Playwright: Gus Edwards. At: eta Creative Arts Foundation, 7558 S. South Chicago.
Phone: 773-752-3955; $30. Through Jan. 24
There's nothing like a juicy affair to pique an audience's interest. And there's a scorcher in Gus Edwards' A Fool Such As I, now playing in an engrossing production at eta Creative Arts Foundation.
A Fool Such As I lures in audiences hook, line and sinker with a torrid love story that by the end turns ( not altogether convincingly ) tragic. But aside from that misstep, director Kamesha Khan skillfully helps make the overall journey a captivating one.
Like John Guare's Six Degrees of Separation, Edwards structures his comic drama largely and effectively in a series of character monologues ( interspersed with bits of dialogue ) . While some may see this as an easy way to share insight into characters' thoughts and actions, it snappily allows for many perspectives to be presented at once.
It all starts when the unemployed Chicago transplant Lonnie ( David Goodloe ) spots a torn shopping bag being carried by the hospital worker Sharra ( Kona Burks ) . She invites Lonnie home to help with the groceries and to meet her husband, Damon ( a one-time boxer who has let his body go a bit to seed ) .
Not long after that, Lonnie and Sharra fall into a passionate affair unbeknownst to Damon. On the periphery is their embittered single mother neighbor, Aloma ( Corvet Williams ) , who grows increasingly jealous of the two.
The one plot device that feels jarringly out of place is the late revelation that Sharra and Damon have a mentally challenged six-year-old boy. Burks overplays this shoehorned information in a red-flag-raising monologue. Clearly the child will become a flash point to turn the play tragic.
Since everything is told in flashback, it's odd that the character who commits the heinous act shows no indication of it early on. This flaw is a let down, considering how so much else in Edwards' play clicks effortlessly into place.
Previous productions of A Fool Such As I have just featured the cast reading the play from music stands, but director Khan effectively uses the colorful eta stage to tell this swirling story of love and betrayal.
Khan is blessed with very personable and attractive castso much so that in the cases of Goodloe and Burks, it feels like their characters should have dialogue about regularly going to the gym. But each cast member is able to get you on their side, no matter how devious their actions and justifications prove to be.
With A Fool Such As I Edwards effectively hammers home the fact that the most agonizing of adulterous affairs can happen under our noses on the supposedly worst street in town. Khan's entertaining production makes you glad that you got to spend so much time with Edwards' imperfectly passionate people.