By Ed Lowe
Senior Writer
In yet another of its world premier productions, Victory Gardens Theater is presenting David C. Field's "Symmetry." Directed by Victory Garden's artistic director, Dennis Zacek, the play deals with the inherent conflicts between academic ambition, the need for corporate financing for expansion of university facilities and the motivations surrounding these sometimes opposed concepts.
The scene is a tiny southwestern university from which physics and math genius Oscar Newman (ably performed by Aaron Roman Weiner) has just published a significant paper on advanced math and its relationship to the continuum of knowledge in the field of physics. His mentor, Neal Julian (Matt DeCaro), dean of the physics department, uses his published paper as a springboard for soliciting a grant for the construction of a new high tech lab on the campus. The object of his grantsmanship is industrialist John Slocum (Chicago theater veteran J. J. Johnston) who is convinced that the results produced by this lab will help him with his corporate goal of improving robotics.
Oscar's unlikely office mate is the only instructor in Far Eastern Studies, Ecco Sugada, (performed by newcomer Jennifer Liu). She introduces Oscar to some of the mysteries of eastern religions and Oscar soon discovers the connection between some of those arcane concepts and the math which has puzzled him. Enter physics legend Edmond Lakos (played by another veteran Chicago actor, William J. Norris). Academic politics soon become a part of the drama which plays out as the essential conflict between big money and big ideas. Julian's wife, Myra (Meg Thalken), spices up the action because of her dissatisfaction with living conditions in backwater Albuquerque when she is accustomed to the Manhattan condo from which she emigrated into the hinterlands.
Technically, the play works well in the first act and begins to unravel during the second act when some of the extraneous plot lines get in the way of the author's essential purpose. But the play is worth seeing as an exercise in dramatic tension. The ideas are solid though some of the writing leaves something to be desired.
Victory Gardens is located at 2257 N. Lincoln Ave. Tickets for "Symmetry" range from $33 to $40 and are available through the box office at (773) 871-3000. There is a discount available to seniors. Parking is also available at the Children's Memorial parking lot one block north of the theater. The show is scheduled to run through July 10. |
