Playwright: adapted by Alan Donahue from the novel by Adam Langer
At: Lifeline Theatre, 6912 N. Glenwood
Phone: 773-761-4477; $24-$26
Runs through: June 24
BY MARY SHEN BARNIDGE
Its actual proximity to an urban metropolis notwithstanding, Adam Langer's Crossing California is a story about small-town life. If his portrait of West Rogers Park in 1979 is accurate, the neighborhood on the far north side of Chicago might as well have been a whistle-stop village in rural Montana. To be sure, his chief protagonists are still in high school, circumstances perhaps justifying their restricted purview.
The 'California' in the title refers not to the West Coast state, but to the artificial boundary provided by the street of that name. West of it abides the Rovner clan—surgeon daddy; psychologist mommy; Jewish-academy scholar and rock-star wannabe older brother Larry; and prissy private-school kid sister Lana. East of it dwell the Wasserstroms—restaurant manager papa and his two rebellious daughters, slackerly Michelle and crusading Jill. Farther east, beyond Western Avenue ( but still short of the terra incognita stretching between Ridge Boulevard and the lake ) lies the home of the African-American Wills family—poor but ambitious Muley and his mother, the latter estranged from her music-tycoon husband.
That the importance of these social distinctions will likely be lost on audiences of more cosmopolitan upbringing pinpoints the problem with Alan Donahue's adaptation: The ruminative pace of a richly-textured novel steeped in regional and pop-culture trivia allows the bonding engendered by nostalgia and shared experience to grow gradually into empathy. When compressed to the abbreviated performance time of a dramatic narrative, however, its literary universe comes off as circumscribed as that of a TV-series. Furthermore, the swiftness with which identifying information is imparted, combined with the multiple-casting demanded of small companies, often leaves us confused as to precisely what is transpiring between whom at any particular moment.
The ensuing scramble of plot-lines so obstructs the intimacy necessary to elevate the sketchy personalities above stereotype that we discover ourselves losing interest long before the script wraps up their destinies in conveniently-insular happy-ever-afters. Make no mistake, there's fascinating human insight to be found in every one of Langer's characters. ( Why would a Conservative Jewish boy adopt Orthodox Jewish mannerisms and how do his Orthodox peers regard this affectation? Why is one adolescent female's het first-kiss and another's decision to turn fag-hag both seen as a step toward maturity? ) . There are just too many to fit into a single play.