PicksInSix Review: No Such Thing - Rivendell Theatre Ensemble

‘No Such Thing’ Is Anything But.
PicksInSix® Review | Guest Contributor | Ronald Keaton

If ever in Chicago there was a little engine that could, Artistic Director Tara Mallen’s determined Rivendell Theatre Ensemble seems to often be able to do so. RTE celebrates its 30th Anniversary Season with an intriguing, provocative world premiere of “No Such Thing” by RTE Ensemble Member Lisa Dillman, and it runs now through April 27.

Directed in intimate, meaningful strokes by Malkia Stampley, “No Such Thing” shares the tale of Ren (a cast-the-net-wide, fascinating performance by Susan Gosdick), a screenwriter in the midst of mining her life for interesting and substantial stories that can jumpstart her career. Experiencing the reigniting of a career in middle age is something many artists can understand and aspire to. And one of the things that Ren considers in doing so is in adding a layer of inspiring intimacy to her life in the form of a tightly knit affair with someone she meets in a dating app or through personals ads.

The construct here in her exchange with Fallon (fine, articulate work by Josh Odor), an accomplished man of letters, is quite the challenge. They both set rules in their affair: No names, for one, except for what they create within the affair itself. No stories about current life or work. Nothing in the hotel room but lust and opinion and stories they share that may or may not be true. Both Ren and Fallon jump in with both feet, and for a while, the affair is an agreeable, enjoyable journey for both. For a while.

Because meanwhile, back at home, Ren’s husband Ted (the always high-quality performer Matt DeCaro) is a faithful servant of sorts – going to work, coming home, sharing the day, reading the paper, enjoying his bourbon or whatever – all the while unknowingly contributing to the eventual downfall of the marriage. Both Ren and Ted are locked into this pattern. Hence, the affair. There is a daughter Olivia (a bright, knowing portrayal by Jessica Ervin), whose teenaged problems explode over time into personal trauma. Therapy, medication, even a dabble in legal problems occupy the family’s attention in an overly invasive way.

Ren has several meetings with her friend and literary agent Marilyn (the marvelous Cheryl Hamada is a real comic coin for Ren), who acts as the voice over Ren’s shoulder and eventually has to share the fact that her writing has dramatically suffered during all the family upheaval, and that whatever happens, Ren needs to buckle down even more than she is. A tall order, indeed, given the emotional and intellectual walls that need to be surmounted.

The play envelops what seems like a couple of years and there are real surprises in the story. This writer will leave any assessment of the plot to individual minds. Don’t want to give anything away inappropriately. The scenic design of Lauren Nichols offers a quite clever series of sliding panels and walls to indicate different locations; they successfully overcome the necessary limits of Rivendell’s small performance space. But its intimacy is the very thing that helps the audience see this piece for what it is – an examination into the scourges of relevance in life, and how they affect the characters going forward. “No Such Thing” is anything but. It’s a purposeful and powerful treatise that asks its audience to consider such realities as they arise in life, as well as one person’s way in dealing with them. 

GUEST CONTRIBUTOR | RONALD KEATON received an Equity Jeff Award for the performance of his one-man show CHURCHILL. www.solochicagotheatre.com  Coming soon, his new solo play “Echo Holler.” www.echoholler.com

PHOTO | Michael Brosilow

WORLD PREMIERE
Rivendell Theatre Ensemble
presents
NO SUCH THING
5779 N. Ridge Avenue
through April 27, 2025

WEBSITE

TICKETS
773.334.7728

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PicksInSix Review: FLOOD - Shattered Globe Theatre

“FLOOD” Hits Absurdist High-Water Mark!
PicksInSix® Review | Guest Contributor | Ronald Keaton

In today’s world, we are so attuned to what our own realities are and don’t always know how to adjust them to fit the moment at hand.  We forget sometimes that satire in all its challenging glory is a prime path to making such changes and to look at life in a totally different way.  Shattered Globe Theatre’s Chicago premiere of “FLOOD” by Mashuq Mushtaq Deen grabs its audience by the throat and takes it on an unusual journey of absurdity—admittedly the kind of trip we are not taken on much these days in the theatre.

Deen has fashioned a story with what would normally be quite opposing elements.  The Lauren Nichols design of the set we view in its telling—an apartment or condo setting that looks like a colorized version of an old 1950s situation comedy (read: Father Knows Best, Bachelor Father, etc.)—sets us up from the beginning; there is no doubt as to its functionality as the story goes.  There is a desk with a man (an impervious HB Ward as Darren, the family patriarch) sitting with sections of a model he’s been working on for quite a while.  Darren wears a mask for practically the entire play, one that covers his eyes and nose and hairline; there are other identical masks hanging on the wall behind him.  Darren’s attitudes are almost authoritarian and solid, as if it were what he learned from his own parents, and the hierarchy here is well-defined.  Mr. Ward is appropriately manipulative and commanding in Darren’s position up center stage, almost dictator-like in perception; he controls every conversation, every breathing moment between husband and wife. We don’t know about his job, his early history…he is simply a constant where he is.

Meanwhile, Darren’s wife Edith (the great SGT stalwart Linda Reiter) is frustrated with her husband, because he seems to have created an impenetrable cocoon of focus on the project he is building.  And all she wants to do is have a cup of tea with him and rebuild those ties that seem to be rapidly disappearing from her emotional reference.  Edith is a grand example of that 50’s housewife—keeping the home in order, doing most of the talking to the children—while wondering openly for the audience to see how long she can maintain this “peaceful” aura.  Ms. Reiter expertly shares Edith’s feelings and uses only a glance or a body shift to get it all across.  Edith is always asking questions.  Indeed, Darren and Edith have a “book of unanswered questions” that has regular entries put into it—all pointing toward the day when the building and creating is done and they can sit and actually talk about those questions, and whatever else might come up.  Like their future.

There are two children—Darren Jr. (Carl Collins) and Edith Jr. (Sarah Patin)—who are totally unlike their parents in nearly every way.  They live on lower floors of this tall apartment building.  At first, we think they live together, to be honest—an absurdity if ever there was one in the family dynamic.  But we do discover in time that they have their own lives (Darren Jr. is actually a father himself).  And, they are wet.  It’s raining outside at this locale, set by a beach bordering the ocean. And the water is rising, and apparently very quickly.

In experiencing all this, the kids are trying to share with Mom in phone calls—the phones, by the way, are simple tin cans with twine as electrical cord—that they are drowning and they need help. But their cries go unheeded, for the most part, as Darren has convenient excuses and reactions for everything that happens, except for the obvious: the building is flooding. And not just now; RIGHT now.

Directed by Ken Prestininzi in detailed, intimate strokes that all strike a familiar chord, Deen has thrown many of the elements in theatre of the absurd to good use. Dialogue here harkens back strongly to Beckett and Ionesco. Disparate elements of time and space here create much debate on what exactly this family is facing.  There are moments that comment in their presentation on everything from climate change to social media to parental regard for children to marital challenges to the creative impulse in people… I could go on and on.  FLOOD is a difficult piece to absorb, but upon examination, that’s actually in its favor.  Certainly, there is lots for the audience to chew on.  And I won’t share the play’s ending.  But Deen and Shattered Globe Theatre are both to be commended for taking a chance on new work in an art form that audiences really do not see much of anymore in a full play.  “FLOOD” forces the audience to look at life in a more encompassing way than the day-to-day aspect by actually utilizing that same thought to show the absurdities we all face every day… and how one family deals with them.

GUEST CONTRIBUTOR | RONALD KEATON received an Equity Jeff Award for the performance of his one-man show CHURCHILL. www.solochicagotheatre.com  Coming soon, his new solo play “Echo Holler.” www.echoholler.com

PHOTO|Liz Lauren

Shattered Globe Theatre
presents
Chicago Premiere
FLOOD
Theater Wit
1229 W Belmont
through March 9, 2024

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PicksInSix Review: In Every Generation - Victory Gardens Theater

Inherited Trauma Blooms Over Every Generation.
PicksInSix® Review | Guest Contributor | Scott Gryder

Performances returned on Friday night at the historic Victory Gardens Biograph Theater with the world premiere of Ali Viterbi’s reflective “In Every Generation,” the first production on the Začek-McVay Theater stage in over two years! To make the production even more memorable, the packed house filled the theater from all angles, as the Začek-McVay Theater offered on-stage seating, creating an in-the-round effect, heightening the intimacy of our invitation to the Levi-Katz’s Passover Seder.

The tension is palpable from the moment the first lighting cue reveals the Levi-Katz family facing off at the center stage dining table as they prepare to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Passover. “In Every Generation” quickly evolves into an exploration of the inescapable familial lineage of tradition and trauma, both inherited and learned, over multiple millennia. Across every age, each generation is faced with fears of persecution for their beliefs, their dreams, and their family’s expectations.

The obvious strain between sisters Dev (Sarah Lo) and Yael (Esther Fishbein) are the kindling for the family fire. The sisters manipulate and torture with subtext and good-intentioned backhanded compliments, finally erupting with hostile truths as secrets are revealed. The girls’ distracted and emotionally unavailable mother Valeria (Eli Katz) barely holds it together, wrestling with her personal anguish while attempting to meet familial pressures to uphold Jewish tradition. And Italian matriarch Paola (Carmen Roman) holds court, while holding the hand of her ailing husband Davide (Paul Dillon). Dillon’s subtle, yet always-active portrayal of the aphasic patriarch is breathtaking.

Thanks to the abundant availability of at-home DNA testing, anyone can fully explore the genetic details of their personal history; where they come from, who they come from, and, potentially, how that helped shape them into who and where they are today. Playwright Viterbi spotlights these eternal, internal questions in all four parts of her flashback/flash-forward script. However, the plot seems to splinter with each time-jump, creating moments of fractured dialogue incorporated from previous timelines and the reveal of props from eras yet to come. As the characters evolve (and devolve) through the phases of their lives, depending on where we’ve landed in their moment in time, Director Devon de Mayo aids in delineating each leap by utilizing stylized physicalizations and vocal textures.

The immersive experience doesn’t end with the in-the-round seating. Co-scenic designers Andrew Boyce and Lauren Nichols bring the audience into the scene by pouring pools of sand strategically across the stage, even underneath the feet of the first rows of patrons. As a time-travel visual compass, Heather Sparling’s lighting design plays with warm oranges and yellows or cool whites and blues within each separate period to help transport us across generational timelines. What really added layered connection between characters was the guidance of intimacy coach Courtney Abbott. Nobody held back when it came to sharing their space onstage. For example, the actors embraced with such passion, you believed that they truly knew each other; were completely in love and committed to their relationships.

“In Every Generation” may be centered around a Jewish tradition, but the investigation of one’s intentions behind traditions and the mysteries of inherited trauma are universal. And it unites the audience, by highlighting the shared questions we have behind the human condition, no matter which generations, across every generation, reminding us that it’s only natural to question our own existence and to examine the true motives behind our behavior. 

GUEST CONTRIBUTOR | SCOTT GRYDER received a Non-Equity Jeff Award for his performance in the one-man show BUYER & CELLAR. www.thescottgryder.com

PHOTO|Liz Lauren

VICTORY GARDENS THEATER
presents
National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere
IN EVERY GENERATION
2433 N. Lincoln Avenue
Chicago, IL 60614

through May 1, 2022

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DIGITAL PROGRAM

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PICKSINSIX Review: CAROLINE, OR CHANGE

“CAROLINE” – A STUNNING WORK OF ART! 

Fearless, central performance… Change for Caroline Thibodeaux isn’t easy, but change is coming. The wage she earns for the long hours doing laundry barely allows her to put food on the table for her three kids at home. She spends her days working underground between the washer, the dryer and the radio, and her nights in the shadow of the moon, dreaming of a better place. A fearless, central performance by Rashada Dawan makes Firebrand Theatre’s pulsating new production of the Tony Kushner/Jeanine Tesori musical “Caroline, or Change” a stunning work of art!

Exciting new partnership… Kushner’s semi-biographical masterpiece, staged in association with TimeLine Theatre Company, is directed by Lili-Anne Brown with music direction by Andra Velis Simon. Emerging through a multitude of intricate rhythms and diverse musical styles, it is the story of two divergent families – one African-American, one Jewish – in the midst of the early ‘60s civil rights movement. Laying bare the raw and oppressive attitudes of the day, “Caroline, or Change” is an exquisite accomplishment for the exciting new partnership between Firebrand and TimeLine.

Family friction… In 1963 Lake Charles, Louisiana, Noah (Alejandro Medina) is coping with the recent passing of his mother. Noah’s father, Stuart Gellman (Jonathan Schwart) has married Rose (Blair Robertson), his mom’s best friend, who is now trying to forge a bond with Noah. Noah despises his stepmother and turns to Caroline, who has been his anchor through the long illness. Caroline understands the friction Rose’s presence has brought to the family and resists efforts to partner in the boy’s discipline, particularly when it comes to Rose’s insistence that he be held accountable for his carelessness with money. Noah adores Caroline and imagines her as the perfect mother, citizen, even President.

Breakout role… Dawan’s Caroline soars as she struggles mightily to cope with the mounting pressure of her relationship with Rose, a smart turn for Robertson, and her blistering confrontation with Noah. Caroline’s rebellious daughter Emmie, a breakout role for Bre Jacobs, adds to the mounting drama while her friend, Dotty, the perfect Nicole Michelle Haskins, tries to keep moving forward. Medina’s Noah is simply terrific as are the touching performances of Princess Isis Z. Lang (Jackie) and Lyric K. Sims (Joe), the younger Thibodeaux daughters. The fantasy elements of the sung-through piece showcase the strong vocals of Tyler Symone (Moon/Washer), Roberta Burke(Radio 3), De’Jah Jerval (Radio 1) and Emma Sipora Tyler (Radio 2) and Michael Lovette (Bus/Dryer).

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Brilliant chamber orchestra… Over twenty performers and dozens of creative/administrative professionals contribute to this impressive production. The brilliant chamber orchestra is conducted by Andra Velis Simon. Lauren Nichols contrasting set of rooms above the basement works well with audience on two sides in the Den Theater’s Heath Stage. Lighting by Cat Wilson dramatically highlights the dazzling Kotryna Hilko costumes.

Immerse yourself… Allow a bit of extra time before the show and at intermission to immerse yourself in the dramaturgy exhibit on display. TimeLine has also created an excellent app to examine the events and background that helps to enhancing overall impact and educational value.

PHOTOS|Marisa MK

NOTE: Our engaging August 2018 CONVERSATION
with Lili-Anne Brown - BIG CONCEPTS. NEW PARTNERSHIPS
is available on Apple Podcasts, Libsyn and Stitcher.

FIREBRAND THEATRE
with TIMELINE THEATRE
Presents
CAROLINE, OR CHANGE
through October 28, 2018
The Den Theatre
1331 N Milwaukee
773-697-3830

FIREBRAND WEBSITE

TIMELINE WEBSITE - APP

CONVERSATIONS PODCAST with LILI-ANNE BROWN

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