Like a lot of people, Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women has been mostly a cultural curiosity for much of my life. I know it’s perennially referenced when talking about women and their struggle to achieve personal agency and autonomy. Since it was published in 1868, shortly after the Civil War, Alcott’s quasi-autobiographical novel about a close knit family with its quartet of sisters has never gone out of print.  It’s been adapted to stage dozens of times, turned into an opera and Hollywood seems to have made a habit of rediscovering it and presenting a new interpretation of this undisputed American classic every generation or so.  Most recently, Greta Gerwig’s 2019 film version of Little Women drew a deluge of praise for the way it reimagined Alcott’s novel for a new era. Still, since it wasn’t required reading in my downstate high school, I never quite understood the magnitude of the story’s import until the other night at a world premiere.  Northlight Theatre, together with three other prominent regional theaters across the country, commissioned one of the nation’s most prolific and produced playwright’s, Lauren Gunderson, to develop her own vision of Alcott’s signature creation. Gunderson’s adaptation, now premiering in Skokie before making its way across the country to the other sponsoring companies, has made the blind me see. 

Over her career, the San Francisco playwright has developed a reputation for many laudable abilities. Chief among them is the way she can tap into the essence of her characters and turn them into people we easily recognize, empathize with or see startling resemblances to ourselves. She’s also a brilliant architect who can construct a story framework that’s as sturdy as a fortress, is wonderfully meticulous in its detailing and is usually flawless in plot continuity. Those attributes and more run rampant in this production. Joined by an elite creative team, Gunderson turns a 150-year-old classic into an unexpected revelation whose positive messages extolling character, resilience and determination shine with freshly burnished clarity.  

A progressive family whose parents fostered the pursuit of any interest their daughters found stimulating, the March’s in Little Women is a mirror image of Alcott’s own family. The four sisters were all modeled after the author and her three sisters. The second oldest, Louisa, or Lou as she was known to family and friends, was the driven one. Independent, ambitious and literally gifted, she chafed at the constraints imposed on women in the 19th century; just as women today are dismayed about similar career and societal constraints present in the 21st. 

That Little Women’s Jo is in fact Alcott’s fictional self has long been well established. But aspects in this account go further to draw attention to the similarities between the real and imagined person. In this iteration, the author and her alter ego become so enmeshed that the actor playing lead, Tyler Meredith, occasionally slips into portraying Alcott in addition to Jo March. Dressed in trousers that resemble pantaloons under her period dress, her attire becomes one more feature that distinguishes her. Playing Jo with forceful confidence, Meredith fills her character with an unshakable will that’s fed by the encouragement of her family.  She writes spirited plays that she and her sisters enact.  And the responses she gets from her writing submissions tell her the aspiration of becoming a self-sustaining writer is conceivably within her grasp.

While we’re admiring her tenacity and preternatural intelligence, we also take in the rest of the family and marvel at how quickly and distinctly their own personalities emerge.  Her older sister Meg (Janyce Caraballo); traditional, beautiful and pragmatic, is a stabilizing figure in the family modeled after their mother, Marmee (Lucy Carapetyan), the family’s true anchor and moral touchstone. Quiet and reserved, Beth (Demetra Dee), just below Jo in age, is musical and plays piano. Her profile rises in this effort to the point we have a much stronger understanding of how pivotal her place in this family is.  When she contracts scarlet fever after caring for an ill infant, the slow demise she endures gives us time to see how essential her presence is to the family. Dee is demurely marvelous in a role that highlights how diverse families can be within themselves and how that diversity is a secret strength.

The youngest sister, Amy, played with all the petulant entitlement of the baby in the family by Yourtana Sulaiman, is only slightly spoiled and enjoys painting. Her real-life counterpart went on to become an accomplished and recognized painter.  

Alcott would live out her life just as she imagined and hoped, unmarried and successful in her craft. Neither her publishers nor her public wanted the first of those two things for Jo, however. The friendship she strikes up with the parentless boy across the street who’s living with his rich grandfather seems as if it might lead to romance. Immediately infatuated by his spunky neighbor, Laurie (John Drea) can’t, and doesn’t want to hide his attraction to this dynamic young girl with the invincible spirit.  They both exude so much energy and potential on stage that their power seemed to pulse through the theater. Add to that the purity of Laurie’s guilelessness as he tries to make his friend more than a friend, and you’re virtually convinced this intrigue will lead to the altar. Jo’s too committed to her dream to jeopardize it with marriage. Especially since she doesn’t love her friend in the same way he does her.  Watching their friendship take flight, mature and endure after Jo rejects him for a final time; causing him to go on to marry one of her sisters, is a masterclass in how to live. Only exceptional writing and equally adept directing could present it with such compassionate coherence. Along with the playwright, Georgette Verdin as director strives to bring the fullness of what Alcott achieved in Little Women to the fore. There are countless lessons on the potency of familial love and the capacities of the human spirit to prevail despite discouraging odds. Bracketing the effort with novel approaches in directing and generous splashes of humor made this project as exciting and entertaining as it was enlightening. Placing it in the hands of such able and gifted actors simply added to its appeal. Watching Erik Hellman’s inspired transformation from Laurie’s self-effacing tutor to the German professor Jo meets in New York and eventually marries was a particular delight. It was also emblematic of the fine acting that filled this delightful experience.

Louisa May Alcott's Little Women

Through January 5, 2025

Venue: Northlight Theatre at Northshore Center for The Performing Arts

9501 Skokie Blvd. Skokie, IL  60077

https://northlight.org/series/little-women/

Immediately following the gastronomical excesses of Thanksgiving are the monetary investments and personal sacrifices we make for Christmas.  At the heart of both is family and the importance we place in coming together to sustain and strengthen seminal bonds. 

In 1931, a 34-year-old college professor at the University of Chicago took the long view of these ritual gatherings and focused on what they look and feel like over time.  In his beautifully crafted one act play, The Long Christmas Dinner, Thornton Wilder also manages to deliver an incisive and sobering treatise on time and its fleeting fragility.  What he does so exquisitely in the 26 pages of his script is to point us in the direction of using that time most fully and appreciatively.  Chicago’s TUTA Theatre, who “searches for the unique and exceptional in the language of theatre”, has generously brought this rarely produced treasure to the stage at the sparkling new Bramble Arts Loft in Andersonville for the Christmas season.

Wilder has the prosperous Bayard family act as proxies for all families and takes us with him as he visits them experiencing Christmas dinners that span the course of 90 years and four generations.  He pays close attention to how the family interacts and the way they voice convictions, concerns and priorities.  In many ways, perhaps in all ways, they’re a very typical and intrinsically familiar family.  That notion becomes more and more entrenched as the play progresses.  When it opens, Lucia (Alexis Primus) is about to welcome her mother-in-law, Mother Bayard (Joan Merlo), to the dinner table of her new home.  Her husband, Roderick (Matt Miles) leads the family firm and is the classic head of the house as seen in the era.  Proud of his wife, his mother and his success, he glows with the light of the supremely satisfied.   Although wheelchair bound, Mother Bayard’s vibrant mind and observant eye reveal a robust inner vitality.  It’s her penchant for too frequently repeating how clearly she remembers seeing Indians in the streets during her youth and riding rafts across the Mississippi that hint at the creeping cognitive malaise common found in the aging.

Although rather formal by today’s standards, you can still easily recognize that beneath the rituals of decorum the family practices in their interactions that there is a true closeness of hearts. You feel how sacrosanct kinship is to them. Still, the circle of life encompasses families just as it does individuals.  We are born and we die.  And it’s the way that The Long Christmas Dinner treats these events that make us evaluate ourselves and our relationships with our own families.

The entire play occurs around a stately dining table in the middle of the stage.  Laden with gleaming silverware and China, the luxurious Oriental carpet it rests on and the elegant linear chandelier floating above it are the few things that will remain unchanged.  Two dimly lit doorways, one on the left and the other on the right of the stage, represent the ending and beginning of life, respectively.  Keith Parham’s quietly graceful set surreptitiously becomes its own character.   Stoic and impassive as it witnesses transitions through each doorway.   His lighting design would go on to memorably propel and enhance the dramatic impact of the play. 

Watching the arch of Uncle Branden’s presence was particularly impactful. Full of life, song and playful mischief, he was such a bright light when he first came to dinner.  Assuredly played by Wain Parham, he began to change when Roderick, his cousin, fell victim to his excesses in drink.  Branden’s silence began to grow when Roderick later passed through the doorway symbolizing death.  As he watched Roderick and Lucia’s children, Charles (Huy Nguyen) and Genevieve (Charlie Irving) grow, his warmth remained, but his effervescence and spontaneity notably faded until he too slowly drifted through the portal on the left.

As new generations of Bayard’s are born, explosions of joy and happiness are plentiful on the right where nurses dressed in immaculate white emerge through the passageway cradling babies who soon grow to teenagers and adults.   Often bearing the names of those who proceeded them, old names become new again and we can’t avoid noticing the cyclicality of existence.  Rather than a crown denoting succession, among the Bayard women a shawl becomes the item that chronicles the passage and toll of time.  Used to keep aging shoulders warm, it symbolizes both the inevitable and the blessing of continuity.   That same continuity can be heard when certain random phrases and observations are made by each successive generation that none had heard spoken before by someone else in the family.

Rifts, discord and the realities of life erupt in this very respectable family as they can and do in all.  Stifled by family expectations and the limitations of living in a small town, Charles’ son, Roderick II (Matt Miles) bolts to California when confronted about his drinking and lack of interest in familial responsibilities.  Charles and his wife Leonora (Seoyoung Park) had already lost a son during the first World War and their second son’s departure marked a crippling blow.  As we’re reminded by numerous characters throughout the play, time may not heal grief, but it soothes sufficiently to ease its pain and weight.  When Joan Merlo reappears as distant cousin, Ermengarde, that kind of wisdom flows with the power of rushing rapids.  A highly accomplished craftsman, Merlo’s phrasings of speech were transfixing as she wrapped the profound in tiny pellets of simplicity.  Her gleam of excellence ran through the entire cast, who were uniformly splendid. 

Most impressive was the meticulous pacing and abundance of satisfying nuance director and TUTA co-artistic director, Jacqueline Stone, built into the production.  She insured small gestures resonated with unexpected force and light touches of humor glittered brightly enough to make the project shine with warmth and contemporary flair.

In a time and landscape where holiday entertainment options are virtually endless, The Long Christmas Dinner counts as an especially rewarding option from a company who has a knack for curating works of discreet brilliance.

The Long Christmas Dinner

Through December 29^th, 2024

TUTA Theatre Company

Venue:  Bramble Arts Loft

5545 N. Clark Street

Chicago, IL  60640

https://www.tutatheatre.org/the-long-christmas-dinner-tickets