Playwright: Darren Canady. At: Congo Square at the Chicago Center for the Performing Arts, 777 N. Green. Phone: 312-733-6000; $30. Runs through: June 6
It's a premise straight out of Eugene O'Neill: Seven years earlier, the Colton family farm was bequeathed to the clan's three surviving sons, but with no boundaries to mark each individual's portion. Now it is 1958 and big oil companies are looking to drill on the site. Oldest son Roy refuses to abandon the land he has tilled with his own hands, middle son Wilson needs the money from its sale to rescue his failing business, and youngest son Oliver is on the run from angry vigilantes. Who deserves the final say over the property's disposal?
The Colton brothers have all paid a price for trying to better themselves in a nation still riddled with racial segregation and prejudice: Roy's devotion to his agricultural patrimony has led him to alienate his wife and son. Wilson's foray into the world of commerce has left him nearly bankruptmisfortune that his materialistic spouse will not tolerate. Oliver fled north to the big city, where his sexual needs soon undermined his writing career, despite a well-placed mentor's intervention. Add to these tensions the desire of Roy's teenage son for a college education, and you have a recipe for conflict to strain the bonds of filial loyalty.
These situations sometimes erupt in a fury almost exceeding the confines of Congo Square's cozy auditorium, but at no time does the cast assembled by director Daniel Bryant lose control of its text, however earthy its language, violent its threats or operatic its emotions. James T. Alfred, Anthony Irons and Austin Talley make the contentious siblings a trio of contrasting personalities, as do Shanesia Davis, Velma Austin-Massey and Tracey N. Bonner's portraits of the women on whom they rely, with Edgar Miguel Sanchez rounding out the ensemble in the role of the restless young Jack. The technical team of Andrei Onegin, Casey Diers, Samantha Jones, Rick Sims and Jesse Gaffneywho collectively locate us within our environment with pinpoint accuracyshould also be commended.
To city-dwellers, a patch of soil may seem a curious treasure to rouse such passions as Canady has us witness, but at a time when countless citizens face the loss of their homes, his efficiently crafted parable reawakens our awareness of the reasons that men have fought throughout history for possession of the only enduring fortune a vast country like ours can offer its people.