as Vietgone, now playing at the Writers Theatre in Glencoe.

Written with the insight and perspective of a first-generation millennial, the play by Qui Nguyen gives us a fresh take not only on the story, but on storytelling and dramatic style and structure – a work that is part musical, part performance piece, all of it fitting for our era of Hamilton-style historical drama. Directed beautifully by Lavina Jadhwani, Vietgone features original music and music direction by Gabriel Ruiz, who has gained acclaim in Chicago’s venturesome Teatro Vista’s Ensemble. It features great choreography by Tommy Rapley.

If you feel the story of the Vietnam War has been covered ad nauseum already, you will be immensely surprised and entertained by this take from a group of people who were most directly affected the fallout of the event – Vietnamese who were hurriedly and even chaotically evacuated in April 1975, as South Vietnam’s capital, Saigon, fell to the North Vietnamese forces.

In Vietgone, we meet a series of character “types” – the author himself (who introduces the play as “possibly true”); also his father; and a young woman who plans to thrive on her new found freedom; her opportunistic middle-aged mother, who hopes to find romance, and to avoid learning English; U.S. soldier who falls for a Vietnamese girl; even a racist biker who stands in for the legions of Americans who had trouble laying down enmity against their Asian enemies after decades of war against the North Vietnamese Communist regime.

One character, a South Vietnamese army pilot, desperately wants to return to his wife and two young children. But if he does, he will likely be punished as a war criminal by the victors from Hanoi. Nguyen forthrightly addresses such stories of individual suffering and the culture clashes that ensued for these sudden transplants whose families and way of life were abruptly torn asunder.

But Nguyen also conveys the joy that was discovered in contemporary American rhythm and blues and rock and funk and dance as these individuals found their way. From this grounding springs an entrancing musical experience. Lyrics to the songs are rapped clear as a bell, with some songs “nearly sung” quite delightfully. This entrancing musical performance overlay may belie the darker aspects of the deeply powerful story that it also conveys. But the form brings us into the work so we can receive that story.

Vietgone centers its tale on the initial phase of evacuation, 130,000 South Vietnamese who were transported to via Guam into the United States, landing at resettlement camps at four military bases: Fort Chaffee in Arkansas, Camp Pendleton in California, Fort Indiantown Gap in Pennsylvania, and Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. Nearly two million more people followed them in separate exoduses, settling at points around the globe under U.N. auspices. 

Along with telling the story of that first cohort, Qui Nguyen introduces us to numerous memorable characters, whose background and personalities stay with us following the show. To have established so many individuals so vividly and concretely is quite an impressive accomplishment - all to the credit of this sterling cast. Standouts are Aurora Adachi-Winter as Tong and Matthew C. Yee as Quang. 

Vietgone is highly recommended. It runs through September 23 at Writers Theatre. 

*Extended through September 29th

Stacy Keach storms the stage for one of the best performances ever, as he takes on the role of author Earnest Hemingway in Pamplona at Goodman Theatre.

This world premier at Goodman was originally planned for Spring 2017, but Keach fell ill opening night and the full run was suspended until now. Clearly the delay has only enhanced his delivery, as Keach commands our non-stop attention in this one-act by Jim McGrath.

Set in 1959, we meet Hemingway holed up in a hotel (it would be the Hotel Quintana) in Pamplona, Spain – the site of the famous running of the bulls – faced with writers block as he struggles to finish a 90,000-word piece on bull fighting for Life magazine. Anyone who has been challenged in writing will recognize how playwright Jim McGrath captures those patterns of distraction and stimulation used to release the story.

Hemingway was an accomplished journalist who very well knew how to pound out the words on deadline. But in the lonelier pursuit of making art, it’s a different matter.

Hemingway indeed struggled to complete his first creative works and determined to let the pressure build until the real work came - ultimately yielding a new style if fiction writing, and a model for stylish manliness that American males widely adopted down to his haircut and sweaters.

In Pamplona, Hemingway tries to boost himself by reading aloud his letter thanking the Nobel Prize Committee for the 1954 award he received following publication of The Old Man and the Sea. He plays loud swing and jazz on the radio and phonograph. His back pain distracts him, and he inventories his bottles of prescription drugs, finding the one for pain. He considers taking a drink but stays away, knowing that will lead him astray – he has asked hotel staff not to bring him liquor.

Though Keach works alone on the stage, there are several characters introduced via his phone and sounding through the walls of his room – further distractions from his work. His lawyer calls with the news of taxes due. The hotel desk clerk calls frequently, despite orders that Hemingway not be disturbed, as a guest in the next room repeatedly complains of noise. On one level, the plot of the play revolves around that unseen and unnamed guest. We later learn he had specifically requested the room next to Hemingway. Who is this unseen force messing with Hemingway’s mind?

By injecting this abstraction into the play, McGrath transcends the level of a purely biopic storyline, just as Hemingway did with in his own works: beyond the literal surface of stories about an old fisherman, or a young matador, the characters are encountering their mortality and facing down death.

Keach and McGrath worked together for years on the development of this play, and it seems to embrace the continued scholarship into the forces that shaped and wound Hemingway’s outlook. So that audiences will have enough detail to follow, one-person plays by necessity have the performer delivering all their own background exposition – a requirement that may not always be in keeping with the character.

In this case, McGrath has balanced that demand well, and Keach captures the big blustery and frankly theatrical quality of Hemingway, who was by most accounts this blustery, larger than life figure we see on the stage. Hemingway's monologs of self-deprecation over his failed marriages and his neglect to aid his own ailing father, somehow seem natural, Keach convincingly makes Hemingway sound like he is "thinking aloud." (Keach also won a Golden Globe for playing the role of Hemingway in a 1988 TV mini-series.) 

Directed nimbly by Robert Falls, with sets by Kevin Depinet, Pamplona is a chance to see an actor truly in his element and delivering an enthralling performance. It runs through August 19 at the Goodman Theatre, and may be the very best show on stage in Chicago.

Two kinds of people are loving the Broadway musical roadshow Waitress: fans of Sara Bareilles, the multi-platinum singer-songwriter who created the songs and lyrics; and fans of the 2007 Sundance sleeper hit film, Waitress.

That right there is a big built-in audience, and Broadway in Chicago is drawing them in to the Cadillac Palace Theatre – perhaps many of them new to live stage.

In this vibrant, energy-packed show, Desi Oakley plays Jenna, a young woman in a small town, who faces an unwanted pregnancy, trapped with an extremely abusive husband in a loveless marriage (for her, anyway), while working as a diner waitress at Joe's Diner & Pie Shop. (Jenna was played by Keri Russell in the film.)

Jenna’s specialty is pies, and these will be the key for one day to run her own shop – the successful resolution of the story in the film and a made-to-order happy ending for a Broadway show. The staff and customers of the diner provide the de rigueur corps of sidekicks, supporting characters, and chorus of singers and dancers. The sidekick trio largely makes the show work: Charity Angel Dawson is Becky, the tough waitress with a heart of gold; Lenne Klingaman play the ditzy waitress Becky; and Ryan Dunkin is Cal, the diner cook who looks like a tough biker but is really a pushover.

The show is lively and colorful, and avoids veering into the extremes of “manufactured musical” (like Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville) or jukebox show (The Cher Musical) – largely on the basis of Sara Bareilles’ excellence as a songwriter. The emphasis by Bareilles also seems to be on how the mother-to-daughter relationship transmits strength, values and aspirations - the baking is a metaphor for all those life values a mother hands off to her daughter. 

Bareilles’ music is generally not the kind you would associate with a Broadway show - which requires big dance numbers, and sufficient belting to the rafters to telegraph the story to the audience. But Bareilles does provide these numbers, as well the dance sequences (though most are done by seated members of the troupe in Joe's Diner & Pie House). We also get the humorous interludes, duets, and the familiar “advice” song styles, such as “Take It From an Old Man” by the wise old man Joe (Larry Marshall).

The more delicate and emotionally expressive style of Bareilles dominates the second act, with small settings away from Joes Pie Diner – making it really like two plays, Act II bringing us the emotional angst and catharsis – as Jenna finally asserts herself and leaves her horrid husband Earl (Nick Bailey is both a hunk and a dastardly bastard) that we associate with the film. (Interestingly, the film's writer and director also played a supporting role in the movie, the role of Dawn. 

Waitress runs through July 22 at the Cadillac Palace Theatre. You can't go wrong if you see it, especially if you area fan of Sara Bareilles.

Tilikum, by Kristiana Rae Colon, is based on the real-life tale of four killer whales – technically orca whales - held captive at an aquatic park in Florida. It is drawn from a 2016 incident at SeaWorld Orlando, in which an orca whale named Tilikum killed its trainer, Dawn Brancheau.

Recounted from the point of view of the captive whales themselves, the story is told powerfully and largely effectively under Lili-Anne Brown’s direction. The play opens with the capture of Tilikum in the Bering Sea. He is a highly intelligent animal living a glorious life, siring many offspring and pursuing the latest object of his desire, Kinsalla Bal, whom he met in the Puget Sound.

The part of Tilikum is played with an exuberant ferocity by Gregory Geffrard. We watch as he is unfurled from a net and released into the tank he will share with three female whales. In his performance, Geffrard uses a stylized movement that mimics the swimming motions of the whale, while he also conveys an animal behavior. 

The villain is the park's proprietor, The Owner (Matt Fletcher), who has brought Tilikum to the aquarium hoping he will father babies with the females. Instead Tilikum drifts into despondency - unhappy in the too-warm water and claustrophobic quarters of the tank. While Tilikum is played by actor Geffrard, the females are portrayed as animated drawings projected on large screens across the stage, in a lovely dramatic scenic design by William Bole.

The females form something of a Greek chorus to the lamentations of Tilikum over his captivity, in drumming replies.
“How can you all sleep in here?” he asks the females. “The water is not deep enough to sleep.” 

In the script, Colon also posits that the females and Tilikum speak a different whale dialect and must take time to learn to communicate. Just as in the original case, the females attack Tilikum (his presence was believed to have has upset their established whale pod social order) and the aquarium owner must build him a separate tank – heightening his loneliness and disaffection. Geffrard conveys the animal intelligence of his character, and we sympathize with his plight. 

For this production at the Victory Gardens Theatre, Colon has developed a novel linguistic technique to convey the whales’ thoughts – a mix of amplified whale echoes and cries, drumming, supra-titles and spoken word. We know whales have elaborate language patterns. Colon is also suggesting how they think, feel, and the way they see the world. It is a wonderful, creative vision of what might be on the mind of another species. 

For all the good in this work of art, there are some sticking points in the script. The Owner is a somewhat one-dimensional baddie. A scene in which he sexually harasses and verbally abuses Tilikum’s sympathetic trainer Dawn (wonderfully played by Sigrid Sutter) is overburdened with a pile of evil doing. While The Owner’s terrible qualities are all believable and of a piece with his nefarious nature, it is too much to cram into one scene.

It might add to the show if audience was given a clue of the real-life background of Tilikum, a factual aspect which makes the story all the more powerful. (We instead hear an acknowledgement of the indigenous peoples displaced as Chicago was created - a worthy concern, not explicitly relevant to this show.)

Tilikum makes us feel the suffering of the whales, and identify with the injustice of using them as performing animals, by offering a glimpse of what must be running through their minds. While progress has been made (including with efforts such as the child-inspired Free Willy movement), as of February 2018 there were still a total of 60 orcas held in captivity (27 wild-captured plus 33 captive-born) in at least 14 marine parks in 8 different countries. 

Tilikum is an inspired and impassioned explanation of why this is wrong. It is highly recommended, and runs through July 29 at the Victory Gardens Theatre in Chicago.

With a mix of non-stop banter and radiant charm, Mark Toland’s one-man show, Mind Reader, is 75 minutes of fun. While audiences are told to keep quiet about what happens during his show, I can reveal that it is very entertaining, each show freshly scripted based on “reading the minds” of whomever might be in the audience.

“The audience is the cast, their thoughts are my props and their minds will be blown,” Toland declares enthusiastically. Audiences should prepare to take part in the show, as Toland attempts to get into their minds, his delivery punctuated by throw-away puns, zingers, and an occasional dark and twisted joke. 

It’s also a rare thing: Toland asks us to unplug completely from our digital toys and give in to his bewilderingly accurate readings on what's on our minds. Toland forthrightly tells the audience his powers are exclusively based on his finely-honed powers of observation and his refined perceptiveness. 

"I'm not a psychic," he says. "I just want to leave you with a sense of mystery." In fact, he scans and greets each member of the audience as they arrive, including this writer. But if you are like me, you will find it hard to believe he is not operating on a paranormal plane. 

Bringing an improvisational comedic style to his show, Toland is on the road with his show all week doing big houses and corporate gatherings. But he has made Chicago his based for a mid-weekly visit, where he presumably sees his wife – unseen in the show but referenced liberally times. See if you don't agree that in style and demeanor, Toland looks much like comedic actor Mark Helms (The Office, Hangover 1,2,3, etc.).

Toland has showed off his mind reading skills at other Chicago venues, including the Chicago Magic Lounge, The Lincoln Lodge, The Comedy Bar, and the Chicago Fringe Festival. He has appeared on WGN, NBC, FOX, ABC, NPR, Disney and the TEDx Stage. Toland claims to have correctly guessed the outcome of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, and says he bicycled through Chicago traffic completely blindfolded.

Toland has a weekly blog at MarkToland.com that features a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the life of a touring mind reader, helpful skills that anyone can use and travel tips from around the world. The reception has been strong enough for his run to be extended through October. “I’m thrilled to bring an exciting new show to Chicago audiences every week,” Toland says. It runs every Wednesday at 8 p.m. with general admission tickets at $25 and available at greenhousetheater.org  or by calling 773.404.7336

Guards at the Taj, now playing at Steppenwolf Theatre, is certainly among the best shows ever to play in Chicago.

Set in 1648, Guards at the Taj recounts a gruesome legend that surrounds the construction of the renowned masterpiece, the Taj Majal in Agra, India. That apocryphal story holds that Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, who commissioned the Taj, decreed that the architect and 20,000 artisans involved in its construction should be behanded – lest anyone ever again equal its magnificent design.

Playwright Rajiv Joseph works with this fable as fact and explores the behanding from the point of view of the two Hindustan Army Guards who will carry it out. We first see them stationed at a wall that we learn is shielding the construction site from view. As the play opens, we meet the dutiful and rational Humayan (Omar Metwally), at his post since dawn, eyes forward, posture erect. A few moments later, in scurries Babur (Arian Moayed), a dreamer whose uniform is askew and who is late for his post and struggles to stay focused and hold his sword properly.

The two, who have known each other since childhood, are closely bonded – but with the tensions and friction that inhabit any long-term relationship. Humayan aspires to a rise in rank, and wants to bring Babur along with him, even though he knows Babur's quirky personality could present risks.

Joseph, who won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for his play Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, gives us a sophisticated work, with banter by Humayan and Babur adeptly foreshadowing what is to transpire. 

From the historical record, we know that the Taj Mahal was surrounded by a brick scaffold during construction, which was demolished to reveal the architectural wonder when it was completed. This moment in time becomes a turning point in the play, as Babur turns away from his position to be among the first in history to gaze upon the magnificent Taj Mahal. He soon convinces Humayan to do likewise. And through their expressions, we see the Taj Mahal as if for the first time as well.

From that moment at the wall, we soon shift scenes to find the two in the aftermath of carrying out the behanding, which is not at all as off-putting as it sounds. Director Amy Morton has carefully metered the presentation of horror so we recognize it without experiencing it too directly.

Joseph also faces us with a perennial question asked by civilized society – when should our personal moral compass override external authority? And subtly, perhaps, Joseph may be asking how such a heinous event could so readily be accepted as likely to be true - is it because it happened in the Far East?

The dialog in Guards at the Taj is enthrallingly naturalistic and contemporary, giving it an immediacy that penetrates any distance from the characters on stage. It is no wonder the script won a 2016 Obie Award for Best New Play.

The production of this work is nothing short of perfect, and the play itself is extraordinarily good. Written by Joseph expressly for its co-stars, Omar Metwally and Arian Moayed, this production feels more like a slightly delayed move from Broadway, where it received a highly regarded run in 2015. Amy Morton, a Steppenwolf ensemble member, directed both shows.

Likewise, the set, designed by Tim Mackabee for the original show and this one, ingeniously transforms from a blank stone wall outside the Taj Mahal, into a subterranean cell. Costumes by Bobby Frederick Tilley are outstanding, as the guards move through various degrees of formal military attire, to layered garb for their nefarious job.

The show runs through July 22 at Steppenwolf Theatre, and is very highly recommended.

The tiny Gift Theatre, occupancy 50, has bitten off a big challenge with its determination to present Hamlet. Featuring Daniel Kyri in the title role of Shakespeare’s classic, director Monty Cole has hewed to the melodious Elizabethan English of the script.

The production has contemporary touches that largely respect the genius of the playwright, while delivering a show that the author would recognize, and which conveys the crucial dramatic conflicts. And, a mark of a serious production, Cole and cast examine anew the mysteries that will ever surround the motives and actions of the characters.

In a nutshell, young prince Hamlet suspects his mother Gertrude and uncle Claudius are complicit in the recent death of his father, King Hamlet. The two have married, and for the rest of the play Hamlet works through his feelings of anger and guilt, goaded by ghostly appearances of his father. Hamlet’s girlfriend Ophelia, her brother Laertes and their dad Polonius are killed in the fallout. Likewise for Claudius and Gertrude.

Producing any play requires envisioning and mastering the drama, psyching out characters and motivation, getting the script down. With Shakespeare, you also must account for the specific challenge of a language in iambic pentameter, and at times florid or obscure.

So Shakespearean acting is its own special skill. The cast has largely nailed the motivation and inculcated it to their roles on stage, delivering moving performances with conviction. But, alas, the language suffers a few slings and arrows along the way – though there are bright spots – including a rap version of one monolog that was very successful.

From the moment she appears, silently regal, completely in touch with the Gertrude, Shanesia Davis shows how it’s done. Her every line is immediately clear, even when we are uncertain of an archaic word or phrase – we totally understand her. Davis acting background makes it clear why – she has a lot of experience with Shakespearean roles.

Daniel Kyri has captured young Hamlet, and we ride with him through his internal turmoil. But Kyri is still working through what is one of theatre’s most demanding roles. Of those seven famous Hamlet soliloquies, I felt he did best with the fifth (“Tis now the very witching time of night, When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out”) and the sixth (“Now might I do it pat now he is praying, And now I'll do it, and so he goes to heaven.”)

Netta Walker’s performance as Ophelia was balanced and well done. Martel Manning as actor Guildenstern and the very funny Grave Digger, had a magnetic presence on stage. Gregory Fenner as Laertes has all the passion and constrined fury required. Alexander Lane carries a military strength and sinister swagger in his three roles as Fortinbras, Valteman and Marcellus. 

Not everything works, though most things do. Cole, who spent a year in the development of the show, keeps the play in its historic setting, but the production is unconstrained by period dress. Several younger characters have smart phones, and somehow, these make sense. They are used as flashlights in some scenes, and Ophelia sings along with her earbuds in. Smart phones are now a normal human appendage, like eyeglasses, and are almost invisible in their roles in the show.

The set was nice – a classic paneled plaster hallway illuminated by sconces with decaying carpeting on the floor, the edges lined by weeds and smashed beer cans. William Boles did scenic design, but I do quibble with whoever made the decision to encase the stage in a box of acrylic sheets, so the actors play behind a “glass.” This muted the sound and an effort to mic the space was unsuccessful. 

Hamlet runs through July 29 at Gift Theatre.

The Originalist, now playing at Court Theatre, poses Antonin Scalia as a tragic figure. The late Supreme Court Justice saw his opinions as unimpeachable; he thought he was never wrong, even when his views did not prevail in Court decisions.

“Where would the country be without me,” Scalia asks the audience. “I have moved the country solidly to the right.”
Edward Gero brings this larger than life personality to us in a dynamic performance that may leave you spellbound.

But this is not a one-man show. Rather, it is also a stirring drama (written by John Strand and directed by Molly Smith) with a plot centering on the fictional court clerk, Cat, played by Jade Wheeler. Cat is an African-American who researches and drafts Scalia’s dissenting opinion in the landmark gay rights case that struck down Congress’s Defense of Marriage Act.

Cat is a professional, and builds Scalia’s case against DOMA despite her personal feelings about the case. You will be so thankful we had Wheeler on stage as Cat. She exudes confidence and punches back at Scalia in arguments about as good as she gets.

To add to the tension, we also learn Cat is a lesbian, a fact she reveals to Scalia only to learn he does not care a jot about it. Scalia also assigns Cat a conservative legal research assistant, Brad – played to the hilt by Brett Mack. Scalia entertains a debate between the two and Cat acquits herself well against Brad. A later knock-down drag-out argument between the two on a range of opinions is almost cathartic to witness.

We learn of Scalia’s disappointment in not being name Chief Justice by George W. Bush, despite a ruling that put Bush in office after a contested recount in Florida. Lobbying for himself, he finally is told the mood of the country would not support his appointment. “It would be about as popular as a second Iraq War,” he says.

We also see him as a frustrated thespian, a lover of classical music, and, famously, a very close opera-going buddy with that liberal living legend, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

Ginsberg called him “charming”. Gero’s dynamic performance helps us understand how those two, who were at the opposite ends of the ideological spectrum – Scalia was against gay rights and affirmative action – could still be good friends. When Cat’s father dies after a long illness, Scalia puts the legal work on hold to allow for grief – and we again see redemptive qualities in the man. Scalia 

First produced in Washington, D.C., in 2015, The Originalist received tremendous acclaim, and was developed before Scalia died unexpectedly of heart failure in 2016. Gero got to know Scalia personally in his development of the character for the play.

“I want you to know I won’t be seeing the play,” Scalia told Gero. “But I’m glad they got someone good to do it.”
Gero has played the role regionally in Florida and California, but it is hard to imagine this excellent performance won’t find is way to Broadway.

The challenge, of course, is that this conservative jurist remains a lightning rod of liberal antipathy. New York may not be a welcoming market for a show that suggests any sympathy to Scalia. Its arrival at the Court Theatre, on the grounds of the University of Chicago where he taught, may be a way to test those waters.

The Originalist also gives us a valuable examination of ideological approaches to interpretation of the Constitution. Its title refers to Scalia’s purported approach, hewing close to the letter of the law in making decisions, as illuminated by examining the intentions of the original framers. But an insightful analysis of the originalist philosophy by David Strauss, law professor at the University of Chicago, suggests originalism is adopted by both liberal and conservative judges as a strategy to advance their own ideological agenda.

”Our system…is based mostly on precedent and tradition, instead of simply looking for authoritative commend from the Founders or the text of the Constitution,” says Strauss.

The Originalist runs through June 10 at The Court Theatre. It is highly recommended.