Playwright: Howard Zinn. At: Trap Door Theatre, 1655 W. Cortland. Phone: 773-384-0494; $20. Runs through: Dec. 1
This show about anarchist orator, social reformer and labor organizer 'Red' Emma Goldman covers a great deal of time and territory, criss-crossing America circa 1887-1917. It presents a lot of interesting material—including Goldman's advocacy of birth control, free love and women's emancipation—in a wildly uneven and inconsistent fashion due in part to the play and in part to the production.
Author Howard Zinn is a much better political historian than playwright. He efficiently boils down political arguments and Goldman's fiery speeches into vigorous short scenes, resulting in some bright theatrical moments, but Zinn's not good at connecting the dots through character development. Emma is a sequence of events rather than a story, with an intermission and final curtain that fall at arbitrary moments rather than providing dramatic suspense or finality.
Zinn materially confuses matters in a scene with J. Edgar Hoover, which dates that scene to the mid-1920s or later, while all other scenes occur years earlier. He refers to 'the Depression,' by which most will assume the 1930s Great Depression; however, Zinn really means the 1890s Depression. A playwright must provide audiences with the where and when.
Emma is directed by Kate Hendrickson and W. Shane Oman, who keep the pacing and action lively but make some curious choices. For instance, the actors mime all props—bottles, glasses, whips, guns, food, letters—while live sound effects are created on a side platform. There's nothing wrong with this radio-like stylistic convention, but I don't see how it enlarges or clarifies the play. The co-directors also make a couple of out-and-out blunders, none greater than the show's second scene, purporting to show a teenage Emma with her family in Rochester, N.Y. Most of the play is performed, essentially, in a realistic style, except this one scene that is a snarling, screaming volcanic eruption that nearly sabotages Emma before it's off the ground. The scene should be restaged immediately.
The cast of nine, lead by earthy and direct Beatta Pilch as Emma, is engaging despite the relative absence of dimension in the writing. Jason Huysman, as Emma's long-time manager and lover, projects definite sex appeal. He and David Bettino as Johann Most ( another anarchist orator ) demonstrate that a little understatement goes a long way. Directors Hendrickson and Oman don't discourage understatement, but favor a more presentational style that gives Emma the look and feel of an historical pageant, complete with pianist Gary Damico's atmospheric live underscoring.
In the play, Emma Goldman reminds us that patriotism is love of one's country and not love of one's government. The continued relevancy of this truth is reason enough to see this play about a tough, powerful woman. FYI: Goldman is buried in Chicago's Jewish Waldheim cemetery.
