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WINDY CITY TIMES
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Kid Sister
THEATER REVIEW
by Mary Shen Barnidge 2010-11-17
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This article shared 3855 times since Wed Nov 17, 2010
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Playwright: Will Kern. At: Profiles Theatre, 4147 N. Broadway. Phone: 773-549-1815; $30-$35. Runs through: Dec. 19
Move over, Roderick and Madeline Usher! Stand back, Duke and Duchess of Malfi! Will Kern's "dime novel" introduces us to a brother and sister whose toxic progress teems with the kind of neo-Jacobean perversion and bloody butcherynot to mention a cross-gender twistexpected of the author whose Hellcab took us on a tour of urban underbellies for most of the 1990s.
Cassius Williams was 16 when his little sister was born, their mother's death and father's chronic neglect facilitating the infant Demi's coming to regard her brother as her parent/protector. Following a prison sentence engendered by a misguided samaritan impulse, Cassius returns home to discover that, in his absence, his now teenage sibling has immersed herself in a television-fueled fantasy of auditioning for American Idol and escaping to Hollywood. These ambitions are obstructed by several factors, the most immediate being her illegitimate daughter, its possessive sire, and a meek consort who dotes with doglike devotion on the baby. In fact, all of the men dote on the babyaffections that do not sit well with Demi, herself accustomed to being the center of attention.
Melodramaand its modern counterpart, "dark comedy"are genres founded on characters endowed with the power of responsible adults behaving like selfish children. Both Demi and biological daddy Kendall are inclined to throw tantrums when thwarted, spewing ugly threats that our society deems serious when directed by males at single momseven when those vituperative matrons make no secret of their progeny's sole value as a source of covert income. While Kern may declare his intent to be merely a lurid account of white-trash amorality on the sweaty Florida gulf coast, he also comments on the sexist stereotypes that allow fundamentally good men to be exploited by vindictive women adept at manipulating cultural definitions to their own advantage.
Kid Sister's premiere at Profiles Theatre inevitably invites comparisons to its recent revival of Killer Joe, another kitchen-sink drama premised on American dreams gone hideously awry. Joe Jahraus has assembled a superlative cast led by company members Darrell W. Cox and Allison Torem as, respectively, the gentle Cassius and volatile Demi, augmented by Eric Burgher, Marc Singletary and Emily Vajda's likewise textured portrayals of stunted human beings reduced to desperate inhumanity by a universe bereft of moral guidance. |
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This article shared 3855 times since Wed Nov 17, 2010
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