Theatre by Numbers

Show: “The Tempermentals”

Company: About Face Theatre

Venue: Theater Wit (1227 W Belmont Ave)

Die Roll: 9

Playwright Jon Marans wants to enlighten you about a lost moment in the gay rights’ movement. In “The Tempermentals,” making its Chicago premiere thanks to About Face Theatre, he chronicles the creation and evolution of the Mattachine Society, an organization dedicated to defining and defending LBT rights in America. It is a fascinating history, animated by colorful characters and important choices. So it is a shame that Marans’ tendency towards short scenes and assumed knowledge detract from, rather than add to the drama.

Amid fear and suspicion in 1950’s Los Angeles, activist Harry Hay (Kyle Hatley) writes a manifesto calling gay men to publicly organize and fight for their civil rights. Few show any interest in it except his new lover, Rudi Gernreich (Lane Anthony Flores), who announces it is the most dangerous thing he has ever read. Both men are in the closet, and Hay is married, but that does not stop them from gathering associates in order to discuss political action. Joining them are Bob Hull (Alex Weisman), Bob’s longtime lover Chuck (Rob Lindley), and outsider Dale Jennings (Paul Fagen). When Dale is arrested for solicitation, the group decides to make his homosexuality a fact of public record at the trial, using the false charges as a way to declare human dignity for all tempermentals, the era’s slang term for homosexuals.

Marans clearly loves these men. He is particularly drawn to Harry and Rudi’s relationship, and the way their priorities shift as their private lives are held up to the light. He gives each character quirks that both charm and disarm. Rudi has a way of making everything into a fabulous masquerade. Harry shouts whenever he gets excited about anything at all. The audience is rooting for these two, and for Dale, who simply wants to live his life. But Marans is not content with staying small picture. He wants to explore the entire group of men, and their social circles, and the political turmoil of the time period. In dividing his focus equally, he ends up confusing the audience. He favors short bursts of dramatic action, but by so often shifting from scene to scene, and person to person, he loses the humanity and sense of stakes at the heart of the historical moment. I found myself doing research about the Mattachine Society when I got home from the theater, and I learned more about choices characters were making on Wikipedia than from what I saw onstage.

Which is not to say “The Tempermentals” is unworthy of your time. Director Andrew Volkoff and his cast flesh out the play with brilliant bits of character business. Hatley and Flores are standouts as two men never meant to see eye-to-eye, but Weisman gets the lion’s share of laughs and sympathy, as a clown who tells jokes in order to hide how ashamed he is of aging and his own identity. Fagen and Lindley handle the multiple side characters they must embody with smarts, even when the script gives them little to start with. Volkoff uses clean movement and costume suggestion to move the piece from courtroom to lavish Hollywood party, but he most excels at quiet moments, when the characters must choose whether or not it is possible to risk touching before others. He lets these moments last, and they give weight to later debates in the play.

The design elements are stylish and sleek for this production, giving it a “Mad Men” feel. The elegant costumes by Mieka Van Der Ploeg, along with the sultry soft jazz permeating scenes courtesy of Aaron Benham, lull you into a sense of safety that is shattered by the play’s rare moments of urgency. Scenic designer Joe Schermoly provides an unhelpful blank canvas of sliding doors, but lighting designer Becca Jeffords paints the stage with rich colors, bringing depth to scenes that could take place anywhere without additional pizzazz.

Though “The Tempermentals” does not tell the richest possible story about the Mattachine Society, it is clear that a lot of care and work went into About Face’s production. It is definitely worth a viewing, at the very least to get acquainted with forgotten men and fights that continue on to today.

TEN WORD SUMMARY: A forgotten political rights movement makes history, but little drama

RATING: d10 – “Worth Going To”

Show: “Psychonaut Librarians”

Company: The New Colony

Venue: The Den Theatre (1333 N Milwaukee Ave, 2nd Floor)

Die Roll: 7

As a lover of books, I find any play that takes on the topic of librarians as fascinating.  As the child of a children’s librarian myself, I spent many an hour among the shelves and stacks.  Libraries–as well as the books contained therein–can be magical.  From my viewpoint, a play that suggests that what is often a figurative bridge to other worlds might also be a literal one launches itself from a solid base.  However, not every launch is successful.  Many rockets crashed or exploded before we put one into space.  And, though “Psychonaut Librarians” by Sean Kelly doesn’t crash and burn, it fails to get into orbit, or touch the stratosphere.

At its core this play is one in want of development.  There are perfect moments.  Kelly’s script mentions the perfect moments in one’s life when his lead character, Jane (Christine Mayland Perkins), speaks of having just added one to her list of perfect moments.  And, in truth, that moment is exactly what it mentions.  It is one of the few times when the script, the physicality of the actors, the sound design, and the projections all come together to create a well-defined, believable, and embraceable universe.  I wish that more of the show could be like that.

Director Krissy Vanderwarker has put together a cast of varied skill and called upon them to take on widely varied tasks in creating a world that is supernatural and familiar.  Perkins is strong enough to carry much of the show on her own.  Her acting brings you into the action and tempts you to care about what is going on.  Her physical work, along with that of her frequent scene partner, Matt Farabee (in the role of Jane’s love from another world, Dewey), is great.  The two of them share a physical vocabulary that creates some beautifully executed moments.  Yet, no matter how skillfully

employed a technique is, if the moment doesn’t fit in with the adjacent moments, then it is just out of place.  Such is the case with the show’s perfect moment.  The rest of its surroundings don’t jive.

Most of the time, when I see David Cerda’s name on a cast list, I assume that the show is going to be a campy comedy.  That’s because it is what Cerda is best at (as evidenced by the success of his company Hell in a Handbag Productions).  While I’ve seen him do other roles very successfully, I still expect something specific from him as an actor, and this production delivers that.  At least, when Cerda is on stage.  The show’s camp level goes up when Cerda’s librarian character, Hester, is present.  She is melodramatically making her way through a messy divorce, which is why she’s got her daughter with her in the library at the show’s beginning.  In that library we meet the Sandman (stiffly rendered by Jack McCabe) and his minions, Dreams (puppets manipulated by various cast members).  This villain resonates with all the menace of a mid-January mud puddle.  But, as the script informs us, he is pure evil and something to be feared.  Oh, and he apparently nibbles away parts of your soul.

Now, you may have noticed that I mention above that “the script informs us”.  That’s the greatest problem with this show.  In what appears to be an attempt to mimic the narrator’s voice within a story, various actors/characters recite pieces of exposition in the manner of prose from a somewhat poetic novel.  I get why this device is employed, for Jane eventually takes control of and tells her own story.  Nevertheless, the play suffers from an immense amount of telling-rather-than-showing.

And what it tells us isn’t terribly interesting much of the time.  Or, it is just too cluttered and not fleshed out.  Hester’s coworkers eventually join Jane on an adventure across the “anyverse” wherein you can be and do anything. And yet the do not choose to be or do much of anything that creates an interesting tale.  A few fun bits do pop up.  One particularly enjoyable moment is when the characters each have to pop through a tight spot and do so by miraculously shrinking and morphing into puppet form until they are on the other side.  This is a much better employment of puppetry arts than the earlier representation of the Dreams.

But, why go on this adventure?  Why does it matter?  If, as Jane states, this is a love story, why does Jane chase her love all over creation and then some?  This especially confuses me because each time she comes near Dewey, he declares his love or his oneness with her, and then tries to kill her, violently.  Granted, one can say that it’s because he’s being controlled by the Sandman, but one can also discern a pattern in the behavior.  There is room in this tale to show Dewey’s struggle against that control, but it isn’t shown as the play currently exists.  There is room for Dewey’s regret, or Jane’s attempt to reconcile his behavior and his words.  Those things don’t happen here, either.  So, I don’t care if Jane and Dewey ever get together.  Why should they?  And why should any of the others be convinced that they are perfect for each other and worthy of an epic quest?

Too much is left to the audience’s imaginations to supply, which ironically is the beauty of books.  Much of what one can glean from a book is then processed in each reader’s own imagination.  But, the trick in writing a good book, perhaps one that gets published as opposed to a few hundred pages that should remain in someone’s bottom drawer, is knowing that you must provide a complete enough picture that the reader doesn’t have to fill in so much that it is overwhelming.

There is enough fun and laughter throughout to make the show a mostly enjoyable evening, even if it is a bit of a let down overall.  And that’s in and of itself a bit frustrating.  Each time the show leads you to believe it’s getting good, it lapses into disconnected segments surrounding that one perfect moment.

TEN WORD SUMMARY: Surreal adventures of librarian’s daughter chasing abusive lover across universe.

DICE RATING: d8 – “Not Bad.  Not Great.”

Show: The Sundial

Company: City Lit Theater

Venue:  Edgewater Presbyterian – 2nd Floor (1020 W Bryn Mawr)

As the lights went down on the first act of “The Sundial”, the woman behind me was speaking to whomever came to the show with her.  She said, “I’m really glad I read this book before we came.  I’m not sure I would understand what’s going on if I hadn’t.”  Sadly, I hadn’t read Shirley Jackson’s book prior to attending the performance.  Any adaptation that requires extensive knowledge of the source material to fill in the gaps left in the script is not a good adaptation.  I was a huge fan of director Paul Edwards’ previous adaptation of Jackson’s “The Haunting of Hill House”.  I cannot say that I am a fan of this current production, however.

What was missing from this production, that permeated the earlier one, is a sense that you can tell what the characters are thinking. Motivation is often lacking in the decisions made by these characters.  At least, it isn’t at all clear.  Much of this presentation seems more like an absurdist play akin to “Ubu Roi”, rather than a suspense-filled thriller that influenced the works of Stephen King, among others.  Events happen in an established order.  That’s the closest this show comes to having an actual plot.

Here’s the nitty-gritty:  Leo has died.  This only matters in the fact that he is in line to inherit the manor house in which the play is set.  We never meet him.  We do, however, meet his widow, his daughter, his mother, his father, and the servants and others who reside in the house.  As the lights rise on the scene, the play initially seems to be about an angry pre-teen (Lauren Mangum) who claims that her grandmother has killed her father.  The grandmother (Sheila Willis) is a youthful and comely woman who takes care of her ailing husband (Kingsley Day) while having a blatantly public affair with Essex (John Blick) who is in residence as the family archivist.  With Leo out of the way, Orianna (the grandmother) has become her husband’s lone heir.  And she’s kicking everyone out of the house who has lived there prior to the funeral, including her man-thing, Essex.

That all sounds like a great set up for a dramatic family intrigue.  Murder, suspense, wickedness and spiteful revenge.  But, that’s not what we get.  Instead, there is suddenly a whole bunch of poorly explained supernatural crap that interrupts what could have been an otherwise intriguing peace.  The issue of whether or not Orianna killed her son to get the house is quickly forgotten and instead we watch a frantically obsessed household prepare for the end of the world by essentially becoming the early-1960s version of preppers.

Why does this happen?  Well, apparently because Aunt Fanny (Morgan McCabe) has seen a vision of her father (who is also the father of Orianna’s terminally ill husband).  Fanny’s vision predicts the end of the world, followed by paradise on earth.  Now, why an entirely large household buys into this vision isn’t very clear.  There are two instances that may serve as arguments for the vision’s validity, but no character is a skeptic, no character explains why they are swayed to believe that what the old lady is saying is true.  Everyone just jumps on the bandwagon and fully embraces a massive lifestyle change that involves never leaving the house and believing that they are the ones chosen to survive the apocalypse.

The previous three paragraphs explaining what was happening are only possible for me to write because I looked up the book’s information and summary on Wikipedia.  In truth, I spent most of the first act horribly thrown off by the disjointed storytelling and the fact that it was difficult to tell who was talking about whom and why.

In the second act some things became more clear, although a small subplot about one of the house’s guests trying to leave muddies things a bit.  Nevertheless, the script improves in the 2nd act.  The characters are also better defined.  The show never rises to the level of brilliant, but it’s easier to follow after the break.

I am frustrated in writing this review, as I wanted to like the show.  I really wanted to like it, largely because of how much I enjoyed the previous effort by the same adapter of the same author’s work.  There were some great performances.  Kingsley Day’s performance as the wheelchair-bound invalid, Richard, was great.  As was his turn as Miss Inverness, a shop keeper from the town nearby.  Each time Day came on stage, the show improved exponentially.  John Blick’s turn as Essex was intriguing.  At moments he was despicable, at others he was the easiest to empathize with.  Blick gave dynamism to what he was able to dig out of the script.

TEN WORD SUMMARY: What’s going on? Why are they doing that? Good Question.

DICE RATING: d6- “Has Some Merit”

Show: “Men on Boats”

Company: American Theater Company

Venue: 1909 W Byron St

Theatre can take you anywhere. Film can plant your field of vision in exotic locales, showing off brilliant sunsets and spotlighting wild rivers cutting through jagged cliffs. But only theatre can transport you into a world entirely of your own creation, where you accept colored gels are the rays of a sunset, and trust that fear in the performers’ eyes reflects an unforgiving canyon rising upwards. Theatre takes you on a journey, and the trip is so delightful because you build its scenes and story arcs with your limitless imagination.

American Theater Company’s “Men on Boats,” a regional premiere by Jaclyn Backhaus, uses little but the human brain to construct its travelogue of, well, men on boats. While the scenic design is sharp and the casting creative, the production provides little in the way of dramatic conflict, and the script’s overreliance on shallow theatricality and repetitive imagery bores after the first thirty minutes.

The plot, such as it is, follows the first-ever government sanctioned expedition to map the Green and Colorado Rivers. Though telling a tale set soon after the Civil War, Backhaus relies on snarky anachronisms to ground the play in contemporary life and attitudes. (When the explorers meet with members of a Native American tribe, the Utes remarks they want to keep everything chill.) Will Davis — as director and in his first turn as ATC’s new artistic leader — has cast a play containing mostly male characters with an entirely genderfluid company, and his sendups of masculine posturing encourage a lot of laughter early on. John Wesley Powell (Kelli Simpkins) leads the adventurous crew, preferring to brave rapids rather than portage boats and cost the explorers time. William Dunn (Kelly O’Sullivan) acts as Powell’s second-in-command, helping the major name natural landmarks, and helping the crew by hunting rabbits. John Colton Sumner (Arti Ishak) knows the wild and the people who live in the West. Bradley (BrittneyLove Smith) has loads of enthusiasm, the Howland brothers (Sarai Rodriguez and Avi Roque) have smarts, Old Shady (Lauren Sivak) is Powell’s mysterious brother, Frank Goodman (Erin Barlow) is British, Hawkins (Stephanie Shum) cooks the food, and Hall (Lawren Carter) keeps the map. These characters do not change over the course of the play’s almost two-hour run time. They do bits, they lose boats; their dynamics strain, but only break once. Dunn believes Powell’s carelessness might get them all killed, but the higher-ups’ continued argument results in little escalation. For a play about losing supplies and facing the elements, danger rarely seems to be a real concern.

This is a problem for a comedy about surviving the length of the Grand Canyon. In order for the audience to believe in the story being told, real risks must be taken in the telling. One could argue that Backhaus has an ambitious theatrical bent; she does not shy away from portraying the crew’s run through raging rapids and waterfalls. Long stretches of the play involve people being thrown from boats and thrashing their way to shore. But Backhaus does not trust the audience in such scenes. When her characters ride the waters, they simply shout which direction they are headed, or they remind us which oars they use to move right or left. This gives those watching little to imagine. What we see is all we get. There are no puzzle pieces to put together, no mess for us to shape up in our minds. Davis is smart to put the crew in tight formations, their movements mimicking the tumult of the waves. But that spectacle is only spectacle. One never wonders whether there is an unexpected turn up ahead.

Kudos should be given to props designer Jamie Karas. Two boards hinged together make up the prow of each expedition boat, and they break up in surprising ways. Similarly, scenic designer William Boles is smart to opt for a simple background; the set’s main wall creates a vanishing point that serves as a cliff or a muddy bank. These utilitarian choices make room for the audience’s imagination, even if the script does not. Likewise, light designer Brandon Wardell paints the set in rich colors to denote every shade of the sky, though the excessive use of stage fog obscures the setting of time and place far too often. Costume designer Melissa Ng gives each character personal flair, whether that be a pair of suspenders or a dead snake wrapped around a cowboy hat; each of the ten crew members leaves a distinct impression, no matter how large or small the role.

Which leads us to the performances, all uniformly good. Sivak stands out for sheer weirdness and her milking of oddly phrased pre-dinner blues tunes. Simpkins dominates her scenes by force of will, and Smith gently reminds everybody that being young and excited is no vice. O’Sullivan has the heaviest lifting to do as the major dissenter, but she manages to rise to Ishak’s goofy level when they debate whether napping has any value. All in all, the ensemble serves the material well. Their work deserved a more daring script.

TEN WORD SUMMARY: Adventure’s promised; only unimaginative conflict and repetitive imagery is delivered.

RATING: d6 – “Has Some Merit”

Show: Barney the Elf

Company: The Other Theatre Co.

Venue:  The Greenhouse Theatre Center (2257 N. Lincoln Ave.)

The Other Theatre’s “Barney the Elf” is tailored specifically to the kind of holiday reveler that prefers their sentiment with a little political bite, a lot of swearing, and just a hint of innuendo peeking out from under the tree skirts. Author Bryan Renaud and director Tommy Rivera-Vega have taken their story telling cues from shows like “Book of Mormon” that turn reality into fairytale, marshmallow landscapes, then skewer their squishy targets pointedly.

In “Barney the Elf”, Christmas just hasn’t been the same since Santa Claus passed away, and left the whole operation to his far less competent son, Santa Junior (Jonathan Parker Jackson). But the titular Barney (Bryan Renaud) has enough cheer to supply the whole workshop, that is, until the Elves find out Barney is gay. Santa Junior quickly banishes him to the wilds of Chicago, much to the chagrin of Mrs. Claus (Maggie Cain) and all the other elves, who could really use a pep-talk in the face of a present onslaught. But in Chicago, Barney finds a community that embraces his love for Christmas and he stumbles upon his first love, a sardonic drag queen named Zooey (Dixie Lynn Cartwright).

Still, with Santa Junior at the helm, there’s a real concern among the elves that his bottom-line obsession will lead to there not being enough cheer to fuel his sleigh. Can Christmas go on without union rules, hot chocolate breaks and its’ cheeriest elf?

“Barney the Elf” parodies the 2003 Will Farrell vehicle “Elf”, but it almost doesn’t need to muddy waters of a very compelling original story. Well, as original as a story can be while working within the strict fictional guidelines of North Pole mythology. It’s poignant, with lightning fast wit, to-the-minute topical humor and the dimmest shade for any malcontent who would attack a persons’ gaiety, Christmas-themed or otherwise. The show is also dotted with an endless supply of compelling song parodies; I mean, aren’t you just a little bit curious to know what Wicked’s “What is This Feeling?” would sound like, if it were about boners?

Terrific performers are the jet propulsion that keeps this show’s engine humming, and the heavy listing comes courtesy of Bryan Renaud as Barney, a singing, dancing, ecstatic, crestfallen force of nature. Maggie Cain and Jonathan Parker Jackson gleefully inhabit alternate reality forms of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump as Mrs. Claus and her son, Santa Junior. And don’t worry if you’re not a holiday obsessive, drag queen Dixie Lynn Cartwright’s Zooey is the much needed dry, dry dry ice in this production’s cocktail. I’d also like to distinguish Ben F. Locke, Mariah Furlow, and Molly LeCaptain as the hardest working elves in show business.

At it’s core, “Barney the Elf” is a story of putting aside squabbles to do necessary things, and losing the odd American fixation on never being the first to admit defeat. Only when they address each other as real people, can Christmas be saved.

TEN WORD SUMMARY: A heartfelt holiday message from queens, queers and presidents elect!

DICE RATING: d10- “Worth Going To”

Show: “The Christians”

Company: Steppenwolf Theatre

Venue: 1650 N Halsted

“I want to stay with you forever.”

This is a deceptively simple declaration, appropriate for wedding ceremonies and vocational commitments. In “The Christians,” the words are spoken by a disenchanted minister’s wife. She fears she will not be able to spend eternity with her husband Paul, because he has publicly stated that he no longer believes in hell, and neither should his parishioners. For his wife, who still believes in Satan and the fires of damnation, their difference of opinion severs both their earthly and eternal bonds. The radical act at the heart of Lucas Hnath’s “The Christians” is that the playwright takes her concern seriously. Hell is not a concept in this eighty-minute meditation on belief and communion. It is a very real threat to relationships built up over years within a faith, where separation and division become torment.

Pastor Paul (Tom Irwin) wants to relieve his evangelical congregation of their doubts and fears surrounding the afterlife. The community has just paid off its debts in building a new mega-church, and he wants their sanctuary to be a welcoming haven for outsiders. His associate pastor Joshua (Glenn Davis) is more inclined to use Bible verses about hell to shore up others’ faith. When Paul preaches a sermon giving up on hell, he expects his congregants to fall in line. Pastor Joshua refuses, and takes some of followers out of the church. Over the following days and weeks, Paul must contend with his wife’s worries (Shannon Cochran), the challenging questions posed by members of his flock (specifically Jenny, played with heart by Jacqueline Williams), and the demands of church elders, represented by the badgering Jay (Robert Brueler). As his family and friends fall away, Paul begins to question what led him to this new belief, and whether he has the right to be so certain, especially if it leaves him standing alone.

Hnath grew up in a Bible-first church much like Paul’s, and his intimate knowledge shines through in every conversation between pastor and parishioner. He structures the scenes via a continuous contemporary worship service, interspersing private dialogues with public displays of prayer, preaching, and personal testimony. Paul shuffles us between moments in his office and home with a bit of direct address, but he rarely puts down the microphone he uses during services, and there’s very little change in his manner when he talks to a struggling Jenny or when he disagrees with his wife; they speak into microphones, too. Hnath zeroes in on the fundamental fact of a pastor’s life: his public and his private life are rarely, if ever, separate. He must lead by example, and he must be ready at a moment’s notice to soothe fear or confront doubts. He cannot appear uncertain. Because the audience lives in the church service with our protagonist, we must work to see past Pastor Paul’s performance of his duties; at times we wind up just as frustrated and mistrusting as his followers.

I am a minister’s daughter, so I had a vested interest in Hnath’s examination of this conflicted community. I spent much of the play on the edge of my seat, worrying that he would simplify the philosophical and practical issues raised by Paul’s actions. I am happy to say that he draws characters with warmth and understanding, allowing them to debate the minister about how spiritual quandaries affect their everyday lives. When asking about the shift in doctrine, Jenny first lays out what the church means to her; it became her community after escaping an abusive relationship, and the church’s support has provided friends and opportunities for Jenny and her son. So why does Paul seek to divide them all, and drive some of her friends away by denying hell? It is a fair question, and Jenny only stymies the reverend further when she demands why Paul announced his change of heart once the church was past its financial woes, and not before. Hnath never lets Paul rest, and even allows a note of humor to enter the proceedings, when he is asked whether Hitler lives in heaven.

Irwin gives a delicate performance here. He is dutiful and passionate about his work and beliefs, but he keeps a formal remove from the other characters, acknowledging their distress without understanding how to end it. He becomes most humane and human when he cannot answer questions with scholarship or philosophy. Cochran is similarly polite as the smiling minister’s wife, but Hnath does not give her much space to ramp up to rejecting her husband’s point of view. She is hemmed in by this patriarchal world, so it may be purposeful that she does not speak in the worship services, but Hnath gives her the least specific motivation, when her pleading is supposed to hit hardest. It is not a good sign that I cannot remember the character’s first name, but to Cochran’s credit, I heard her desperation all the same.

Davis delivers a fiery, haunting performance as the seeking Joshua. After rebuking Paul and leaving the church, Joshua returns to discuss matters of life and death. In a relentless monologue, he describes his attempts to bring his mother to Jesus in her final moments. Davis owns this piece of theatre, and he imbues the associate pastor’s words with monumental grief and torture at the thought of being forever cut off from his mother. Whether one believes in the afterlife or not, Davis proves how real the outcomes are for the faithful.

Likewise, director K. Todd Freeman takes these men and women at their word. He never allows the actors to slip into caricatures of Christianity. He embraces the script’s debate about whether it is better to be secure in one’s beliefs and exist alone, or stay with a fractured community made up of doubters and those who disagree. He masterfully controls our perceptions of the worship service, and works with lighting designer Scott Zielinski to make viewers part of the congregation. The play begins during pre-show, with the house lights fully up, and the praise band singing boisterous and wonderful contemporary worship songs. On the night I attended, many in the audience seemed uncomfortable with the sincerity and emotions on display, especially because there was nowhere to hide when Irwin entered and began his sermon. But others near me bowed their heads when called to pray, and clapped along to the rip-roaring music during the pre-show. As Paul drifts further from family and friends, the house lights dimmed, and we became remote listeners, separate from him. It is a masterful and subtle choice, and one that could only be pulled off in the theatre.

The attention to detail does not end with the lights. I was shocked at how well the Steppenwolf stage served as a mega-church sanctuary. Set designer Walter Spangler wisely lines the floor with purple carpet, the color of royalty, a color often associated with Jesus. A giant cross gleams over the heads of the actors, and two projection screens spit out lyrics for the worship songs. Major kudos to projection designer Joseph A. Burke for nailing the hokey natural world scenes that are often displayed at such worship services. And it should be mentioned that costume designer Nan Cibula-Jenkins gets the Sunday suits and dresses exactly right. Not even the choir wears robes, right in line with the custom of contemporary worship.

“I want to stay with you forever.” Despite the depth and breadth and seriousness given to every part of this production, I keep coming back to that one line in the play. The weight of it. The sadness. The impossible desire. None of us wants to be alone. None of us wants to be separated from those we love. Belief can do that. But “The Christians” asks: does it have to? Is it necessary to divide ourselves? Or is there a way to bridge the gap, to stay with those who oppose you? If you recognize the struggles of others, and accept your detractors for who they are and what they believe, isn’t that all that really matters? Isn’t that faith?

TEN WORD SUMMARY: Memorable performances and design provide an astounding production about belief.

RATING: d20 — “One Of The Best”