By Ed Lowe
Senior Writer
Steppenwolf is the site of "A Well Appointed Room," a new play by Tony award winner Richard Greenberg which is directed by Steppenwolf ensemble member Terry Kinney. Actually an amalgam of two one-acts, the play deals with personal attitudes before and after the trauma of 9/11. The two separate plays—joined by the fact that they both take place in a single New York apartment—are titled "Nostalgia" and "Prolepsis." The latter is defined as "an uncertain future that seems to have been lived already," in other words a kind of deja vu.
In the first of these short vignettes, Natalie and Stewart (played by Steppenwolf ensemble members Amy Morton and Tracy Letts) rise to a Sunday morning breakfast. Stewart is a successful playwright working on a new play. Natalie, his wife, joins him in the living room area of their "well appointed apartment" which, though the action is in the year 2000, is strangely decorated in a style more reminiscent of 1965. The nostalgia expressed by Stewart isn't shared by his wife and they devolve into a "George and Martha" contention (albeit without the booze and ferocity of the "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" characters). The drama builds as Natalie totes up the elements of her marital dissatisfaction and faults Stewart's egocentricism and her view of his false nostalgia.
In "Prolepsis" (which we learned is not an STD), Mark and Gretchen (performed by Steppenwolf newcomers Josh Charles and Kate Arrington) meet, fall in love, marry and ultimately await the birth of their first child. They had planned to live in lower Manhattan but 9/11 intervened and they move to the same apartment unit that was vacated by Natalie and Stewart. In her pregnancy, Gretchen takes long walks and, on one of them, encounters Mitchell (Tracy Letts), a kind of homeless everyman, whose views of the state of his world seem to conflict with the rosiness of the world that Mark and Gretchen have built around themselves. They are also visited by Penelope (Amy Morton), who as an aged and infirm woman takes a more pragmatic view of the world than the one seen by the young couple.
Greenberg's purpose in this play is to provide a view of the break that has occurred because of 9/11 in American society. What had been an assured self confidence and a sort of "me first" lifestyle as expressed by Stewart has changed into an introspective and somewhat self-doubting hesitancy that descends on Mark and Gretchen. Greenberg succeeds in presenting this division only in part. He could have been more clear and direct in his approach which, nevertheless, represents something that needs to be said about what has happened to American values and views since the horror of 9/11. The play is well worth seeing if only for the acting performances by Morton and Letts who bring a vitality and passion to their roles; they are a pleasure
to watch.
The Steppenwolf production of "A Well Appointed Room" will continue through March 12 in the Downstairs Theater venue. The theater is located at 1650 N. Halsted St. Tickets are available by calling (312) 335-1650. They are scaled between $20 and $60. A no-charge post-performance discussion of the play is a part of
each performance. |
