Playwright: Robert Koon
At: Infamous Commonwealth Theatre
at Raven Theatre, 6157 N. Clark
Phone: 312-458-9780; $15-$20
Runs through: Oct. 19
Infamous Commonwealth Theatre is known for picking a theme for each season, and 'Nature' is the company's buzz-worthy topic this time around. With the world premiere of Robert Koon's Odin's Horse, Infamous Commonwealth already has a winner—the play won the top prize from the national EcoDrama Playwrights Festival.
It's quite an honor for Koon, who is largely associated with Chicago Dramatists where he is a resident playwright ( full disclosure here: I took an intro to playwrighting class from Koon four years ago ) .
Now don't go into Odin's Horse expecting Scandinavian gods doing battle or meddling with incestuous mortals a la Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle. Though the play sounds Norse, Odin's Horse is essentially true-blue American.
Koon sets Odin's Horse mainly in the California redwoods to explore the clash of tree-sitting environmentalists trying to protect thousand-year-old growth versus people in the commercial logging industry. Where the Norse mythology comes into play is through the narrator, a part-Icelandic best-selling author named Arman ( a compelling Stephen Dunn ) experiencing a severe case of writers' block.
Now the clash between environmentalists and logging communities can get extremely heated. One only has to remember the whole controversy surround the endangered spotted owl two decades ago, or the recent brouhaha to get tree-sitters out of trees marked for removal on the campus of University of California Berkeley.
Instead of immediately going for the jugular, Koon opts to have his narrator cautiously and elegiacally explore the issue as both an outsider and insider. It's an even-handed approach that offers a thoughtful examination of the conflict.
Outsider Arman wades into the battle zone as the beau of Callie ( a no-nonsense Sarah Denison ) , the new public relations director for the logging company 'NORCAL' headed by Texan businessman Lopat ( Larry Wiley turning on his best Southern charm ) .
While Arman shacks up with Callie in company housing to find some inspiration for his next novel, he starts a telephone relationship with a tree-sitter with the code name 'Astra' ( a very limber Cat Dean, who blends her acting skills with some impressive aerial stunt work ) . Oddly enough, Arman gets Astra's contact information from a couple of macho loggers, Seaver ( Mike McNamara ) and Evans ( Jeremy Fisher ) .
Arman is driven by his curiosity, which eventually gets him in too deep as the people on both sides eventually turn against him. There is a tragic ending, plus an extremely tense confrontation between McNamara's very intimidating Seaver and Dunn's Arman. The scene is so exciting that makes you feel like Koon and director Anna C. Bahow might have been a tad too restrained in exploring the red-blooded anger and sense of righteousness from people on both sides of the issue.
But it's probably for the best that Koon went for the understated approach. ( There's only so much full-out shouting that would have been tolerable. ) Koon's blending of Norse mythological views about nature into the plot is lovely, even if he does have to stretch a bit to tie Scandinavia to Northern California through Arman's mixed heritage.
Still, Odin's Horse pulls you in through its thoughtful even-handedness and shades-of-gray characters. Odin's Horse is already a winner script-wise, and Infamous Commonwealth's fine production only confirms it.