Toddlin' Town for Theatre

Last month I saw a wonderful MACBETH; this week a rocky, excellent DESIRE UNDER THE ELMS. The phrase "Second City" is not heard as often about Chicago anymore, and of course Manhattan with its Broadway district is the most outstanding theatre area in the United States. But Chicago is certainly the runner-up as it hosts road companies, establishes touring success, and hosts outstanding resident companies. On the north side, the famed Steppenwolf Theatre still attracts large audiences, but the downtown jewels are the Goodman and the Chicago Shakespeare.

About a mile and three-quarters separates the two locations, one in the well-known loop and the other extending out into Lake Michigan. Each building is housed in historical buildings, Navy Pier being historic in its own right. The Goodman remodeled the former Harris and Selwyn Theatres and managed to reuse these wonderful stages after a period of time of disuse. In moving here less than twenty years ago, the Goodman left a location on the east side of the famed Art Institute of Chicago, opening up space for the new Modern Wing, opening in May.

While it was interesting enough moving from MACBETH to the ELMS over a period of four weeks, I recall a juxtaposition during the fall of 2006. Ben Carlson, currently the title character in Macbeth, was starring as HAMLET on the pier. Stacy Keach was heading the cast of KING LEAR at the Goodman. And I saw the pair in the same week. The result? A poem:

FIFTY-EIGHT HOURS BETWEEN SHAKESPEARES

Fifty-eight hours from Elsinore to Lear’s corrupt court:
Thursday matinee spent with the antic disposition of Hamlet,
Saturday night spent watching the madness and downfall of Lear.

Lear cut a cake to award the geography of Britain to flatterers,
Stabbing the knife into the heart of the cake and the heart of Cordelia.
The rashness of Lear at eighty recalls of course the rashness of Romeo
At fifteen, nearly justifying the introspection of Hamlet at 30.

Gertrude Thursday was a sexual woman, a match to Goneril and Regan Saturday;
Lusting without question and each loving only herself,
While the suicidal Ophelia showed doomed beauty
And the naked body of Cordelia was an artist’s study in death.

Nearly ten minutes Saturday devoted to dragging dozens of body bags onto the stage,
Five minutes then set aside to dump the bags into the pit of hell in modern warfare.
The power of Shakespeare in tragedy is to show us how the gods kill us
For their sport … while the rest, of course, is silence.

DESIRE UNDER THE ELMS

Eugene O'Neill, perhaps the first great American dramatist, has been the focus of a series of presentations at the outstanding Goodman Theatre this winter. Several of his powerful scripts have been staged by various theatre groups, with the Goodman itself mounting DESIRE, the O'Neill attempt to Americanize Greek tragedy. Starring Brian Dennehy and now featuring Amy J. Carle, who had understudied Carla Gugino in the role of Abbie, the work is a fitting and appropriate work for a changeable Chicago winter.

Director Robert Falls apparently went back to the drawing board for this successful work, tossing out O'Neill's extensive stage directions and reinterpreting the setting and staging. Perhaps the most striking result was the decision to eliminate any elms, or any trees or anything else soft or gentle from the set. Instead, the work morphs into DESIRE AMONG THE ROCKS, with a mountain of giant boulders at least fifteen feet high dwarfing the characters and allowing them no place of refuge. Along with the rock mountain, other boulders hang from ropes, looming over the characters at every moment. For that matter, the Putnam house hangs from the rafters above the heads of these characters for many scenes, with the visual effect that everything in their world is ready to crush them all at a moment's notice.

Most of O'Neill's powerful works investigate the depths of pain and suffering that people inflict upon one another, and this script is no different. It allows fine actors the opportunity to live in the skins of these people, bellowing and crying, threatening and lying, living their meagre lives to get whatever tragic result that might be in store. Brian Dennehy, as expected, is a true stage star in the role of Efrem, doomed to self-inflicted loneliness among the rocks. Carle, a pleasant surprise in the role of Abbie, emits desperation in her every move to avoid that same loneliness. It is difficult to see how the acclaimed Gugino, away on a film promotion tour, could have done any better.

The work is one hundred minutes of pain, with much of the catharsis of the Greek tragedy for those of us who return to homes that are indeed and in fact places of refuge.