Playwright: Amy Herzog. At: Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted St. Tickets: 312-335-1650; www.steppenwolf.org; $20-$78 . Runs through: Aug. 25
Abby and Zack aren't the first couple to be pressured by doting parents into marrying before either has matured sufficiently to understand what this rite of passage entails. Abby is not the first daughter raised to view marriage as her obligation to the clan whose patriarch she still regards as her primary protector, nor is Zack the first husband so fearful of losing his emotionally unstable spouse's affection that he embarks on increasingly irresponsible schemes to ensure her satisfaction.
Amy Herzog's attempt to sell this well-worn marital dynamicHenrik Ibsen's "life-lie," anyone?as new goods is not without commercial potential, especially when dressed up in motifs borrowed from other folie-Ã -deux classics: Patrick Hamilton's Angel Street (film title: Gaslight), Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Tracy Letts' Bug. Herzog's universe also includes a spacious apartment on the outskirts of Paris, exotic Senegalese neighbors, a conspicuous drop over a balcony rail and a large kitchen knife that takes up permanent residence in the living room. Additionally, the wide variance in expository details (how long have Abby and Zack been married? Who proposed to whom? How old were they?) recalled by audience members also invites speculationhave the actors been instructed to incorporate nightly changes into the text? When your play's dramatic question is whether anybody can really know anybody else, why should we trust the playwright?
What keeps us from abandoning Abby and Zack's Pinteresque games before Herzog's 105-minute, intermissionless tale reaches its crisis (not the reliable burst-through-the-door shootout, but close) are the marathon performances Kate Arrington and Cliff Chamberlain deliver. They must conjure an atmosphere of claustrophobic menace in James Schuette's relentlessly bright and airy apartment; impose a regenerative efficiency dictated by narrative expedience upon grotesque self-inflicted wounds ;and persuade us that the thirtysomething cohabitants have sustained their pre-adolescent camaraderie for years without interference from Abby's controlling kinfolk. We welcome every appearance of Chris Boykin and Alana Arenas' laconic building managers as a harbinger of adult perspective, however brief.
Whether Herzog's goal is a cautionary tale of psychosexual dysfunction or a slick Hitchcockian thriller, the most sobering aspect of what we have witnessed is the suspicion that unlike in fiction, where exposure is guaranteed, our messy real world is capable of nurturing frustration and unhappiness engendered by mutually shared deception over generations. If nothing else, Belleville makes a good argument for extended courtships and prenuptial agreements.