Jason Daniels, Heather Ireland and Gerrit O'Neill ( l-r ) in Escape. Photo by John Ragir_________
REVIEW
Playwright: Sharon Evans
Where: Live Bait Theatre, 3914 N. Clark
Contact: 773-871-1212; $15
Runs through: July 10
BY CATEY SULLIVAN
Sharon Evans is the best there is when it comes to taking the rough, dramatically rich stories of cops and putting them on stage. She's spent years steeped in their stories through her innovative Teen-Police Link program and in shepherding such haunting works as 'What Cops Know' from indelible page to unforgettable stage. She knows the jargon cold ( OCD has nothing to do with Obsessive/Compulsive Disorder; a Round Table is not about Arthurian knights ) , and she can write station house dialogue with the sort of raw, inarguable authenticity that one doesn't often see in the post NYPD Blue-world.
So it's no surprise that within the cop-shop confines of Escape, there's a tough truth, a hardscrabble veracity that's alternately deeply cynical and miraculously compassionate. Day in and day out, the cops of Escape see the worst of the worst, bleak violence occasionally tempered by the sort of everyday heroics that restore one's faith in humanity. Rapists, liars, heroes and scum—they all show up in a day's work, regular as the mail, extraordinary characters jammed day into ordinary eight-hour shift. As Escape deftly makes clear, the cops here have to take all comers. 'You can't pick and choose who you comfort and who you kick to the curb,' one cop reminds another with a tone that's both weary and outraged. The crack addict who agreed to 'ass fuck' her dealer and changed her mind mid-coitus deserves the same respect as the middle-class maiden who was raped at knifepoint after being abducted from a convenience store.
In capturing the day-to-day hopes and devastations of a trio of Chicago cops, Evans creates a piece that's rings bone-true. Unfortunately, Escape feels like only half a play. It's got a sudden, unsatisfying ending, storylines that aren't completed and a dramatic arc that rises to and then leaves one suspended, mid-air. There's third act to this piece that hasn't yet been written, so as it stands, Escape is a frustrating affair.
Even so, the two acts on stage are fine. Escape isn't about the crimes that the officers encounter, although they aren't glossed over. But it aims deeper than that, delving the psychological impact the job has on three officers. The loop Evans throws into the script is the presence of the Greek furies, that unholy trinity of avenging anti-angels known to drive mortals mad. Haunting the police station, the Furies bring a whole new level of pressure to an already tense job.
Director Peter Amster keeps the performances low-key and thus subtly effective. These are not, after all, screaming crime stories, they are human interest stories that were shaped by crimes. A bit more shaping, and a few less abruptly dangling ends, and Evans could have an open and shut hit here.