Playwright: Paula Kamen
At: 20% Theatre Company at The Side Studio, 1520 W. Jarvis
Phone: 773-973-2150; $15
Through March 24
BY SCOTT C. MORGAN
If it weren't about abortion, you could be certain that the empowering women's movement play Jane: Abortion and the Underground would be adapted into a Lifetime cable TV movie. But since Paula Kamen's historical drama deals with that polarizing political litmus test that scares away Hollywood producers and advertisers, the place you'll learn about Jane right now is from a cramped Chicago storefront theater.
That's a shame, because there's a compelling story at the heart of Jane. It's also too bad since Jane isn't served full justice in Kamen's jumbled 1990s play or in 20% Theatre Company's low-rent production of it.
Jane was the code word for the group of Chicago-area women who created their own illegal underground abortion clinic in the late 1960s and early '70s. Largely made up of suburban housewives and college students, Jane grew out of the need for women to safely get treatment away from dangerous back-alley abortionists.
Kamen constructed her play based upon interviews from those who actively worked in Jane and those who sought its services. Kamen doesn't flinch away from the huge moral dilemmas these women faced at breaking the law or the self-doubt they faced by destroying fetuses. But throughout it all, Kamen highlights the courage and the huge risks they took to meet a need that wasn't being met by a male-dominated medical field.
Now if only Kamen had found on a cohesive structural style for Jane. Though it's been frequently revised, Jane is still a mishmash of generalized characterizations, monologues and dramatic scenes of varying significance. Kamen also includes a few men in the mix to show they were also part of Jane, but their stories and characters are afterthoughts in context.
Elizabeth Schwan-Rosenwald's direction of Jane for 20% productions doesn't help the jolting stop-start structure of the show. Practically no attempt has been made to costume it or dress it up to look like the late 1960s or early '70s.
Instead, the basic-black costuming lends a modern pertinence to the play and allows the cast to play a variety of characters seamlessly. Yet you're constantly stepping away from the flow of the show to question just exactly who is who and what the situation is since there is little delineation between the minor characters.
In this situation, it's the actors who more or less play just a single character who stand out and create the most memorable work, particularly Gianine DeFrancesco, Delicia Dunham and Whitney Hayes.
Though Jane: Abortion and the Underground isn't a structurally sound play, its topic is fascinating and demands to be seen. Let's just hope that the vital story behind Jane can get out into the light instead of being confined to bare-bones productions in out-of-the-way theater spaces.
