Displaying items by tag: Victory Gardens Richard Christiansen Theater

“Bill W. and Dr. Bob,” in its Chicago premiere at the Biograph Theater, tells the exciting story of the 1935 origins of Alcoholics Anonymous, or AA.

Ubiquitous (though by its own traditions it doesn’t advertise), AA has spawned some 200 similar addictive behavior treatment programs (for drugs, compulsive sex and gambling, overeating and more). All use variations on the 12 steps of recovery and structure laid down by its founder, Bill Wilson, a New York Stock broker, and co-founder Dr. Bob Smith, an Ohio surgeon.

With a spare set—a few chairs and a table—“Bill W. and Dr. Bob” delivers a series of quick-cut scenes that carry the exposition on Wilson and Smith as they descend into the depths of alcoholism, treading the same path but driven by different demons. Many of us active in recovery programs rooted in AA know these tales well. The play by Samuel Shem and Janet Surrey brings these stories to vibrant life, unfiltered from the official recovery version.

For one thing, it represents their wives. Known only in AA’s Big Book through the lens of Dr. Bob’s voice, the domestic turbulence in both households related by AA's "Big Book" is from the men’s perspectives.

On stage, see it lived, and find real women with agency. Though they are patient, loyal and long suffering, they are not helpless.

We watch Wilson (played remarkably well by Ronnie Marmo, who also directs) repeatedly struggle to stop drinking. Frequently fired, he continuously heads out to work on his latest venture, sober for the moment—only to return, sometimes days later, to his wife Lois (Katherine Wettermann) with a sob story, hungover, penniless, and filled with more grandiose dreams of how he will escape this latest reversal. 

Wetterman gives a great performance as Lois, who challenges Wilson on his dreams, and his drunkenness. Lois harangues her husband when she finds out he has stolen money for drink from her purse—a common experience in the life of those co-habiting with substance abusers—money hard won as Lois works single handedly to keep their home afloat. Angry with Lois about this dressing down, Wilson lifts a chair to strike her, then arrests himself. Even Bill realizes he has gone too far and must find a way out of his alcoholism.

Dr. Bob (Steve Gelder turns in a great performance) is a different kind of drunk, happier, playful—but as a surgeon he is playing with fire every time he operates either hungover, or possibly under the influence. His wife Anne Smith (Elizabeth Rude is excellent) turns to religion, and attends services at the Oxford Group, which had some success helping alcoholics. There she befriends Ebby Thatcher, a recovering alcoholic who reaches out to Dr. Bob. His atheism makes Oxford Group repellant, but eventually Bill Wilson shows up at Dr. Bob’s doorstep in Ohio, in his own quest for a solution to his alcoholism. Wilson sobers up with Oxford, and is introduced to Dr. Bob to see if he can help him.

Wilson’s credibility as a fellow drunk works. He even pours Dr. Bob a drink to calm him enough to listen. When Wilson cites “God” as an aid, Dr. Bob bristles.

“Let’s leave God out of it,” says Wilson, ever the salesman, and they talk. Dr. Bob has agreed to a fifteen-minute chat. But the two end up talking for six hours, and in this connection the seeds of the AA movement are born. We see that Dr. Bob's healing skills as a doctor, and Bill Wilson's formidibale salesmanship, are a perfect combination for the creation of AA.

The second act traces the foundation of the AA organization, and Wilson and Smith’s excitement and conviction that the mutual support of fellow alcoholics is a key to recovery. Dr. Bob and Wilson learn as they go, and there are missteps.

“What we need is a steady supply of stable alcoholics,” Wilson declares.

On stage we meet a second Bill (Phil Aman in the role of Man), an alcoholic hospitalized for treatment. Later his wife (Marla Seidell in the role of Woman) meets up with Lois Wilson and Anne Smith, and this trio of wives creates Alanon, a mutual support group for those living with alcoholics. It can be plausibly argued that AA is the foundation of today’s many, many peer-to-peer support groups rooted in grass-roots action.

Once word spreads about AA, they get them in spades. The organization forms: no dues or membership fees, just a willingness to stop drinking to join. And it spreads rapidly across the U.S., and soon, around the world.

When AA formed, the world was in the throes of the Great Depression, and millions of men lost their jobs, putting their families under duress as well. Bill Wilson was among the many executives whose high flying careers were dashed. Wilson turned to alcohol for solace and escape. As scheme after scheme failed to salvage his career, Wilson found he was more and more dependent on alcohol for relief. Soon enough the balance shifted, as his dependency on alcohol tripped him up just as he seemed set for a successful comeback.

It’s hard to imagine that before this time, there was no methodical, effective program for treating alcoholics, though for centuries charities operated homes for inebriates to sober up. Alcoholism and drug addiction were regarded as moral failings; willpower to stop drinking was seen as the solution. Wilson and Smith offered a different approach: surrender to the understanding substance abusers were powerless to stop, and that they needed some power outside themselves to control the urge to drink or use, and to support them when they were tempted.

At the time of the play, psychotherapy was being developed by Freud and Jung. Jung offered early on that for some “hopeless” alcoholics he had treated, only a more spiritual solution would be effective. “Dr. Bob and Bill W.” explains how AA works, covering all the key developments in the program—surrender to the process, a self examination of one’s weaknesses, support of fellow alcoholics, and making amends to those who have been injured along the way.

The set is designed by Danny Cistone with lighting design by Cortney Roles, who give the stage a noirish feel. Performed more than 350 times by Marmo’s New York/Los Angeles-based Theater 68, “Dr. Bob and Bill W.” will pass muster for those in a 12-step program for its accuracy. And it will appeal to everyone for the exciting story of the origins of this program, which is the foundation of the many self-help and recovery groups that are woven into the fabric of U.S. society. “Dr. Bob and Bill W.” runs through April 14 at the Richard Christiansen Theater of the Biograph Theater in Chicago (2433 N. Lincoln Ave.), in repertory with Marmo’s other and quite wonderful one-man show, “I’m Not A Comedian…I’m Lenny Bruce.”

*Extended through April 28th

Something Clean, directed by Lauren Shouse, gives us a compelling story, very well acted, and with that touch of magic that comes from a great chemistry in the performers.

The script (by Selina Fillinger) is notable for the way it depicts real human beings who develop and change in the course of the action. Fillinger is an actor, and it shows in the dynamic, truly living characters she places onstage.

It is a story for our times, and tells of three people whose lives have been impacted by a sexual assault. One, whom we meet later in the action, is Joey (Patrick Agada), a tall, strapping, charming, perpetually upbeat counselor at a downtown assault crisis center. 

But first we meet Charlotte (Mary Cross) and Doug (Guy Massey) whose 19-year-old son Kai was involved in an assault. Gradually we learn that he was not a victim (we never meet him), but was the perpetrator. Until Kai was convicted and imprisoned, his parents lived humdrum lives, pretty much on autopilot socially and domestically. Now, they visit their son in jail each week, and their angst festers and threatens their relationship. They are unsuccessful finding couples counseling, with Doug rejecting therapists weekly after a single visit.

As we get to know these two, we sense they are estranged from each other, physically aloof, and alienated from their social circle by the shame of their son’s crime. Charlotte cleans compulsively, and Doug buries himself in his work.

Eventually, Charlotte volunteers at the sexual assault crisis center – and her process of healing commences when she meets Joey. Agada’s performance is deft, and striking. His effusive personality (he is Joey with a "Y" because "I like to end my name with a smile!") makes these two seem an unlikely pair, but they develop a completely convincing bond that seems to draw energy from their work together as actors – informing their portrayals as emotionally connected workers at the center. This relationship and performances are what sustains Something Clean. It is hard to imagine it working without this level of excellence in the roles of Charlotte and Joey. 

Under Joey's nurturance, Charlotte emerges from her protective shell to become a sweet, charming and vulnerable woman. Charlotte’s emotional recovery contributes to Doug’s healing as well – something we see in real life when one person’s therapy ends up addressing their partner’s problems, too. The neutral gray set (Arnel Sanciano) is noteworthy, as is one of the props (which are byJonathan Berg-Einhorn): a book by Jennifer Weiner, I think it was Who Do You Love, a tale that mirrors the emotional dynamics of this show. 

I have to admit I sometimes approach Rivendell Theatre Ensemble’s productions with trepidation that I will end up being more edified than entertained. Something Clean does both, and in no small part because of Mary Cross ‘s great performance – she has her craft nailed, and watching her crawl out of her shell is a delight. Produced in partnership with Sideshow Theatre, (it received funding from The Eliabeth Cheney Foundation) which commissioned the work, Something Clean played to acclaim after premiering at New York’s Roundabout Theatre last month. It runs through July 21 at Victory Gardens Theater (the old Biograph Theater building).

Six spectacular actors bring deeply moving performances under director Cheryl Lynn Bruce in Dominique Morisseau’s Pipeline.

The capacity crowd who braved six-degree weather to show up at the Biograph Theatre on Lincoln Ave. were richly rewarded by this exceptional production. But you kind of have to go when a Morisseau premiere beckons. I for one am invested in her work now, having been wowed by two of her three Detroit cycle plays - Skeleton Crew at Skokie's Northlight Theatre last year and Paradise Blue at the tiny TimeLine Theatre on Wellington the year prior. (Just by coincidence, Morisseau's 2017 play, now having its Chicago premiere, was also broadcast nationally by PBS last night from another ongoing production - the one at Lincoln Center in New York.)

Pipeline is lauded for its topicality around the current issue of young black males too easily at risk of entering a pipeline to jail. And it also touches on the merits of inner-city public community schools versus private education.

But perhaps even more powerfully, it highlights the debilitating effects of our society's racism-based social dysfunction. In Pipeline this adverse miasma infiltrates the emotional lives of the middle class parents of a teenage boy, Omari (a kinetic performance by Matthew Elam). A slight, sensitive poetic youth who seems an unlikely candidate to become a thug, Omari gets into trouble after inexplicably assaulting his high school English teacher.

Pipeline also showcases Morisseau’s prowess for examining the inner lives of interesting personalities, the forces that energize them as people, all against the contemporary societal backdrop. In Pipeline there is a specificity to these characters – six fully-formed individuals, no tropes or archetypes.

You will be touched by these exceptional people, and by the compelling performances that bring them to life. When the play opens on a sparse stage, Omari's mother Nya (Tyla Abercrumbie – who is devastatingly good), a public high school teacher, is leaving a voice message for her ex, and Omari's dad, Xavier (Mark Spates Smith), detailing their son’s predicament: that he may be expelled from his private school and possibly be charged criminally with assault.  

Nya leaves a lengthy voice mail in which her language stumbles and runs aground – a sets a tone for the remainder of the 90-minute show. Repeating and rephrasing that 60-second message, Nya shows her inner self and internal conflicts. The scene cues the audience to listen to the language for the rest of the show, for it will communicate on multiple levels.

Pipeline is also literary, revisiting at several points Gwendolyn Brooks in a poetic remix of We Real Cool – the 24-word masterpiece the perfectly captures a cry of lost youth: 

We Real Cool

THE POOL PLAYERS.
SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL. 
We real cool. We
Left school. We 
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We 
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon. 

Courtesy The Poetry Foundation

The event that triggered Omari’s rage was also literary: a classroom discussion in which his teacher over-aggressively called on him to discuss Richard Wright’s Native Son character, Bigger Thomas. “He was asking me in that room, in that way,” Omari tells his mother, his language suggesting that as an African-American, he is a rarity in his class. “I don’t want to be the token respondent.”

And in fact, as Omari later tells his father about the incident, he says he was feeling upset that his dad sent him financial support like clockwork, but never delivered his love. “Guys say they want their dad, but it’s overrated,” Omari says. The child support he gets from him “does the biology, but it doesn’t do the soul.”

This is a play for actors, because Morisseau gives each of the characters a show-stopping soliloquy, or ranting digression. You’ll want to stand up and cheer for Security Guard Dun (Ronald L. Conner) in “I Do My Job,” weep after Omari’s double-barreled unloading to his dad Xavier. Or laugh and applaud, for Aurora Real De Asua’s Jasmine – Omari’s girlfriend; and Janet Ulrichs Brooks as the teacher, Laurie - both of whom provide measured lightheartedness to the show. 

This production of Pipeline runs through March 1 at the Victory Gardens Theatre in Chicago. It’s highly recommended that you don’t miss it.

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.

Known for staging eccentric new works, Sideshow Theatre’s production of Walt McGough’s “Chalk” is no exception. McGough serves as the literary manager for Sideshow Theatre and his play is receiving its world premiere in collaboration with Boston’s Fresh Ink Productions.

Peculiar is perhaps the best adjective to describe “Chalk.” Clocking in at just one hour, “Chalk” tells the tale of a woman (Kathleen Akerley) living in a post-apocalyptic world with her daughter (Nina O’Keefe). When her daughter returns with supplies, she notices her behavior is unusual. The story quickly devolves into an episode of “Twilight Zone.” While McGough’s script does an interesting thing in that it tries to humanize a typical horror/sci-fi story, the premise itself is weak. In such a short play, he never grounds the characters in any context. Maybe it doesn’t matter, but the lack of meat doesn’t satisfy the audience. In the end, despite McGough’s efforts, the play is a bit plot-heavy.

Director Meghan A. Smith has paired two really talented actresses together for “Chalk.” Nina O’Keefe is hilarious and her physicality is fun to watch. She brings a much needed intensity to the part. Kathleen Akerley gives a rich performance, often adding what’s not on the page with gesture and body language. She has a sense of the script, and it’s easy to trust her certainty in the dialog.

"Chalk" doesn’t overstay its welcome.  It does what a play should - tells an interesting story with a beginning, middle, and the conclusion is satisfying as plays should be. The deeper moments are good, but overshadowed.

Through June 28^th at Victory Gardens Theatre. 2433 N Lincoln Ave. 773-871-3000

I decided to review this wonderful new play by Aaron Holland partly because I loved the title and in spite of the mention in the PR materials saying that Holland’s inspiration were in part from Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace.

I’m so glad I did because this play about one young “everyman” or “everywoman” as the case may be,  Amari Bolkonski, (played wonderfully by Armand Fields) has so much to say to all of us about the necessity of self love and friendship in overcoming life’s sometimes crippling blows to our sense of identity.

In Bailiwick Chicago’s Princess Mary Demands Your Attention, Amari is suffering from agoraphobia and OCD in part because his mother, Countess Bolkonski, (Pam Mack) openly disparages her youngest son by comparing him unfavorably to his distant older brother who is in her eyes, “the real man” in the family.

Luckily Amari runs into a few young gay club kids who become his “new family” and his closest friends and confidantes as he struggles to get out from under his mother’s controlling, domineering, apron and on with his own life.

Nathaniel (TJ Crawford), Bastian (Omer Abbas Salem) and Christian (David Kaplinsky) do a fantastic job of bringing these funny and sympathetic characters to life. Their scenes together are really fun to watch and seem to come from a very real, natural place.

Pam Mack does a wonderful job with the role of Countess and redeems her character’s seemingly abusive treatment of her youngest son in a truly heart wrenching scene telling Amari that she is truly sorry and that he must start to love himself as he is, after she has suffered a debilitating stroke.

The character of Stacy (Rus Rainear) is Amari’s fairy godfather of sorts, a flamer who has watched over Amari since his father’s death as a child and given him a place to work in his food stop since Amari is afraid to leave his house and deal with people in general. Rus Rainear is adorable in this role and gets many laughs with just a “look” or gesture.  Stacy’s undying support along with Amari’s loyal buddies who help him dress up and get him out of his basement  Amari realizes over time and with the hallucinated appearance of his own personal “Queen Mary”  inspire him to break out and realize that his hiding and self pity are ruining his life.

I thought director Lili-Anne Brown did a fabulous job integrating music from the period and strobe lights and smoke and into the piece in a way that maximized the laughs, glamour and fantasy world of Amari and his friends while keeping Amari’s transformation grounded in a very touching way that anyone gay or straight, male or female, can identify with.

In the lobby before the show the audience was encouraged to write on an index card the thing they feel is holding them back in life.  Also there was  a “wig room” with costumes and accessories for audience members to try on “Princess Mary’s glam clothes and wigs and take a “selfie”, which really appealed to me because it made me think about applying the play’s ideas to my own life before I even entered the theater.

I highly recommend this funny yet poignant piece by Holland not because it is perfect and needs no further editing but because in its current incarnation it is so joyous and uplifting one cannot help but feel moved and entertained by it. 

Princess Mary Demands Your Attention is being performed at Victory Gardens Richard Christiansen Theater through February 21^st. For tickets and/or more information call 773-871-3000 or visit www.victorygardens.org.

*Photo - (left to right) TJ Crawford, Omer Abbas Salem, Armand Fields and David Kaplinskyin Bailiwick Chicago’s world premiere of PRINCESS MARY DEMANDS YOUR ATTENTION by Aaron Holland, directed by Artistic Director Lili-Anne Brown.  Photo by Michael Brosilow.