Thanks to the success of lauded plays such as “Getting Out” and the Pulitzer Prize-winning “‘night, Mother,” playwright Marsha Norman is widely viewed as a feminist author capable of profound psychological insights into women.
Yet in “Traveler in the Dark,” a lesser known 1984 piece first performed at the American Repertory Theatre, Norman also took a dramatic excursion into the psyche of a middle-aged man.
Even though this familial drama has moments when it drifts into psychobabble of 1980s vintage, this tightly structured play is a useful reminder that the playwright’s capabilities for emotional insights are not limited by gender.
We don’t hear so much of Norman these days–she has always suffered detractors jealous of her commercial success–but all of her plays are strikingly effective blends of commitment and accessibility. And even though some of her best-known works are aging, they still work.
“Traveler in the Dark” is a very good choice for the Illinois Theatre Center.
Etel Billig’s intimate suburban theater has a mainly older audience who seems to appreciate realistic and emotional American drama on a family canvas, which also happens to be the genre with which this theater has the most artistic success.
The titular traveler is a surgeon named Sam (Tim Rezash) whose successful life has been knocked sideways after the death of his nurse (who also happened to be his childhood sweetheart). Events take place in the back yard of the house in which Sam grew up.
In this four-character play, the atheist Sam fights with his preacher father (played as a cold fish by Gary Rayppy) and his long-suffering wife, Glory (Cathy Bieber).
As this stressed-out trio debates the merits of science versus religion, Sam and Glory’s young, impressionable son (played with assurance by Tom Carreras) functions as the metaphoric prize.
Billig’s production does not rise to the impressive heights of “All My Sons” earlier this season, but it’s still a generally successful show.
Rezash is an exceptionally warm and empathetic actor, which perhaps explains why he struggles with Sam’s more caustic, darker side that needs a much firmer presence.
Rayppy and Bieber have some fine moments, but there are also times when this emotive script demands far deeper emotional connections from everyone.
Still, a realistic setting from Jonathan R. Billig helps plausibility.
And there’s enough palpable truth on display for Norman’s ideas to intrigue the viewer and for her humanistic sympathy for men and women to shine through.
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“Traveler in the Dark”
Through: Jan. 28
Where: Illinois Theatre Center, 371 Artists Walk, Park Forest
Phone: 708-481-3510
