Displaying items by tag: First Floor Theater

Recent Chicago-area winters have been relatively easy ones. Lest we forget howling blizzards or subzero temperatures, Will Arbery’s Evanston Salt Costs Climbing serves as a reminder. Director Micah Figueroa stages First Floor Theater’s production of this idiosyncratic play in a way that creates a deep freeze – visually, aurally and metaphorically.

By chance, the Bookspan space in The Den Theatre complex was so cold over Memorial Day weekend that most people watched the performance with their coats on. But that synced well with a story of two salt truck drivers, a public works director and her daughter in Evanston, Illinois, during the tough winters of 2014, 2015 and 2016.

Spencer Donovan’s set creates an eerie authenticity with just a few elements. Behind the lumbering salt truck – indicated by nothing more than two rolling office chairs hitched to a table – is a slowly moving projection of the streets that the truck travels along. Sound designer Matt Reich fills the show with noise that goes beyond a winter storm and suggests a sinister underworld.

A fine quartet of actors take on Arbery’s dialogue with the up close and personal style that defines the best of Chicago’s small stages. Drinking coffee in the warehouse before hitting the slick roads, Basil (Dano Duran), a lonely Greek immigrant, shares his fiction and his dreams with Peter (Jelani West), an African American with a wife and six-year-old daughter and far too many suicidal thoughts.  Basil and Peter exchange the moody banter of unhappy men until their boss Maiworm (Ashley Neal) enters with a local newspaper in hand.

Maiworm gleefully reads aloud an article headlined “Evanston Salt Costs Climbing” which includes her quotes on the public works department’s escalating tab for de-icing city streets. That her comments are as dry as they are depressing do not detract from her pleasure in getting name recognition. Maiworm’s two staffers, noting the absence of their own names, just want to get through their day.

A fan of Jane Jacobs and her seminal 1961 work, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Maiworm does her mundane job with a sense of mission and eye to the future. She speaks of installing permeable road surfaces that would reduce the need for environmentally-damaging salt, but also would eliminate jobs. Fortunately for Basil and Peter, permeable streets are way beyond Evanston’s budget.

Back home, Maiworm secretly shares her bed with Basil and manages her adult stepdaughter Jane Jr. (Jacinda Ratcliffe) who works in a nursing home. Jane Jr. is paralyzed by anxiety and struggles to accomplish even simple tasks. Maiworm’s husband died when Jane Jr. was 16, a loss intensely felt by both of them.

Death impacts each character, one way or another. Something dark and unknowable, not to mention loud, has all four in its grip. Blending absurdism with hyper-realism and humor, Arbery’s script is often confusing. But it also has enough humanity to keep everyone, characters and audience alike, from total despair.

Evanston Salt Costs Climbing, a First Floor Theater production at The Den Theatre, is playing now through June 14th. For tickets, go to https://www.firstfloortheater.com/evanston-salt-costs-climbing

*This review is also featured on https://www.theatreinchicago.com/! 

Where’s Plano? I’m not sure, but it’s a place some characters of the namesake play like to visit often. Perhaps Plano doesn’t even exist.

Presented as part of Steppenwolf’s LookOut Series and directed by Audrey Francis, this Will Arbery’s dark comedy is progressively more disturbing. All of its characters seem to be suffering: Genevieve (Ashley Neal), the outspoken artsy sister, is very unhappy but won’t say why. Her husband Steve (Andrew Cutler) has a split personality disorder, quite literally actually. Anne (Elizabeth Birnkrant) feels un-loved and worthless, and in her quiet desperation she fills her time with killing slugs in her apartment. Her husband John (Chris Acevedo) who is suffering from a “small feet curse” that runs in his family, is “probably gay”. And, according to her cruel sisters, he’s using Anne to get his green card. The youngest sister, Isabel (Amanda Fink), is in most pain because her mysterious illness is spiritual in nature. Which, naturally, makes her a saint. Not to mention that she has a “friend” (Faceless Ghost, played by Andrew Lund), who intermittently acts as her mate and her illness. But if you think the sisters are mad, you should see their mother, Mary (Janice O’Neil). This is no ordinary dysfunctional family, it’s a study in subclinical mental illness: not quite ill enough to seek help, but really, really unwell. Kind of like most of us.

Plano is staged with an admirable efficiency: great use of props (scenic design by Kristen Martino) and clever use of language, which helps to effortlessly span long durations of time and various spaces, bringing continuity to the events without having to change decorations or go through many props. Excellent acting and intimate space that’s First Floor Theater will leave you feeling like you’ve just visited with your own dysfunctional family. It’s funny, all right, but the underlying sadness subtly gets in the way, making Plano more “dark” than “comedy”.

Plano runs through March 28^th at Steppenwolf’s 1700 Theatre. www.FirstFloorTheater.com.

A stunning production of a striking play at First Floor Theater, Dontrell Who Kissed the Sea, has the hallmarks of a hit in the making for Chicago. This coming-of-age play by Nathan Alan Davis tells the story of a dreamer, the eighteen-year-old Dontrell, in the summer just before college.
Dontrell Jones the Third (Jalen Gilbert), we learn, is a highly successful student, advanced placement whiz, and accomplished athlete, who has earned his way into Johns Hopkins University. But with all his intellectual accomplishments, Dontrell also remains tapped into the robust imaginary world he has inhabited since childhood.
We meet Dontrell as he lies in bed, dictating a “ships log” into a pocket recorder – a la Star Trek – aimed at “future generations.” He is planning a quest, based on a vivid dream he has had of an ancestor, whom he believes leapt to his death in the Atlantic from a slave ship during the “Middle Passage.”
Contemplating this visions of this heroic journey to encounter his ancestor on the floor of the sea, Dontrell is disturbed as his annoying younger sister, Danielle (Destiny Strothers) calls him to dinner. He must come down on the double, or the two will have to deal with Mom – a force to be reckoned with (as is Shariba Rivers in the role of Mom).
Next scene finds Dontrell diving into the deep end of the pool to teach himself to swim. He nearly drowns and is pulled out, unconscious, by life guard Erika (Kayla Raelle Holder). Dontrell immediately asks his savior to further his quest, and to be his swim coach.

This pair also play archetypes: Dontrell, as innocent youth; and Erika, his mentor (and perhaps, a magical water nymph?). A sleepover at Erika’s soon leads to romance, and revealing stories.
Having mastered swimming, Dontrell decides to tackle diving to reach that ancestor. Erika in tow, Dontrell heads home, and soon enough Mom and Dad (Brian Nelson Jr. is powerful) learn of his plans. Fireworks ensue. Cousin Shea (Brianna Buckley) and best friend Robby (Jerome Beck) ably deliver key roles in this drama. Playwright Davis has thoughtfully given each character at least one show-stopping moment of delivery, offering powerful dramatic moments.
The production of Dontrell, Who Kiss the Sea has received a visionary expression in its direction by Chika Ike, with scenic design by Eleanor Khan and lighting design by Rachel Levy. This dynamic production is furthered by an original sound score (Sarah D. Espinoza) artfully choreographed scenes (Breon Arzell and Gaby Lobotka), and seven players in a movie-star-caliber cast (casting is by Catherine Miller).
The play also glides along on the magical side, with the troupe enveloping the audience in evocative chant and dance rituals, all readily resonate, especially if you have seen Black Panther (though the timing was purely coincidental).
The play has been produced previously in Indianapolis, Washington, Los Angeles and other cities, and was selected to be part of the National Rolling Premiers of the New Play Network. (That program fosters premiers of new plays in multple cities within a 12-month period.) 

Davis also tapped into a trending African-American magic realism, the creative zeitgeist seen in Colson White’s novel Underground Railroad and the current cultural movie phenomenon, Black Panther. Davis, with an MFA from Indiana University, a graduate of Juilliard's Playwrights Program and a lecturer at Princeton, along with the magic, has also brought a kind of classicism and erudition to this script. Hopefully this show will be picked up for a larger venue following its current run. But don't take a chance on missing it. 

Dontrell Who Kissed the Sea comes highly recommended. It runs at The Den Theatre through March 31.