Displaying items by tag: Robin Witt

Keith (Debo Balogun) and Ryan (Nate Faust) sit in their rolling chairs in the middle of Keith’s office. The lighting is highly florescent, and the two are discussing Ryan’s current status and ability to convince a bank to give him a loan. Tension is high, and with Ryan’s desperation only increasing, Keith is doing everything in his power to help him out. We have been watching the duo become closer over the last many scenes, and at this point in time, you may feel yourself leaning in – nervous for Ryan’s fate and just hoping the two friends can figure out a path forward.

Then the lights shift. The stage becomes brighter, birds start to chirp, and the two bring their rolling chairs downstage so they are sitting directly next to each other. No longer are we in Keith’s office. The rolling chairs now represent a bench in a park, and the two single fathers are watching their kids play together. Through their commentary, it’s clear that the kids are becoming closer, and learning to share as they move through the various slides and playground equipment. Somewhere in mid-conversation, we hear Keith gasp as he grabs his phone. Their toddlers are holding hands, and the fathers simply have to capture the moment before it’s too late. As the two giggle on stage, I could hear the audience surrounding me share in the joy – laughing and appreciating the sweet humor.

Sam Hunter’s play is about a lot of things. The ups and downs of fatherhood. The challenges of bureaucracy. The difficulty of building a better life for yourself when everything seems to be stacked against you. But at the heart, this is a story about a friendship that forms between two strangers – two men who not only share the status of fatherhood, but also a certain sadness from their lived experience. As you witness Hunter’s cleverly-written story, you might just find that the journey is at times gut-wrenching, but also full of hope – a balance that keeps you intrigued and eagerly awaiting more.

Written by Sam Hunter, A Case for the Existence of God follows the story of Keith and Ryan. The two men come together on the day that Ryan arrives at Ken’s office door for help obtaining a loan. While the relationship begins with some tension, the barriers start to come down at the realization that both have a young daughter back home. From there, a friendship forms, and we witness the slow building of trust as they learn how to better support each other through both the financial and parental challenges that follow.

Directed by Robin Witt, the play is fast paced. The piece may only be 90 minutes, but once this train of a play starts, there is simply no stopping it until the lights come down at the end. Witt’s artistic team aids in that endeavor – particularly through the work of Scenic Designer Sotirios Livaditis. The stage is entirely consumed by Keith’s small office – a space that leaves little space for movement. The intimate feel of the Edge off Broadway thrusts the audience right into the action – forcing us all into this tiny office that represents multiple locations as the two characters start to uncover each other’s secrets. The ending result? For better or for worse, we are on this roller coaster with the characters – and personally, I feel that helps make the journey.

Hunter’s play is a two-hander, and considering the actors never leave the stage, the chemistry between the two actors feels essential. Balogun and Faust rise to the challenge. If you’re like this writer, then you have also perhaps caught these Steep ensemble members in many productions over the years. Always talented, but these roles in particular shine. In collaboration with Witt’s direction, the performances are gripping, and with every twist and turn, I personally found it impossible to look away.

With standout performances, a smart production, and a story that tugs at the heartstrings, this is one you do not want to miss. Steep does not disappoint and from the looks of the standing ovation surrounding me at the end of this particular performance, I was not alone in my opinion.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

A Case for the Existence of God runs through September 7 at the Edge of Broadway – 1133 W Catalpa Avenue.

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.

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

The Scottish city of Glasgow wallows in economic depression, as this laborer’s family struggles through the hardships of basic survival. “All we’ve done wrong is to be born into poverty,” the father says in comforting the overworked wife wrapped in his arms. A crash look into the real housewives of Glasgow circa 1930, overcrowded and unsanitary apartments, unfaithful relationships, being unemployed and broke, rebellious teenagers, and human rights verse human cruelty clash in this epic three-act play at Edgewater’s Raven Theatre.

A complex tale of interweaving lives, Robin Witt impeccably directs a strong cast in the creation of this fast-moving family drama, sure to be a summer hit! Touching on many modern issues, this story carries its audience through a roller coaster of fears and tenderness: the joys of raising children, the sorrows of disaster befalling loved ones. Family, even society, pull together as economic struggles break them apart.

Especially touching is the graceful performance of Lori Myers playing Maggie Morrison, the matriarch who leads her family through this desperate saga. She clings to love although gossip, fighting, rejection, and illness nearly break her heart in two. A masterful portrayal, Myers carries the show with a touch of genius, inviting the audience to share her trauma and rejoice in her triumphs. 

Great talent work in Chicago, nowhere more so than in this production.  A slice of life, featuring excellent costuming by Kate Murphy and ingenious audio effects by Victoria Deiorio contribute to making this charming production an evening that leaves its audience with hope and enjoyable entertainment.

Griffin Theatre Company’s Men Should Weep runs July 5 to August 10 at 7:30pm at the Raven Theatre Complex, 6157 N Clark St in Chicago. The show runs 2:40 with two 10 minute intermissions. Tickets are available at www.griffintheatre.com or by calling 866-811-4111.

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