Playwright: Sarah Kane
At: The Side Studio, 1520 W. Jarvis
Phone: ( 773 ) 973-2150; $15
Runs through: Dec. 4
Crave is a play that wallows in misery. Its saving graces are that it wallows with fierce poetry, unique insight, and astonishing control. The play itself—a mere 50 minutes long—is more of a poem for four voices. Its unnamed characters could be real people so caught up in despair they've lost the power to connect, or they could be the four-part fracture of a very tortured psyche. Playwright Sarah Kane ( who engendered much critical controversy before her suicide at age 28 ) writes with the heat of a visionary yet manages to retain a cool detachment that gives her piece its own inner logic. Crave has no real characters. No real setting. No plot. And yet it manages to be mesmerizing and totally absorbing even as we wince at the characters' litany of woes and rages, which include rape, pedophilia, unrequited love, suicide, and other traumas inflicted by life. Kane offers no hope in this short, expertly crafted piece. She offers not a moment of joy. The characters, if they can be called that, do not develop during the course of the evening. But maybe that's the point: these are people ( or aspects of personality ) that have lost control. Life is no longer something they live, but something that happens to them.
This paradoxically simple, yet complex, outing needs a solid production if it's to succeed. After all, this is a play without a set and one whose characters do not really talk to each other, but speak in desperate, overlapping monologues that often reach heights of lyrical hysteria. Crave doesn't offer many theatrical precedents.
That's why I admire Steven Marzolf's amazing, mature, and controlled direction so much. This is a tight, seamless production that is about as close to flawless as I can imagine. There's not a wasted moment or gesture. To his credit, Marzolf has a quartet of genuine thespian artists to work with: Will Schutz, John Wilson, Sadie Rogers, and Elizabeth Hipwell illuminate the aching despair at the heart of Kane's poetic play without ever being obvious about it.
I came away from this production with the same feeling I often have after visiting the Side Studio, home to the side project, a tiny storefront company in Rogers Park. Where do they find these people? How do they attract so much intelligence and artistry when theaters with much larger venues and budgets can't seem to put forth half the creative oomph this place does.
See Crave. It ain't fun. But it sure is an evening you won't forget.
