In Claudia Allen’s “Unspoken Prayers,” it is not only a death in the family but a murder that unleashes grief, anger and confusion. At the heart of the latest drama from Allen, opening Monday in a Victory Gardens staging by Dennis Zacek, is Billie (soap opera star Taylor Miller, who originated the role of Nina Cortlandt in the long-running soap opera “All My Children”), a middle-class mother whose teenage daughter is senselessly murdered. When the killer, an unassuming 16-year-old classmate, is caught, Billie’s family is forced to take sides. Before it’s over, a mother, father and sister confront their personal losses–and each other–as they try to separate justice from recrimination.
“I originally intended to write a play where everybody held forth on both sides of the issue,” Allen says. “But for me it ended up becoming a family play because the real question is, how would you feel if it was your father or mother who was killed?”
Considering the ongoing debate over capital punishment, Allen looks at its possible roots in revenge. “I’m interested in how our ethics change or don’t when our feelings get deeply involved. We see three very different responses to the daughter’s death. I want the audience to leave arguing with itself and perhaps, as our director Dennis says, they’ll even have an Easter moment at the end.”
“UNSPOKEN PRAYERS” runs through May 4 at Victory Gardens Theater, 2257 N. Lincoln Ave.; $22-$35; 773-871-3000.
“THE WINTER’S TALE,” Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Navy Pier, 800 E. Grand Ave.; $48, $58; 312-595-5600: Despite the title, this late Shakespearean romance, which opens Sunday in a staging by Michael Bogdanov, is a tale for all seasons. As always, “Shakespeare depicts the cynicism that lies at the root of human behavior,” Bogdanov says. “People don’t resign their bad traits honorably but pursue them to the end.” This particular Shakespeare is the story of the toxically jealous King Leontes, who orders his wife imprisoned for adultery, triggering the death of his boyhood companion and the dispersal of his family over time.
For Bogdanov, best known in Chicago for his C.S.T. staging of “Timon of Athens” and the English Shakespeare Company’s spectacle “The War of the Roses,” time is almost a character in the play. “In the second act, which occurs 16 years after the first, you can see that the parents have aged,” Bogdanov says. “They’ve also aged in their heads. Leontes, for instance, has been chastened by his rash rage.”
But even with time, “there’s no fairy tale romance here,” Bogdanov continues, “no miracles occur. The characters are entirely responsible for their actions.” Closes June 1.
“SEAGULL,” Redmoon Theater at Steppenwolf Studio, 1650 N. Halsted St.; $25-$28; 312-335-1650: It started with “Nina,” a spectacle of stylized imagery and object interaction performed in Humboldt Park last summer. Opening Saturday is “Seagull,” the second in Redmoon’s three-part “Chekhov Cycle,” which will cover the same plot but delve into Chekhov’s language, integrating textual elements into the theater’s famous visual artistry.
Moving from a park to a studio space, director Jim Lasko (creator of “Moby Dick,” “Frankenstein,” “The Ballad of Frankie and Johnny” and “Hunchback”) now gets to explore the subtlety and complexity of Chekhov’s self-doomed characters. In doing so, he added three roles to further investigate the secondary plots in the play. “With Chekhov nothing clarifies anything. Hopefully, these three characters should complicate things in the best way, adding resonance to a play about people longing for the things they can’t have.”
As for the new locale, Lasko is optimistic about its possibilities. “The indoor setting lets us control the environment and allows the audience to access the deeper emotional qualities of the play. It also helps me to hone the comedy for a play that’s much funnier than people think.” Closes April 20.
“CAFE SOCIETY,” A Reasonable Facsimile Theatre Co. at the Cornservatory, 4210 N. Lincoln Ave.; $12, $15; 773-282-9728: What will faddists endure to protect their gustatory addictions? Starting Thursday, Robert Simonson’s drama exposes the patrons of the “most sublime coffeehouse in the city”–any city. Unwilling to abandon their ice mocha lattes or blueberry scones, they submit to the whims of a strangely mature 15-year-old counter girl. What humiliations will these yuppies put up with to preserve their caffeine highs? Would you risk death for a double cappuccino?
The author based his tale on a true incident: “Years ago, I worked as a program editor at Lincoln Center. There was a gourmet French cafe where many editors got their morning coffee and pastry. The teenage daughter of the coffee shop owner was often behind the counter. One day a nice young woman named Sarah was getting her coffee as usual when the daughter, out of the blue, asked, `Would you like to be friends?’ Being nice, Sarah said of course, but was so spooked by this crossing of an unspoken customer-servant barrier that she never went back to the cafe again. I wrote `Cafe Society’ because I was intrigued with what might happen if Sarah and the girl had become friends.”
The play, says Simonson, also examines our mixed-up concerns. “Most Americans have their priorities absolutely backwards. Issues of loyalty, ethics, family and government are taken lightly, while we’re absorbed by unimportant things like what car we drive, what restaurant to go to, and what coffee to drink.
“Addictions become funny,” Simonson continues, “when the thing desired takes on an importance out of kilter with its intrinsic worth. I understand why a person goes two miles out of their way, waits in line and spends too much money for the right kind of bagel or pasta. But that doesn’t make it any less ridiculous.” Closes May 11.
“KING O’ THE MOON,” Mercury Theatre, 3745 N. Southport Ave.; $32.50-$44.50; 312-325-1700: The Pazinskis of Buffalo have come out from over the tavern and are now in their backyard. A comic hit at Northlight Theatre, then the Mercury Theatre, “Over the Tavern” was also a feat of emotional reclamation as playwright Tom Dudzick brought to detailed life his memories of a Polish-Catholic childhood in Buffalo, N.Y., in the late 1950s. Opening Thursday in a staging by William Pullinsi, “King O’ the Moon” picks up 10 years later.
It’s July 1969 and, while Apollo 11 journeys to the moon, the Pazinski family is on its own crazy trajectory. As wisecracking Rudy, the narrator and author’s surrogate, continues to irritate his clan, the family members forge their own shaky solidarity against a troubling new world. More a self-contained comedy than a sequel, “King O’ the Moon” (the second in a trilogy which ends with “Lake Effect”) is a tribute to a family’s ability to keep its members individually unbalanced but collectively sane.
“When they’re home, they know they’re accepted whatever they did during the day,” Dudzick says. “They can fight and have differences and still know that, yes, I’m probably better off here than anywhere else, I’m closer to these people than I ever will be to anyone else. There’s something good in that. It’s not like `Father Knows Best,’ where there are saving words of wisdom and pat answers. This is realistic.”
And it is Dudzick’s childhood memories that make it all ring so true. “For some reason my childhood is very vivid, especially the feelings I had, memories of the trouble I got into playing on the railroad tracks and other dangerous things kids do and never tell their parents.” Some special souls store them up for a hit comedy. Closes May 25.
