Playwright: Ann Marie Healy. At: About Face Theatre at the
Center on Halsted, 3656 N. Halsted. Phone: 866-811-4111; $25-$15 students. Runs through: March 6Within the Future Shock-meets-Handmaid's Tale world of What Once We Felt, playwright Ann Marie Healy creates a grim ( and grimly humorous ) satire of dystopia leanings. In this version of a fairly near-future, optimism has been replaced by a bleak sense of inevitability, misguided idealism by the infinitely worse phenomenon of good intentions. This is to say: Euthanasia via the business end of a knitting needle is infinitely preferable to the torturous dehumanization of wrinkles, gray hair and chronic illness.
As she examines post-post-post modern reproductive rights, crushing classism, wage slavery, inequitably distributed healthcare and a Final Solution-like plot to rid society of those deemed undesirable, Healy puts a juicy, issue-laden plot into motion. Then she throws still another hunk of red meat into her snappy, problematic script: Whither the plight of art and artists in a universe where mediocrity is the unassailable, uncompromising and unquestioned king of the cosmos?
The hero here is a novelist, with the catch that comes with her publishing deal a Faustian doozy. The deal ( hilariously negotiated at one of those uber-pretentious restaurants where the entrees are taller than they are wide ) leaves the young idealistic writer not waving but drowning, in over her head and flailing amid sharks of dubious literary intent.
There's a satisfying amount that works here, much of it due to director Krissy Vanderwarker's keen ear for honest emotion, be it noisily overt or roiling deep beneath the dialogue. The cast gets all of itincluding the lurking, omnipresent specter of the RSS ( a clear allusion to the OSS, the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency ) , a Big Brotheresque entity responsible for such things as "GPS love lockets" ( presumably so you can pinpoint your lover's precise locale at any given moment ) and a caste system that makes India's divisions look as quaint and humane as a Norman Rockwell print.
Vanderwarker's all-female cast ( men aren't in this vision of the future ) is one of those wondrously rich Chicago ensembles ( Patricia Kane, Ana Sferruzza, Elizabeth Laidlaw, Laura Fisher, Rebecca Sohn and Charin Alvarez ) that captivates the audience with mighty storytelling skills and a fathoms-deep depth of talent What Once We Felt is no country for weak links. Especially memorable: Sohn as every clueless bureaucrat boss you've ever hated and Kane as a well-meaning disaster of an agent. For an example of artists working together as a seamless whole while also creating their own, indelible portraits, you won't find better.
It's a shame the script isn't as good as the cast delivering it. Artists are in peril here, but plot holes and inconsistencies survive. We've got no problem with ambiguities and gray space, but those in Healy's story feel sloppy rather than intentionally provocative.