Playwright: Sidney Kingsley
At: Griffin Theatre at Theatre Building Chicago, 1225 W. Belmont
Phone: 773-327-5252; $15-$24
Runs through: Nov. 12
By Jonathan Abarbanel
American drama of the 1930s fervently chronicled the social and political terrain of the Depression, the appeal of leftist politics and the rise of Fascism. Clifford Odets ( Waiting for Lefty, Awake and Sing! ) put Marxist views center stage, prompting acerbic critic George Jean Nathan to dub him Little Red Writing Hood. Sidney Kingsley hid politics within large-scale social issue plays, of which Dead End is his best-known.
Produced in 1935, Dead End became a tremendously influential Broadway hit. The first play ever seen in a White House command performance, it inspired laws promoting slum clearance and low-income housing. The Hollywood version triggered numerous increasingly unimportant sequels featuring the Dead End Kids ( later renamed the Bowery Boys ) , and making stars of Huntz Hall, Leo Gorcey and Gabriel Dell.
Requiring 27 actors, Dead End rarely is staged today. However, its primary themes remain pertinent: wasted opportunities for deprived youth, social stratification through wealth and the good/bad influences of role models. Secondarily, it documents adult compromises—especially by women—in desperate economic times.
It's set in 1931—well before Franklin Roosevelt's progressive New Deal—on a Manhattan street of damp, tubercular tenements dead-ending against the East River. It's the spot where six slum boys swim in the filthy water, plot petty crimes and observe the adult world. The pivotal character is gang captain Tommy, a bright, instinctively fair boy with natural leadership gifts. The moral line is drawn between two adults from the hood—gangster Baby Face Martin, with swell threads, cash and women; and rickets-bent Gimpty, who studied architecture on a scholarship and now is unemployed.
Reviewed at a preview performance, the play's emotional lines were well-defined, but several scenes were stiff and slow. Young director Jonathan Berry's intentions were clear, but he hadn't achieved consistent pacing or uniform acting quality, perhaps not surprising given the huge cast and shifting focus within the urban landscape of river wharf, street end and back entrance to a rich folks' apartment tower.
The gang member actors—all recent theater school grads or current students—scored high for slender looks, energy and a sharp attack but weren't completely comfortable with the sometimes-stylized 1930s slang and East Side diction. They'll get there. John Dixon as Tommy and Russell Armstrong as mean-spirited Spit were first among equals; we'll see more of them.
Among adults, Dylan Lower handled Gimpty's moral and spiritual ambiguity with grace, while the women were appealing and sympathetic in less-developed roles: Karyn Morris as security-seeking Kay, Jennifer Grace as a prostitute and Cora Vander Brock as Tommy's tough-but-despairing older sister.
Scenic designer Marcus Stephens chose semi-abstraction over realism, providing jagged inkblot impressions of bridges, towers and gangways, an effective choice in confined quarters.
Kudos to Griffin for bringing this important classic to Chicago audiences.