Playwright: Luis Alfaro
At: Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn St.
Phone: (312) 443-3800; $25-$55
Runs through: July 25
BY MARY SHEN BARNIDGE
Leadership of the barrio turf in the American southwestern desert claimed by the Casa de Atridas now rests almost solely in the hands of its women. The clan patriarch has recently died, his departure hastened by a heroin habit, and Orestes, the heir apparent, has long ago been sent by his mother, Clemencia, to live with his godfather Nino in Las Vegas.
But horror soon follows on this temporary peace: youngest daughter Electricidad has chained herself to her father's desiccated corpse, and now holds solitary vigil at a makeshift shrine in the front yard, while proclaiming her mother's complicity in her sire's murder. No one can persuade the distraught girl to abandon her grisly enterprise—neither her grandmother, a tattooed survivor of urban feudal culture, nor her sister, looking to religion for deliverance from a prison-bound future, nor the neighbors who watch in fear.
Purists might question whether Luis Alfaro's colloquial approach evokes stakes sufficiently high to justify the label of classical tragedy. But there is no denying this production's operatic SCOPE under the direction of Henry Godinez. From the moment we see Electricidad huddled in a dazzling expanse of bone-white sand, illuminated only by an occasional flash of heat lightning and the sparks from a dilapidated roadside sign's transformer—a stark image contrasting with our first glimpse of Clemencia, lounging on a sofa the color of a blood-engorged viscera—our emotional response is assured. And while brand-name references to discount stores, casinos and soap operas might draw relieved chuckles from an audience struggling with the text's mixed English-Spanish idiom, the dignity Cecelia Suárez imposes on the agonized heroine forces us to take the troubled teenager's extravagant admonitions seriously, even as her kinswomen—Ivonne Coll's Abuela, Sandra Marquez' Clemencia and Charin Alvarez's Ifigenia—argue the needlessness of her self-destructive mission.
If Alfaro also departs from Sophocles in omitting some characters and resurrecting others, his reduction of the dramatic action to an elegant 90 minutes propels the story to its bloody conclusion with the swiftness of knife-slash, leaving us to ponder in solitude the legacy of violent death and wasted lives spanning three generations.
A Man of No Importance
Playwright: Terrence McNally (book), Stephen Flaherty (music), Lynn Ahrens (lyrics)
At: Apple Tree Theatre, Highland Park
Phone: (847) 432-4335; $38
Runs through: July 18
By Jonathan Abarbanel
A Man of No Importance is too honest and bittersweet to be a great joy, but it's filled with small pleasures and tells its tale with rectitude and a tender heart. It's a coming-out tale that's not about youth or physical beauty, most assuredly not about sex, and doesn't have a happy ending. The hero is forty-ish Alfie Byrne, Dublin bus conductor by day, director of the parish church theater by night, and deeply closeted homosexual. Not merely a virgin, Alfie's never touched another man let alone kissed one. Whatever queer life may have existed in the repressed and censorious Dublin of 1964, Alfie's never sought it. His only gay role model is Oscar Wilde, and few in Alfie's circle understand his oblique references to 'the love that dare not speak its name.' Alfie's very small world implodes when his staging of Wilde's Salome runs afoul of Church censorship, and Alfie becomes infatuated with a handsome young bus driver.
Doesn't sound promising for a musical, does it? Indeed, A Man of No Importance is far more a drama with songs than a traditional tuner. As staged at Apple Tree, it's a chamber musical with little choreography and no really big production numbers. Instead, there are numerous fine, small moments played by a strong ensemble company of 13. They sharply draw the working class Dubliners who people the show, and they pour a ton of emotion and humor into the mostly intimate songs, backed with folkloric verve and lilt by piano, violin, cello, guitar, tambour and accordion (musical direction by Mark Elliott and Malcolm Ruhl). The material and the production—staged by Mark E. Lococo—are perfectly matched in their restraint and measured pace (but never slow or dull). This deeply personal story is a far cry from the better-known creations of the authors, Ragtime and Once on This Island, but no less faithful to its period and style.
The principals include veterans Ross Lehman as a most sympathetic Alfie, Mary Ernster as his self-sacrificing sister and Patrick Clear as their friend and nemesis, plus young players Elizabeth Clinard as the shy Dublin newcomer whom Alfie plucks to play Salome, and Zach Ford as Robbie, the bus driver. Lehman reigns in his brilliant comedic flair and brio to carve the sweet-natured but unhappy Alfie. 'Why should anyone care for you when you care so little for yourself?' he asks his reflection, as he summons the courage to face himself. A head taller than Lehman, Ford is a leanly attractive objet d'amour with a fine tenor voice.
The church basement set by J. Branson is detail-perfect, from the clerestory windows to the cramped mini-stage with wine-colored curtains. We've all been there. One way or another, most of us have been Alfie, too.