Playwright: Jon Steinhagen. At: Raven Theatre, 6157 N. Clark St. Phone: 773-338-2177 or www.raventheatre.com; $30-$40. Runs through: March 24
Inevitably, perhaps centuries hence, some enterprising hack will spin the Drew Peterson case into a lurid neo-gothic romance along the lines of the Bluebeard legend. Fortunately, this new play by Jon Steinhagen isn't it. Yes, the characters may share the circumstances of their nonfictional analogs, but those are all that link any recent headlines to what its heroine decides, over the protests of its auxiliary personnel, to label a "love story."
To begin with, Walter Dante is a structural engineer—a professional citizen, in other words, educated and refined—whose first wife drowned in what was ruled an accident (but later will be declared murder). His second wife has been missing for a year. No hard evidence of his guilt has been discovered, but public opinion has ruined his career and made him a target of hostile speculation. Then one night, he meets recent divorcee Laura Bakersfield, who sees in him something innocent and trustworthy. Can their affection withstand the pressure of his notoriety and the interference of well-meaning friends, angry ex-husbands, jaded police detectives and an inquisitive ghost?
The question frequently asked during the Peterson investigation was how any woman could be attracted to a man of his reputation. Steinhagen's play proposes a possible answer, but more important is its sly insights into the bystanders whose prejudices drive them to commit criminal acts inviting the same suspicion as that they impose on the harried Dante, who considers fleeing, much as the second Mrs. Dante is alleged to have done. ("I wonder who they'd blame if I disappeared.") In the end, we are given no tidy facts to wrap up the puzzle—detective Gibbs pronounces it an "unsolved mystery," the spectral first Mrs. Dante cannot name her assailant, busybody neighbors Suzanne and Harper stalk the lovers, former hubby Sam threatens them. Finally, Dante is forced to take matters into his own hands.
A premise that could be derailed at any moment by real-life events makes for a slippery scenario, its tone shifting abruptly between star-crossed soap, domestic drama and marital comedy. The cast assembled by director Cody Estle still appeared be feeling their way on opening night, but Jason Huysman and Kristin Collins invoke sympathy for the sweethearts doomed to live forever under a spotlight—a fate unlikely to trouble a play with arguably a shorter shelf life than we have come to expect from its author.
