Displaying items by tag: Steep Theatre

The Writer by Ella Hickson, now in its U.S. premiere at Steep Theatre under the sure direction of Georgette Verdin, is a maddening yet compelling exploration of art, power, commerce, and gender. It is messy, incisive, and brashly frustrating. It is the anti-Barbie, exploring patriarchy, empowerment, and self-determination in a world without a hint of pink. People in this world must earn a living, which really gets in the way of idealism. The Writer is full of unwinnable arguments, plus a few that where the victories are the opposite of what one would like them to be. In a loosely defined series of scenes and rebuttals, the eponymous Writer reveals herself through excerpts from her plays and scenes from her life, though the lines between these are deliberately blurry. Both in the fictionalized versions of herself, and in the real (but are they? —our narrator seems a little unreliable), the Writer spends much of the play defending herself and her work, with only limited success.

Verdin has assembled a fine cast of both Steep Theatre regulars and guest artists willing to throw themselves into the melee that is this play. Lucy Carapetyan plays the Writer with an edgy and anxious self-righteousness that invites sympathy but not empathy, and occasionally veers into unpleasant self-absorption. As her fictional doppelganger and sometime lover, Krystal Ortiz’s grounded presence often makes the Writer’s points more effectively than the Writer herself, while also showing the pitfalls of the Writerly vision. Peter Moore as the Director is tasked with representing the Patriarchy and does so with the right amount of creeping condescension tempered with a pragmatic humanism that allows his arguments to resonate more than Hickson may like—or exactly how much she would like. Nate Faust makes one want to like his characters, bringing a guileless charm to his roles as the character of the Director and the real-life boyfriend of the Writer; he plays the former with a disarming openness that makes his over-bearing attitude more grating, and the latter with a weirdly imperious lack of self-esteem. Jodi Gage and Allyce Torres take on multiple roles throughout, but especially in a second act scene that breaks both the conventions of the play and the urban setting, embodying a mythological world where women are freed from the constraints of patriarchal norms in a piece that seeks to surmount conflict and tension in a modern, tribal ritual dance (Successful? No... but it requires commitment from its performers nevertheless).

The design elements also reflect the ephemeral nature of the theatre experience and the idea that reality itself is an extension of this experience. The “staged” scenes are stripped to their essentials—performer and text, with occasional projections to amplify this relationship and break away from the more concrete spaces of the rest of the play. The scenes that presumably show the Writer’s real life are played on precariously assembled sets that only partially define the spaces that they create. Scenic designer Sotirios Livaditis has created deliberately artificial stage sets with visual counterpoints that reinforce the spaces’ connections to the Writer, though the many moving parts make for some clunky scene changes. As the Writer’s perception of reality shifts into the metaphorical—writing being a calling and a life—the lighting (by Brandon Wardell) and sound (by Thomas Dixon) reflect the increasingly tenuous scenic elements, and occasionally mirror the darkness and self-doubt of the characters’ thoughts. Costume designer Gregory Graham conveys the practical concerns of the characters (and creates the modern tribal costume—accessorized athleisure: why not?) and clearly defines the difference between those who need to project a certain image and those who are privileged not to do so. Movement director Claire Bauman creates a plausible performance art ritual dance. Intimacy Director Gaby Labotka struggles with the reality of the more intensely sexual moments as far as pacing and masking (there is a lot more blanket work than there probably would be if the characters were as alone as they are meant to be), and the beats of the intimate scenes feel both awkwardly slow and rushed.

Director Verdin mostly allows the ambiguities of The Writer to be as frustrating as Ella Hickson most likely intended. She also leans into the bracing humor and combativeness of the dialogue, which is often laugh-out-loud-funny, even as the characters struggle to find common ground or solid answers. Having been written at the beginning of the #MeToo movement, the play mostly deals with the power of institutional patriarchies to shape attitudes, tastes, social hierarchies, age (what happens when an angry young woman grows older?), art, and, yes, sex. There are brief nods to intersectionality and economic class, and Verdin’s production acknowledges that these nods leave several elephants waiting in the wings in order to focus on feminism. The play and production are smart enough to understand that this two-hour dialectic is premised on the privilege of being part of a world where art provides a living for some and is affordable to others. Most people will find something to nod in agreement with, and that may not always be what the person next to them is nodding about. Hickson has written a metatheatrical puzzle box of polemical arguments, but fortunately she has also created characters that go beyond their arguments, especially in the hands of a sensitive director and a talented and empathetic cast. The Writer offers an opportunity to question what makes good Art (theater specifically, but as a metaphor for capital-A Art), the role and responsibility of the artist in society, and whether art is an extension of patriarchy or a tool to fight it. It does not offer any answers, which may have some echoing the words of one of the characters, who demands in vain that the Writer “write an ending.” But then they would miss out on the opportunity to do so over drinks after the show.

The Writer runs through September 16 at The Edge Theater 5451 North Broadway, with performances Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights at 7:30 pm, and Sunday matinees at 3pm. For tickets and more information contact the box office at (773) 649-3186 or www.steeptheatre.com.

Playwright Lucy Kirkwood was named “Best Newcomer” when her first play debuted in London in 2009. Her Chimerica played to acclaim all over, including a well regarded production at Timeline Theatre in 2016. Kirkwood’s 2017 Mosquitoes, now running at Steep Theatre, depicts today's societal clashes between advocates of post-Enlightenment rationalism, and the more magical thinkers who resist modernist thought. In current terms, that plays out in things like Climate Change and vaccination debates. 

Lest you think this is dry, let me assure you Mosquitoes is quite the play, and director Jaclyn Jutting gives us a lively dramatic production, the clash is acted out in the highly charged relationship between two sisters. 

The older one is Alice (Cindy Marker), a research physicist at work on the sub-atomic particle-smashing Hadron Collider, which starts up in Geneva, Switzerland during the play (dating it to 2008). Jenny (Julia Siple, who simply tears up the stage in the role) telemarkets vaginal cancer insurance policies – quite effectively, as she demonstrates by replaying her phone pitch in the second act.

Jenny questions the many things in life dictated by rationalism, including vaccinations. She doesn't get one, then Kirkwood has her come down with a preventible illness. And Jenny thinks the Hadron Collider and its quest for the elusive (and quite theoretical) Higgs bosun particle, is a waste.

“Six billion European for something you can’t even see?” says Jenny, comparing the meeting of two particles to mosquitoes smashing into each other. 

In one of the early scenes, Jenny reveals to her sister she is pregnant, and seeks reassurance from her sister Alice – the baby hasn’t been kicking, she fears the worst. Jenny admits she hasn’t had an ultrasound – she has been told that the sound waves can damage an unborn child. Yet when scientific Alice protests that routine ultrasounds are a safe way to show the baby’s status, Jenny resists the rational arguments.

“What I feel as a mother is stronger than facts,” Jenny says. And that conversation, in a nutshell, is the play Mosquitoes. Alice and Jenny love each other, though they don't readily admit it. 

But there is much more, as Kirkwood has us live through the lives of these women, and those around them. However it begins to feel interminable by the end of Act 1, which has no hint of intrigue about what comes next.

We meet the girls’ mother, Karen (Meg Thalken) who believes she has incipient dementia, and is bitter about her late husband’s Nobel win, when she did all the research without credit. Thalken is quite good in a sometimes over the top role (though her speech leans toward the geriatric more than to British). We meet Alice’s significant other, Henri (Peter Moore), a scientist at the Hadron Collider who struggles to get people to remember he is Swiss, not French. Moore does a good job in his role. 

And we also have Alice’s teenage son Luke. Alexander Stuart is perfectly convincing as this angst-ridden, alienated teen, a high-school kid forced to leave England and struggling socially in Geneva. We have Luke’s one school chum, Natalie (Upasana Barath is endearing), like Luke a transplant who is his empathic friend. The two operate a second play within the play that adds to the length but does little to advance the story.

It is, however, Luke’s relationship with his aunt Jenny, as well as a subplot, that reveals the wealth of emotional strength that a more feeling and less thinking adult offers Luke. It is exactly what he needs.

And finally we have a character playing that elusive subatomic particle, Bosun. Played by Lyn Evans, Bosum steps in at transition points, including one that arrives following a scene that I was thinking would be the end of Act II. Evans seems to loudly declaim all of Bosun’s lines, which erased whatever power Kirkwood might have intended for them. The character is also a metaphorical stylization that added nothing but length to Mosquitoes.

Setting aside the criticisms, there is much good here, and Mosquitoes is Somewhat Recommended, largely on the basis of Julia Siple’s performance. Mosquitoes runs through November 9 at Steep Theater, 1115 W. Berwyn in Chicago.

*Extended through November 16th

Pomona at Steep Theatre is among the most exhilarating productions I have seen this year. Directed by Robin Witt, who selected this imaginative script by British playwright Alistair McDowall, the play follows a familiar theme in British crime dramas: the disappearance of working girls, spirited away in this case from house of prostitution.

But Pomona is much more than that. Set in the real-life Pomona, a once fashionable and now abandoned acreage encircled by England’s M50 freeway, and bordered by two canals in the city center of Manchester, it conjures up the terror associated with an unlit, unpopulated terrain that makes a dark hole in the brightly lit cityscape.

The action centers around the world of two night watchmen (abbove) – bearded, burly Moe (Nate Faustman) and his young sidekick Charlie (Brandon Rivera) – who are charged with guarding Pomona from unauthorized visitors. At rare intervals, unmarked vans are admitted, driving into the flat terrain before disappearing into a warren of subterranean passages and vaults. Neither Moe nor Charlie know who is in the vans, or what happens below ground in what are supposedly former World War II shelters. The truth we learn later is even more nefarious than Moe, Charlie or the audience might have guessed.

This dystopian tale is also in part a staged realization of the type of role playing found in Dungeons & Dragons. The game itself also appears as part of the action, as it happens to be Charlie’s major social outlet when he is not at work.

As the play opens, we meet a graying, world-weary Manchester real estate mogul, Zeppo (Peter Moore), sitting atop a packing crate next to Ollie (Amber Sollis), who is seeking his help to locate her sister, who she believes may have disappeared into the subterranean Pomona. Behind them sits a mysterious individual wearing an extraterrestrial mask. Periodically Zeppo directs Ollie to hand the creature a nugget.

The three rotate continuously before the audience in a sustained introductory dialog in what is an intriguing bit of stageplay. This also serves as a praecis to the drama to come, and sets the essential theme of the play: absolving oneself of moral culpability by remaining ignorant. Reluctant to get involved, Zeppo finally agrees to help Ollie, but offers her a warning, philosophizing that he believes in “selective education,” meaning there are some things it is better not to know about.

These days, “You can’t be a good person; there is no such thing,” Zeppo postulates. “There are only those who know the pain they are causing; and those who don’t.” Ignorance is, if not bliss, at least a form of absolution.

The cinematic style of the script and staging cuts rapidly to four successive scenes, introducing more characters, all of whom are desperate. (It reminded me of the movie, “Crash.”) Fay (Ashlyn Lozano) a woman on the run pleading with her babysitter to stay with her child; cold-blooded Keaton (Phoebe Moore), ordering her investment advisor to withdraw all her money and burn it; Moe and Charlie injuring themselves to stage an alibi.

As the story unfolds, these scenes (which jump around in time) all become clear. The provocative scenes also draw us into the action, and McDowall doesn’t let us go. The show flies by for 100 minutes (no intermission).

The entire cast is uniformly excellent, though I grew to love the range delivered by Brandon Rivera, whose Charlie runs the gamut of dramatic personae: the role-playing Dungeon Master, the nerdy young man hoping to find a girlfriend, the naïve protégé of Moe, and a sobered individual who refuses to go on. Nate Faust brought a layered sensitivity to his role as Moe, with moving scenes in which he displays vulnerability with Fay, and an unlikely nurturance for Charlie.

Kudos to dialect coach Adam Goldstein on the Manchester accents – completely convincing (and I have been there a few times) – but the cast exercised careful discipline in consistency here. Likewise applause for Joe Schermoly (Scenic Design), Brandon Wardell (Lighting) and Jenny Pinson (Props) for an integrated and effective whole. Costumes by Aly Amidei are also noteworthy. Pomona has been selling out, so let's hope the run is extended. Pomona runs through September 14 at Steep Theatre, 1115 W. Berwyn in Chicago.

If shock is the intent, then the opening scene of ‘Zürich’ is right on. The set: a hotel room, cleverly separated from the audience by a glass wall, furnished with a bed, a couple of tables and a mini-fridge. In the first scene it’s a couple of complete strangers who had just spent the night together; the scene feels awkward, not exactly helped by the full-on frontal nudity. “She” is played by Sasha Smith (credits include TV shows Chicago Fire, Chicago PD, etc.) opposite Jeff Kurysz, whose many credits include Support Group for Men, Romeo and Juliet, etc. The opening scene would have been just as effective had Kurysz been wearing underwear, the choice for full-frontal nudity questionable as it did not succeed in heightening any point and seemed unnecessary in general.  

The play consists of five mini-acts taking place in five rooms of the 40th floor of a Swiss hotel; people interacting, reacting to each other, to the maid and, sometimes unknowingly, to the other hotel guests.

Things pick up a bit in the next few scenes; there’s an angry lawyer (Debo Balogun), a miserable maid incredibly well played by Elizabeth Wigley, accent and all. Then there are the two spoiled brats - an 11-year-old boy and his older sister, alone in the room, squabbling and looking for trouble while their parents are out on a walk. Cole Keriazakos and Maya Lou Hlava are both outstanding; they’re the highlight of the play and its invisible center upon which everything converges. Cole Keriazakos’ impressive credits include TV series Southside on Comedy Central, Chicago Fire as well as multiple national commercials, while among many of Maya Hlava’s credits are parts in Oklahoma (Marriott Theatre), Violet (Griffin theatre) and voiceover work.

In the end, the self-righteous old woman and her bitter male nurse are up to no good and things might not end so well, but who is to blame them?

‘Zürich’ touches on a few current topics, such as gun control, government and corporate corruption, “toxic masculinity” (is there such a thing?), but also revives some old ones, like, the Holocaust. Written by Amelia Roper, directed by Steep ensemble member Brad DeFabo Akin, ‘Zürich’ premiered in New York this past spring.

A little trivia: founded in 2000, Steep Theatre is housed in a storefront space that was once a small grocery store called Grocerland; it belonged to a Greek immigrant, who happens to be my husband’s late grandfather. The store had undergone a nice makeover after having been abandoned for over 35 years, and is now a wonderful cozy little theatre in its own right.

Located at 1115 West Berwyn Ave, just steps from the Berwyn red Line stop. ‘Zürich’ is being performed at Steep Theatre through November 10th. For more show info visit steeptheartre.com.

Penelope Skinner’s latest play, Linda, now receiving its United States Premiere at Steep Theatre, begins with the title character’s plea that attention must be paid…to women of a certain age. The seemingly inconsequential references to King Lear, Death of a Salesman and other tragic male protagonists become progressively more resonant as Linda (rivetingly portrayed by Kendra Thulin), accustomed to being the protagonist of her of life, fights for relevance and “visibility” as she finds herself being pushed to the margins both professionally and personally. Meanwhile, several characters make the case for irrelevance and invisibility. The questions raised by Skinner’s play are both timeless and timely, and she covers a lot of ground in its two and a half hours. Under Robin Witt’s direction, Linda is a scathing examination of the values of contemporary society and the impact that success has on those who strive for it. Linda is both entertaining and infuriating, Shakespearian in scope, and painfully human to its core. In a Chicago theater season that features several plays with middle aged characters trying to remain consequential in a youth-focused society, Linda confronts the issue through an unsparing lens that may make you want to look away, but if you don’t, your attention will be rewarded.

Linda is a senior brand manager at a cosmetics company called Swan Beauty Corporation, not to be confused with another company with an avian appellation, which is rolling out a new anti-aging cream. The author of the highly successful earlier “Real Beauty” campaign, which combined beauty products and self-esteem program, Linda’s marketing idea is “Visibility,” which would focus on women over 50. 25-year-old Amy has a counter-proposal based on her own experience, targeting women in their 20’s and 30’s who may be seeing, and fearing, the first hints of lines and crows’ feet: “Hi, Beautiful.” Amy has been inspired by Linda, but also sees her as a hurdle on her way to achieving her well-mapped life goals: marry by age 26, career well underway by age 29, two children shortly thereafter (because any later and neither her body nor her career will ping back). Amy is pragmatic, ruthless, terrified and terrifying. Making decisions about both of these women’s futures is Dave, who condescends, cuts off and mansplains while extolling his understanding of women. Drifting in and out of the office is Luke, a cheeky, gossipy temp, biding his time before running off to join an intentional community of people who share his belief that everything is an illusion. Linda’s hard-earned reality also includes two daughters. Alice, 25, is struggling to get over a viral photo incident that left her too visible and derailed her plans for a career in engineering. Bridget, 15, has a big audition for a drama academy coming up, and is trying to figure out how to stand out from the crowd, to say nothing of getting noticed by her career-obsessed mother and internet-surfing father. Husband Neil has just started a band, with a younger, attractive frontwoman, Stevie.

Director Robin Witt again demonstrates her ability to let no one off the hook, in a production that ranges from hilarious to heartrending to queasy. As we watch the events of Linda spiral out of control, the layers of complicity become almost nauseatingly clear. On a sleek set by Joe Schermoly (nothing comfortable or homey in this home that Linda has worked so many decades to create), under the harsh, sharply-focused lights by Brandon Wardell, and immersed in the portentous sound design by designer/composer Thomas Dixon, there is no softening of the realities the characters face. Costume designer Izumi Inaba perfectly captures the generational and motivational differences of the players. Props designers Emma Cullimore and Derik Marcussen add the minimal trappings of lives lived in spaces focused on mind and body—no one is responsible for the creation of anything tangible in this world, though they are capable of building and destroying lives.

As Linda, the award-winning executive who is about to be confronted with her legacy in a way she never anticipated, Kendra Thulin delivers a remarkable performance, teetering on the knife edge of a breakdown as she struggles to hang on to everything she has worked for since her early 20’s. Her Linda is certainly not always likeable—she is deliberately unapologetic and sometimes cruel as she tries to be the parent she believes her daughters need, and she is as relentless as those who are trying to unsettle her. As her nemesis and successor Amy, Rochelle Therrien is deliciously awful, but also reveals the fear that propels Amy as she claws her way to the top, belittling others to make herself look better. Destini Huston captures the pain that Linda’s daughter carries from being trapped in a past that she is not allowed to forget, and from being told to “get over it” when no one else is held accountable. Watching Huston’s Alice find another way to deal with her viral fame is both excruciating and hopeful. Caroline Phillips deserves credit simply for her performance as spectator, as 15-year-old Bridget watches the adults around her struggle to maintain their grip on their lives, but she goes well beyond this as she struggles to find her role—literally and figuratively--and get noticed by her parents and the auditors at the drama school where she is auditioning. Peter Moore’s schoolteacher Neil conveys the nice guy qualities that all the other people around him admire while showing his discomfiture with the rock and roll life he is trying on. Lucy Carpetyan’s Stevie, the lead singer/groupie in Neil’s rock band, is coming to terms with not being either Linda or Neil, as she tries to become relevant in her own life. Omer Abbas Salem is maddening and thoroughly charming as Luke, who proves that, with the right attitude, consequences can be for others. As he glibly touches the lives of those he meets, exacerbating their existential struggles, his idea that “everything is just as it should be” if one just lets go of one’s data becomes more than a little compelling. Finally, belying Linda’s belief in her “changing the world one girl at a time” campaign, is evidence that change is a long time coming, in the smug, self-satisfied and casually menacing portrayal by Jim Poole of company president Dave, who still holds all the cards, even if a few women have breached the board room.

Linda is a startling and pointed indictment of first world problems, from the need to remain visible and relevant even if one is not Helen Mirren, to the superficial measures of success that we choose, to the right to privacy that is too easily invaded. Playwright Penelope Skinner offers no easy answers for the mess people have gotten themselves into as she throws the spotlight onto Linda, who at first appears to be the apex of a new social order but ends up being vulnerable to the forces she helped unleash. The play touches on the many ways people find to diminish each other—age, gender, class, career, beauty—and ultimately suggests we may be focusing on the wrong things. Robin Witt and a uniformly strong ensemble, led by a poised yet emotionally raw Kendra Thulin, tackle the layered text with intelligence and wry humor, capturing the unmet potential and alienation of our ultra-exposed, ultra-networked modern lives.

Linda runs through August 18 at Steep Theatre, 1115 West Berwyn, Thursdays – Saturdays at 8:00 pm and Sundays at 3:00 pm. For more information and tickets visit www.steeptheatre.com or call 773-649-3186.

*Extended through September 1st