Displaying items by tag: Joe Mantello

Steppenwolf’s Laurie Metcalf gives us a tour de force performance in playwright Samuel D. Hunter’s masterful “Little Bear Ridge Road.” But you might find this is a little different than the roles from Ibsen and Albee for which she won Tony’s on Broadway.

As Sarah, the 60ish cranky nurse living alone in backwater Idaho, she may remind you a bit of Roseanne Barr (whose sister Metcalf played on TV): brusque and sometimes mean, but her remarks are more reflective, less scattershot than the commedienne's.

Set in the outskirts of Troy, Idaho during COVID, the play opens with Sarah in rubber gloves cleaning around her three-seat, motorized recliner sofa - the only thing we’re given in the way of a set. But to what amazing use Metcalf and director Joe Mantello will put that recliner.

Soon Sarah’s nephew Ethan arrives, (Micah Stock is excellent), and after the briefest of pleasantries his aunt castigates him for arriving at eleven pm, three hours past her bedtime. “You should have started earlier,” she says. “I’m doing chores to keep myself awake.” Sarah finally offers condolences and we learn the reason he is visiting: to settle the affairs of his late father, a meth addict who died the week before.

Our sympathies go right to Ethan, but that will change. Hunter’s masterful and subtle script unfolds and unfolds these two, peeling back the layers of who they are and how they got that way.

Metcalf’s performance as Sarah is striking. Tony winning director Mantello, who partnered with the Steppenwolf actress to commission Hunter’s script, has Metcalf roaming the stage, exiting left and right but still shouting dialog back to Ethan. Stock is every bit as good, but his character is wounded, emotionally stunted, and ultimately less likable. His mother, we learn, ran away when he was young, probably because his father was an active addict throughout his upbringing.

Another wonderful thing about “Little Bear Ridge Road” is the freshness and immediacy of the dialog. The playwright, through Sarah, gives us the things we really talk about today: the grind of punishing jobs, details of medical conditions and attendant bills, and especially, picking apart streaming video series as we binge through meals ensconced in our recliners. The playwright (Hunter wrote the stage version of “The Whale” which won an Oscar in its film adaptation) indicates where actors’ lines overlap, the way we naturally talk over each other. And he gives the cast three volumes for delivery: explosive, normal speech, and implied lines in enduring silences. Oh does it work!

Metcalf’s Sarah, in particular, puts this guidance to amazing use, especially as we listen in on her side of phone conversations. When she dresses down a work scheduler, her voice is hellfire, like she flipped open the door of a blast furnace. As she abruptly ends the call, Sarah resumes a conversation with Ethan, all collected and nice as you please. At a few points she toggles back and forth between these voices quickly, and suggesting this is how she battles for survival with the outside world.

As the scenes advance, we advance in time, and to other locations, all portrayed with lighting (Heather Gilbert) and this simple set of a recliner sofa on a turntable. We’re at Ethan’s father’s house, where we watch as he flits through his late dad’s effects; a bar in Moscow, Idaho where men hook up with men and Ethan meets James, an astrophysicist grad student; a hillside where the two look up at the stars and James names and describes them.

A year after selling the house, Ethan somehow is still in that recliner with Sarah. In one remarkable scene Sarah and Ethan debate the merits of a streaming show— a particular preoccupation of our COVID sequestration that still endures. The two rise and fall in their individual seats, moving from supine to sitting, and back, leg rests rising and falling, one character ascending another descending, as they sallie and joust in the discussion. If barcaloungers have body language, this is surely it.

And James begins to appear on the sofa as well. Sarah and James forge their own relationship, and the gradual revelations—Ethan’s mother abandoned him to his father, who was addicted to methamphetamine (the drug in the streaming series “Breaking Bad”), Sarah had miscarriages, and daunting medical challenges.

The playwright’s smartphone voices in particular merit our consideration. They are Sarah’s lifelines to real relationships, two of them credited as Kenny and Vickie, whom we never see. But Sarah does, on Facetime. These voice characters recur, a kind of chorus of commentary that advances the action. Facetime Vickie (played by Meighan Gerachis) calls out Sarah’s co-dependency on her brother, and now with her clinging nephew Ethan. Gerachis is also onstage at the end in a spot-on performance as a nurse, Paulette.

A play that takes us along new paths into unexplored terrain, “Little Bear Ridge Road” comes highly recommended. Its run has been extended until August 4, 2024 at Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago.

A non-traditional story about Christmas might just be becoming a tradition at Goodman Theatre. No. I’m not talking about Goodman’s masterpiece production of ‘A Christmas Carol’. For its second year in a row comes David Sedaris’ satirical, hysterical AND anything but conventional (see what I did there?) story of a thirty-something’s plight into becoming a Macy’s Christmas elf in ‘The Santaland Diaries.’

Directed by Steve Scott, ‘The Santaland Diaries’ is a fantastically told story that walks us through the holidays when a man, who never realized he needs skills to be marketable in the workplace, searches for a job and stumbles across an ad searching for elves for Macy’s. He scoffs at the ridiculousness of the ad, but then applies – and guess what? He gets the job! Great.

We are then walked through the painfully real, yet very funny, transition of a young man’s journey into elf-dom, as we are told detail by humorous detail everything from elf training to all the silly events that lead up to the big day – Christmas Eve. Each elf can choose their own name – ours chooses ‘Crumpet’. Crumpet likes his smoke breaks.

Steven Strafford excels as Crumpet. Always one of my favorite actors to watch perform, Stafford is wisely cast and delivers an engaging 70-minute one-man show that doesn’t slow down for a moment. His story telling is fascinating, his comic timing executed to perfection and, well, he’s just Crumpet. Strafford was last seen at Goodman in ‘Wonderful Town,’ but has also entertained audiences with his performances at Drury Lane Theatre, First Folio, Marriott Theatre and many more including regional tours and even a European tour of Grease. Though most remembered for his comedic roles, I’ll never forget his dynamic performance in the one-man show ‘Jesus the Jew as Told by His Brother James at Greenhouse Theater Center.

‘The Santaland Diaries’ was a breakout piece for David Sedaris who first read the essay on the National Public Radio’s ‘Morning Edition’ in 1992. In 1996 Joe Mantello adapted the story for the stage where it debuted at The Atlantic Theater Company in New York with actor Timothy Oliphant taking on the role of Crumpet. Since, Sedaris has been on quite the role as a writer/storyteller (Theft by Finding, Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, Barrel Fever) and ‘The Santaland Diaries’ has popped up regularly during the holiday season in theatres all over the nation.

Steven Strafford’s performance is airtight and the colorful Macy’s Santaland set is the perfect backdrop for this very fun holiday story.

Highly recommended.

‘The Santaland Diaries’ is being performed at Goodman’s Owen Theatre through December 29th. For tickets and/or more show information visit www.goodmantheatre.org.