Playwright: Kristine Thatcher. At: City Lit Theater at Edgewater Presbyterian Church, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr Ave. Tickets: 773-293-3682 or www.citylit.org; $25-$29. Runs through: May 24
You can bet that U.S. history teachers would love to get their hands on Kristine Thatcher's The Bloodhound Law as a teaching aide. Now making its world premiere courtesy of City Lit Theater as the concluding play of its five-year Civil War Sesquicentennial Project, The Bloodhound Law certainly hammers home the sheer injustice for African-Americans trying to survive in a divided nation of slave states and free states.
Read aloud in class, select scenes in The Bloodhound Law would likely perk the interest of students learning about abolitionist activists like the publisher Elijah Lovejoy who was murdered in 1837. Or why Illinois senator Stephen Douglas adamantly supported the Fugitive Slave Act as an outgrowth of the Missouri Compromise of 1850, despite its consequences of essentially legalizing the kidnapping of African Americans to be sold into slavery.
But, on the whole, The Bloodhound Law is patchier and less enthralling as a play. Thatcher hasn't found a cohesive way to stitch all these expansive ( and obviously thoroughly researched ) historical vignettes together. It's all very interesting and admirable, but rarely dramatically engrossing.
What is presented in Terry McCabe's rudimentary production is a series of scenes where a group of ever-present actors in period outfits assume multiple roles. Oh sure, there are plenty of dramatic moments ( a horrific lynching of a free Black man is particularly disturbing ) and lots of opportunities for the actors to be sink their teeth into playing roles of noble abolitionists or smarmy slavery supporters.
But you hardly get a chance to feel emotionally connected since there is deliberate distancing going on in McCabe's often-stilted staging of The Bloodhound Law. The lighting design, courtesy of Liz Cooper, was often unfocused and dim, while a cheap, comic book-looking set by designer Dustin Pettegrew didn't help. Also, some of the performances weren't entirely convincing, either.
As Lovejoy, Christopher Kidder-Mostrom stumbled over some of his lines on opening night and never embodied the defiant passion of an abolitionist who was willing to stand up to murderous mobs to publish screeds against slavery ( he was strangely more animated as a conniving kidnapper ). I also would have liked some more fire from David Lawrence Hamilton, who plays characters who are so grievously wronged in the play.
So, although history buffs will likely be pleased with The Bloodhound Law, it's less likely with general audiences. Still, it's interesting to draw parallels of the United States then to our country today—especially in light of the Black Lives Matter protests and the split in states where same-sex marriage is legal and illegal. The Union may have won the Civil War, but the U.S. is still, in many ways, a divided nation.
