Playwright: N. Nicole Brooks. At: Lookingglass Theatre, Water Tower Water Works, 821 N. Michigan
Phone: 312-337-0665; $28-$62. Runs through: Nov. 18
"The king is dead. The son is lost. The queen is mad," reads the breathless tag line to J. Nicole Brooks' Afrocentric adaption of Fedra. To which we might add, "The play is ridiculous." With the depth of Cliffs Notes and the aesthetic of a cheesy 1970s Vogue shoot, Fedra is also laughably strained in its attempts to bring a hip, urban edge to an ancient Greek tragedy.
Calling Princess Aricia "baby girl" and making Fedra a cutter may give the proceedings a façade of hipster street cred, but such ( laboriously self-conscious ) touches can't compensate for cardboard cut-out characters acting out what amounts to an outline for an uninspired term paper.
Directed by Laura Eason and starring Brooks in the title role, plenty of stuff happens in the all-powerful Haiti of Fedra's futuristic world: Violent storms ( "Citizens are advised to take precautions against the storm!" ) , crucially important council votes ( "The council is deadlocked!" ) , countervotes ( "The council has spoken in favor of Fedra!" ) and uprisings all bearing a direct relationship to Queen Fedra's tenuous grasp on sanity and the monarchy. But most of these portentous events are evoked by contrived telling rather than organic showing. For example: We know storm-toss'd rebellion is a Big Deal, because the King gets on the walkie-talkie and starts barking intense queries such as "What's the position of our military units?" Also, it rains in one corner of the stage.
In Brooks' world, characters are constantly having conversations that seem to exist for no other reason than to fill the audience in on what's going on.
But as directed by Laura Eason, the key misfire here isn't in the dialogue. It's in Fedra's so-called lust for her stepson, Hippolyta. Frankly, the TV show Cougar Town offers a more realistic take on lady lust after a certain age. Writhe and emote though she will, Brooks never displays the all-important chemistry of longing at the root of the story.
Hippolyta's ( "Call me Hip" ) relationship with the emo-goth Aricia is similarly unconvincing. Their cuter-than-puppies scenes together play as overly adorable outtakes from a Judy Blume novel.
The focal point of much of the story isn't the title character, but Afrodite, the mischievous goddess who seems to exist merely to torment Fedra. Bt while putting Afrodite in a name-appropriate Afro might work on paper, in practice, that halo of hair pulls focus. And it doesn't help matters that Afrodite's candy-apple red couture-like gown wears her instead of vice versa.
In Afrodite's dress, we see the downfall of Fedra: The show is all style and no substance.