Playwright: Lanford Wilson
At: Steep Theatre Company, 3902 N. Sheridan Road
Phone: ( 312 ) 458-0722;
Runs through: July 23
BY MARY SHEN BARNIDGE
You don't have to be posing for a photograph to snigger at the word 'cheese', but the livelihood of Dublin, Missouri—a community not unlike author Lanford Wilson's own place of birth—rests on curds and whey. And Wilson apparently doesn't like how that one-industry economy affects its citizens in 2000 any more than he did in 1966 when he excoriated provincial hypocrisy in The Rimers of Eldritch.
As in that early play, Book Of Days' story centers around a crime—in this case, the death of the local factory-owner in an accident that arouses the suspicions of a clerk in his employ. There is no shortage of people who would profit by the boss's murder: the victim's son wants to run for the senate, the plant manager wants to rescue the business from Evil Faceless Conglomerates—oh, and the clerk herself just happens to be playing the lead role in a community theatre production of Shaw's Saint Joan. As the various parties make their contributions to the pursuit—or suppression—of the truth, Wilson's rancor toward his corrupt peers is tempered by his nostalgia for a time when—what? Humble folks were less concerned with getting ahead? Or just not in such a hurry to do so?
If our narrative's only noteworthy news is that small towns and small minds haven't changed in three decades, its structure as a detective procedural makes the telling interesting, anyway. And under Brad Akin's direction, this Steep Theatre production delivers a remarkably clean and coherent interpretation of Wilson's diatribe, its intimate space and diverse personnel keeping us always cognizant of who's who and who did what and when—no easy task with a cast of twelve potential liars. Led by Krista Forster's forthright performance as the amateur sleuth, the ensemble invokes personalities always distinctive but never cartoonish ( sometimes despite the angry playwright's propensity to stereotype ) .
Steep Theatre has forged a record over the five years of its existence for tidily-crafted productions of both new and classic American plays. Book Of Days demonstrates the high standards earning this storefront company in the burgeoning North Lakeview theater district ( ten playhouses within a six-block circumference ) its reputation.