Playwright: Jordan Harrison. At: Shattered Globe Theatre at Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont Ave. Tickets: 773-975-8150; $33. Runs through: May 23
A journey through one man's life in a series of fleeting snapshots, The Grown-Up is a frighteningly realistic portrayal of time as much as it is a time-traveling fantasy. Shattered Globe Theater has found a sharp, imaginative and heartfelt tale in Jordan Harrison's play, which, in fewer than 80 minutes, speaks more to life than many multi-hour biographical works.
The play centers on Kai ( Kevin Viol ), whom we meet as a 10-year-old staying at his grandparents' house. After hearing his grandfather's story about a crystal doorknob that, when affixed to a door, allows one to travel into an unknowable place and time, Kai's curiosity leads him through several doors, each fast-forwarding his life decades at a time.
Impressively, Harrison has captured that all-too-scary feeling of waking up one day and wondering how you got to be so old, in story form. If our lives were really reduced to these flashes of memory, this play represents what they would look like when strung together.
Most of the production hinges on Harrison's bold and thought-provoking narrative. Director Krissy Vanderwarker keeps things simple to let the content stand out, and calls upon the audience's imagination. Considering the generous size of Theater Wit's stages, something more intimate would've suited it better; the scale of this play is in the audience's mind, not in the necessities of the production design.
The cast mimes mostly every prop or set item until the very end, a fitting choice as the lines between realism and fantasy become clearer in the play's final scenes. Through versatility and imagination, the six actors are key to unlocking the play's secrets. They also serve as narrators throughout, providing crucial context.
Again, with the size of the space, the cast must reel the audience into the play over a greater distance. They get there by the end, but the slow development prevents much of the play from connecting emotionally. As much as it is a fantasy meant to change our perspective, The Grown-Up is most interested in tapping into and mirroring human experience, which requires a catharsis. In that regard, the production comes up just short, as well as they understand the material and convey the strengths of Harrison's work.
The Grown-Up is not LGBT-themed, but Kai's identity as a gay man is not a subtle inclusion. Harrison chooses to take Kai through two doors that show us his love life—the first a scene of thirtysomething Kai in bed with a lover and the second Kai in his late 50s, on his wedding day ( to another man ). These scenes exist because love is an important, memorable part of anyone's life; the fact that Kai is gay only suggests that one's sexual orientation does not in any way change the essence of his or her experience as a person.
