The Royal Hunt of the Sun
Written by: Peter Shaffer
By Salem Collo-Julin
Peter Shaffer, who brought us the screenplays for Equus and Amadeus, wrote both the film and stage versions of The Royal Hunt of the Sun. The film version featured Christopher Plummer as a brittle and almost ridiculous Atahuallpa, king/God to the Incan people of early 16th Century Peru.
Fortunately, the interpretation seems to have been entirely Plummer's doing. Shaffer's script for the stage is a compelling and majestic tale of yet another European oppressor ( King George V's Spain ) versus yet another unfortunate indigenous people ( the previously mentioned Inca ) . Such an iconic fable deserves dashing regiments of armed forces and strong and proud natives in a vast, gorgeous, untapped-by-Europeans landscape. Shaffer's play strives to provide that for us, using the perspective of an old warrior remembering his first days as a page to Captain Francisco Pizarro, the no allegiances, no tears kind of captain of an expedition that one might expect to burrow through untapped landscapes on a search for jewels and assorted booty.
In fact, all of Shaffer's characters are icons in several ways: the young, impressionable boy, yearning to be a man, the proud leader of a devoted people, the greedy and cowardly representative of the King, along for the ride. This ensemble is truly committed to delivering the sense of the fantastic that permeates Shaffer's script. Efficient design and direction by Frank Pullen and evocative music from Ian Goodman cannot completely shift the audience from the pews of the tiny Holy Covenant Church to the "wilds" of the Peruvian Andes. But oh man, do they come as close as they possibly could. A simple red sheet, used to represent the blood of 3,000 unarmed Incans in a battle with fewer than 200 Spanish soldiers, became one of the most startling and stirring props I've seen.
The cast is full of actors who may not be icons and metaphors in real life, but whose looks fit their respective parts. Standouts include an almost achingly young and trembling Mickey Tuman as the young page and a grizzled, seen-it-all Don Bender, as a bruised and battered Francisco Pizarro. Derrick Nelson, as the Incan leader Atahuallpa, is a huge hunk of man that may not be the actual progeny of the sun, as Incan lore goes, but still fills the room with power and force. The Journeymen, a company dedicated to multicultural theater, is well suited for this colonial drama. The Royal Hunt of the Sun is a brutal, honest look at the abuses of power and the conquest of everything in sight that monarchies enjoyed ( and corporations continue to be inspired by ) in the 16th Century. This production is an exciting, fast-paced drama that knows how to use the space it inhabits.
At: The Journeymen at Holy Covenant United Methodist Church, 925 W. Diversey Phone: ( 773 ) 857-5395; $20
Runs Through: October 27
Ariadne's Thread
Playwright: Ann Noble
by Rick Reed
I'm always suspicious when the powers that be behind an attempt of art attempt to give the audience a little explanation, rather than let the work stand on its own merit. It's a minor thing, but with the program for wunderkind Ann Noble's latest play, there was a slip of paper inserted into the handbills to explain to us lesser mortals just who Ariadne was in Greek mythology. The explanation is unnecessary. Noble's story has aspirations to align itself with classical mythology, but in the end these aspirations are nothing more than pretense, saddling a soap-operaish script with connections it hasn't earned.
Ariadne's Thread is the story of seven women and is played out mostly via telephone, although all of them are connected by more than just telephone wires. Familial, relationship, and marital circumstances bind them and Noble does a clever job of connecting all these disparate threads. But cleverness is no substitute for depth. And cleverness can never be an adequate stand-in for the kind of psychological and sociological truths Noble is aiming for in this study of seven modern women on the stumbling road to love and connectedness. Ariadne's Thread might have worked better had Noble not used the telephonic conceit to bind her characters together; the device is limiting, on both the characters and the freedom to tell her story of intersecting lives in a compelling manner.
Ultimately, Ariadne's Thread is an ensemble piece and director Sandy Shinner has assembled an uneven cast to bring the work to life. Most of the performers take the material and run with it ( especially the wonderful Jenny McKnight doing her best to breathe some life into a sad sack academian lesbian, and the comic Joey Honsa, playing the youngest of a trio of sisters who form the core of the play; Honsa recalls a young Gilda Radner. She is genuine, sympathetic, and possesses astonishing comic timing ) , but some of the material is so stale even the most talented actor could not rise above it. Take, for example, the "Bloody hell!" spouting Brit, Gareth. There's no reason that Gareth even needs to be British, but if Noble is going to anglicize the character, at least make her original. The talented Nambi E. Kelley is saddled with the role of a Broadway actress so air-headed she would never be able to make it to Broadway.
In spite of its problems, Ariadne's Thread is a lowest-common-denominator crowd pleaser. It calls to mind the slogan for the Lifetime cable network—"Television for Women." That's exactly what this show is, and it would really have a chance on Lifetime, or even network TV. I can see Kim Fields and Melissa Gilbert clamoring for parts.
At: Victory Gardens mainstage
Phone: ( 773 ) 871-3000; $30-35
Runs through: Oct. 27
The Time of Your Life
Playwright: William Saroyan
by Rick Reed
Steppenwolf has opened its 27th season in with a powerful punch, with William Saroyan's Pulitzer Prize-winning classic ensemble piece The Time of Your Life. Under Tina Landau's deft and masterful direction, this story of a depression-era skid-row honky tonk in San Francisco and its denizens is an unqualified masterpiece, brought to achingly beautiful life that would make Saroyan proud.
The Time of Your Life unerringly captures a day in the life at Nick's waterfront saloon, where "two-dollar whores," drunks, longshoremen, cops, and slumming socialites come together to share their stories, their hopes, and their dreams while the world outside marches inexorably toward war and economic deprivation. It's a snapshot of a time in American history when poverty and human longing commingled in a microcosmic world presided over by a mysterious God-like man named Joe, who lightens the burdens of the outside world with toys, champagne, and providing fuel for optimism when there was little reason to look on the bright side. Saroyan deftly brings together a large cast of characters who appear and re-appear at Nick's to try and discover some connection, or at least the oblivion that can be found in a glass of five-cent beer or the bottom of a bottle of hooch.
Steppenwolf, which has built its reputation on showcasing the finest in thespian and creative acumen, does not disappoint with this production. Director Landau brings her tragi-comic chorus to compassionate life here. Joe, played with confidence and heart by Jeff Perry, is a mystery man spending his days in the saloon dispensing good humor and dollars in equal amounts ( it's never made quite clear where his wealth comes from in depression-era times, although it's hinted that it's something not quite on the up and up ) , endeavoring to make the less fortunate lives of those around him better. It's a supreme act of love. Among the people whose life he improves are Kitty ( played with vulnerability and pain by Heather Prete, a young actor who shows enormous promise ) and Tom ( Patrick New ) , an earnest young soul searching for connection and a niche in life. Around this extraordinarily sympathetic pair swirl a cast of masterfully defined characters both comic ( such as Guy Adkins' Harry who is hungry for recognition as a "natural born dancer" and comic, but who doesn't possess the talent to be anything more than someone who is laughed at outside the bar, Robert Breuler's comic Armenian, Richard Cotovsky's drunkard, and Scott Antonucci, a young man whose predilection for mechanized games foreshadows the future of America ) and reprehensible ( the sadistic police officer Blick, played menacingly by Lawrence MacGowan ) .
GW "Skip" Mercier's barebones set effectively gets across the line between progress and decline and Michael Bodeen and Rob Milburn's music and sound add atmosphere and depth. Go spend some time in Nick's Saloon and have the time of your life.
At: Steppenwolf Theatre mainstage
Phone: ( 312 ) 335-1650; $35-$50
Runs through: Nov. 3
Bloody Bess, A Tale of Piracy and Revenge
Playwright: William J. Norris & John Ostrander ( from Stuart Gordon's concept )
by Jonathan Abarbanel
Oldsters may remember the only previous production of Bloody Bess, A Tale of Piracy and Revenge, the 1974 Organic Theater original at the Uptown Center on Beacon Street ( where Black Ensemble Theater is now ) . The large space allowed actors to climb and swing on rope rigging, representing the ship upon which most of the action occurs. The youthful cast featured Cordis Fejer as Bess, co-author Norris as the baddie and stars-to-be Dennis Franz, Joe Mantegna, Meshach Taylor and Bruce A. Young. It was a vivid, exciting theatrical adventure, the best of Off-Loop Theater.
This new Bloody Bess, inaugurating Red Hen Productions' storefront playhouse in Andersonville, is the best of Off-Loop Theater, too. There's no room to swing from ropes in the comfortable but tiny house ( 40 seats ) , and the production won't win awards for design, but the acting, the action and the story are gangbusters.
The Norris and Ostrander script is strong, fast, sly, colorful storytelling set in the Caribbean in 1682. Pitting a nefarious British commodore against an obstreperous but heroic band of pirates, it opens with a huge, shipboard sword fight and throat-slitting, and rarely slows down. The play's women quickly take center stage, pirate Annie Bailey and Upper Class Elizabeth Presberty, who adopts piracy to extract vengeance and becomes the pirate captain. In 1974, a play with a female action hero was cutting edge. The tale is less unusual now, but no less effective.
A cast of 10 swarms the stage as if they were hundreds, relishing the characters and caricatures the script swiftly draws in comic book fashion ( Ostrander authored numerous adult comics ) , but never slipping into parody. Among them are Don Smith as Calico Jack Rackham missing one eye and a finger; Drew Vidal as Levoisseur, the Frenchman; Andre Teamer as African Jesus N'Gali; towering Kelly Van Kirk as despicable Commodore Eaton; wiry Kathyrnne Ann Rosen as Annie Bailey; and bosom-heaving Laura Scott Wade as Elizabeth-turned-Bess.
Under director Scott Cummins and fight choreographer Brian LeTraunik, all swing swords like champs and handle the knock-about action with dexterity. Even the scene changes—performed by the cast—maintain energy and dash.
My only qualifications are accents and blood. The dialects of the multi-national pirates are difficult to understand in the early scenes. And except for the throat-slitting, there isn't any stage blood despite numerous slashings. The original Organic special effects were memorable. Similarly, a good spurt or two would go a long way in the intimate Red Hen space. But gory or not, Bloody Bess is a whacking good time.
At: Red Hen Productions, Kenneth LeTraunik Theatre, 5123 N. Clark
Phone: ( 773 ) 728-0599; $25
Runs through: Oct. 20
What the
Butler Saw
Playwright: Joe Orton
by Rick Reed
At one point in Joe Orton's skewering of the psychiatric profession ( as well as the British middle class ) , one of the characters says, "You can't be a rationalist in an irrational world … it's not rational!" The comment, made by the hungry-for-dysfunction Dr. Rance, might be a perfect epigram for Orton's farce, which is filled with the kind of goofy, over-the-top sexuality, mistaken identity, and convoluted plotting for which Orton is known.
The plot begins to spin out of control at the very onset of the play when Dr. Prentice ( Pat Carton ) sets out to turn an interview for a secretary into a seduction. The unlucky job candidate, Geraldine Barclay ( Andrea Washburn ) doesn't realize that working in this mental hospital will expose her to more lunatics on the staff side than the patient side. Her naïve acquiescence to removing her clothes as part of the interview process starts things spinning out control when Dr. Prentice's nymphomaniac wife ( Maggie Carney ) arrives unexpectedly, forcing the good doctor to hide his comely secretarial candidate and confess to a predilection for cross dressing when she discovers Miss Barclay's discarded clothing. Orton's mastery of steadily escalating lunacy is on ample display here, as other characters arrive and depart, swapping identities, getting involved in sexual peccadilloes, and finding themselves on the wrong side of being certified insane. It's pretty hilarious stuff, with obvious derivative ties to Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde. With lines like, "Marriage excuses no one the freak's roll call," What the Butler Saw is British comedy in the best tradition: manic and silly, yet with a vicious bite and cutting wit.
The Noble Fool does capable work with one of Orton's last plays ( which was not produced until after he died ) . In spite of the British accents being all over the place and not one of them credible, the cast, for the most part, seems to be having a lot of fun with the material, which translates to the audience. Director Don Ilko is to be credited for his sprightly pacing, replete with lots of slamming doors and dizzying entrances and exits. His actors are all capable of the lunatic style of What the Butler Saw, even though they may be a bit lacking in getting across the darker, more subversive subtext Orton clearly intended.
Still, this What the Butler Saw is great fun and delivers the goods: lots of laughs at the expense of the middle class. I think the new Noble Fool Theater is still finding its way to the kind of professionalism this downtown venue requires, but it's managing to have, and provide, a lot of fun as it makes its way.
At: The Noble Fool, 16 W. Randolph
Phone: ( 312 ) 726-1156; $32-$36
Runs through: Nov. 2
