“Her America,” the dark-souled and very intriguing new solo piece by Chicago writer Brett Neveu, has a title with a country and a pronoun. Looking at my program at the Greenhouse Theater Center on Wednesday night, the day after the Barack Obama farewell and the evening after Donald Trump’s explosive news conference, it was the pronoun that jumped out. Her America, as distinct from his.
Or yours. Or mine.
The one and only character in this intimately staged, 75-minute monologue, performed by actress Kate Buddeke as if she had no choice but to do so, does not overtly discuss politics, be they presidential or otherwise. But Buddeke’s Lori is a portrait of a much-discussed sociological type: white, rural, working class, middle-aged, forceful, stymied and shorn of opportunity. And greatly disappointed in men, who are themselves disappointed in the trajectory of their lives.
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We find Lori in the basement, which functions as Neveu’s other character, really, and provides the conflict in the piece that does not derive from Lori’s own internalized regrets. Of which she has plenty. The subterranean repositories of our lives — in full disclosure, I just cleaned one out — are complicated loci, really. You’ve probably got many a talisman down there. You likely also have some boxes you’d rather not unpack.
Fully unpacking a Neveu script is never easy. His impulse is always toward the elliptical, even at the cost of accessibility and commercial viability. As I’ve felt before with work by this writer — whom I consider an essential part of Chicago theater — you come away craving just a bit more information to build your bond with the character. Lori is, clearly, intended to be a representative of one aspect of the current American condition, and that works superbly well. But when we talk in the way that Lori talks, for a long riff, specifics tend to fall from our mouths. People remember going to McDonald’s. Or the make of the car in the shop. You can understand why Neveu avoids precise terms, for he desires the emblematic. But symbol always has to dance with the human, and rural America has been beset by brands.
That hesitancy aside, I think “Her America” is one of Neveu’s richest and most interesting pieces and a response to the state of play in this country without entirely being a response. It is provocative and, at times, moving. That is thanks to Buddeke, an actress you likely know well if you have darkened the door of many Chicago theaters during the past generation of work. This actress, gently directed here by Linda Gillum, rarely, if ever, turns in a performance which does not appear to cost her everything to do.
I say appear — Buddeke is, after all, an actress and a very good one, but there is nary a note of condescension toward the character. To put all that another way, you are watching a woman in a basement, richly visualized as a repository of memory by the designers Grant Sabin and Richard Norwood, recalling and recoiling from her life. And it is everything to her. Buddeke, who likes to wrestle every moment to the floor, dares you to think otherwise.
And that’s what makes “Her America,” modest in scale as it may be, well worth your time. Basements can be everything, because they are where we park stuff away, thinking we will open that trunk or box again one day, and paying the price when we do.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
Twitter @ChrisJonesTrib
“HER AMERICA” – 3 STARS
When: Through Feb. 12
Where: Greenhouse Theater Center, 2257 N. Lincoln Ave.
Running time: 1 hour, 15 minutes
Tickets: $34-$48 at 773-404-7336 or greenhousetheater.org
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