Displaying items by tag: Lucy Kirkwood

Playwright Lucy Kirkwood was named “Best Newcomer” when her first play debuted in London in 2009. Her Chimerica played to acclaim all over, including a well regarded production at Timeline Theatre in 2016. Kirkwood’s 2017 Mosquitoes, now running at Steep Theatre, depicts today's societal clashes between advocates of post-Enlightenment rationalism, and the more magical thinkers who resist modernist thought. In current terms, that plays out in things like Climate Change and vaccination debates. 

Lest you think this is dry, let me assure you Mosquitoes is quite the play, and director Jaclyn Jutting gives us a lively dramatic production, the clash is acted out in the highly charged relationship between two sisters. 

The older one is Alice (Cindy Marker), a research physicist at work on the sub-atomic particle-smashing Hadron Collider, which starts up in Geneva, Switzerland during the play (dating it to 2008). Jenny (Julia Siple, who simply tears up the stage in the role) telemarkets vaginal cancer insurance policies – quite effectively, as she demonstrates by replaying her phone pitch in the second act.

Jenny questions the many things in life dictated by rationalism, including vaccinations. She doesn't get one, then Kirkwood has her come down with a preventible illness. And Jenny thinks the Hadron Collider and its quest for the elusive (and quite theoretical) Higgs bosun particle, is a waste.

“Six billion European for something you can’t even see?” says Jenny, comparing the meeting of two particles to mosquitoes smashing into each other. 

In one of the early scenes, Jenny reveals to her sister she is pregnant, and seeks reassurance from her sister Alice – the baby hasn’t been kicking, she fears the worst. Jenny admits she hasn’t had an ultrasound – she has been told that the sound waves can damage an unborn child. Yet when scientific Alice protests that routine ultrasounds are a safe way to show the baby’s status, Jenny resists the rational arguments.

“What I feel as a mother is stronger than facts,” Jenny says. And that conversation, in a nutshell, is the play Mosquitoes. Alice and Jenny love each other, though they don't readily admit it. 

But there is much more, as Kirkwood has us live through the lives of these women, and those around them. However it begins to feel interminable by the end of Act 1, which has no hint of intrigue about what comes next.

We meet the girls’ mother, Karen (Meg Thalken) who believes she has incipient dementia, and is bitter about her late husband’s Nobel win, when she did all the research without credit. Thalken is quite good in a sometimes over the top role (though her speech leans toward the geriatric more than to British). We meet Alice’s significant other, Henri (Peter Moore), a scientist at the Hadron Collider who struggles to get people to remember he is Swiss, not French. Moore does a good job in his role. 

And we also have Alice’s teenage son Luke. Alexander Stuart is perfectly convincing as this angst-ridden, alienated teen, a high-school kid forced to leave England and struggling socially in Geneva. We have Luke’s one school chum, Natalie (Upasana Barath is endearing), like Luke a transplant who is his empathic friend. The two operate a second play within the play that adds to the length but does little to advance the story.

It is, however, Luke’s relationship with his aunt Jenny, as well as a subplot, that reveals the wealth of emotional strength that a more feeling and less thinking adult offers Luke. It is exactly what he needs.

And finally we have a character playing that elusive subatomic particle, Bosun. Played by Lyn Evans, Bosum steps in at transition points, including one that arrives following a scene that I was thinking would be the end of Act II. Evans seems to loudly declaim all of Bosun’s lines, which erased whatever power Kirkwood might have intended for them. The character is also a metaphorical stylization that added nothing but length to Mosquitoes.

Setting aside the criticisms, there is much good here, and Mosquitoes is Somewhat Recommended, largely on the basis of Julia Siple’s performance. Mosquitoes runs through November 9 at Steep Theater, 1115 W. Berwyn in Chicago.

*Extended through November 16th

Prepare to be taken on a journey with Timeline Theatre at their production of "Chimerica." Directed by Nick Bowling, "Chimerica" is an epic saga of a play by British playwright Lucy Kirkwood. While a solid three hours of theater may be discouraging for some, this play makes it well worth the time. 

Spoiler alert, "Chimerica" is a story about Chinese-American relations, not Chicago. That said, John Culbert's stage design addresses it pretty head-on. One side of the stage is an ironically vintage New York City apartment, a wide gulf separates it from a shabby Beijing tenement. A Macbook sits on the coffee table of the American apartment, a well-known symbol of strife between these two worlds. 

Lucy Kirkwood's play makes its American debut at Timeline. It is the story of a photo journalist, Joe Schofield, who took the famous picture of a man standing in front of a tank during the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989. We catch up with Schofield (Coburn Goss) in 2012 as he tries to persuade his magazine editor to do a story about the Tank Man 23 years later. Joe's kept a long-time friendship with a professor in Beijing, Zhang (Norman Yap), who is the story's window into Chinese life. Joe falls in love with largely uninvolved marketing expert, Tessa (Eleni Pappageorge) who's on a mission to "figure out" the Chinese for a credit card company. Joe becomes determined to track down the man he accidentally made famous, and in the process, a global chase ensues. 

There are a ton of characters in this play. Some more consequential than others. Nick Bowling has assembled a very talented cast of Asian-American actors on which the moral backbone of this story hinges. In fact, there's not a bad performance in this play. 

One could dissect the themes of this show for hours, but for the sake of brevity, we won't. What is immediately fascinating is that this is a story told from the mindset of someone caught in the middle. It's a story about how America and China are becoming more alike as well as their inherent differences. It’s a story about what is actually dictating "free press" in America. It’s a story about how foreign countries see American politics, particularly Hillary Clinton. It's also a story with great heart. Lucy Kirkwood is not just delivering a geo-political thesis, but also a compassionate look at the lives of ordinary people. At times this very-right-now drama can seem to go on and on, but in the end it adds up to a very bittersweet conclusion and a lot to take home and unpack. 

Through July 31st at Timeline Theatre. 615 W Wellington Ave. 773-281-8463.