In the Next Room (or the vibrator play) - Highly Recommended

Sarah Ruhl's 2009 Tony-nominated play receives a top-shelf treatment by the actors and staff of the Victory Gardens Theatre. Directed by VG veteran Sandy Shinner, the play weaves together a broad range of issues and story lines without ever appearing too heavy or contrived. The humor is spontaneous and evocative, and the writing overall is elegant - taut, poetic, and incisive.

The cast of seven is well up to the challenge, even in preview. While some of the characters are broadly drawn, and the delivery is often intentionally "stuffy Victorian," we have no doubt that these are real people, and each of them faces real personal challenges.

Those challenges include infant mortality, infidelity, emotional isolation, racism and the strictures society places on strong women and homosexuality. To tackle any one of these effectively in a single play would be a treat; In the Next Room gives us enough of a taste of each that we know we have shared a new intimacy with those who face those struggles.

And yet the play never really loses its "light," produced by Mr. Edison's harnessing of electricity in both optical and mechanical ways. Ms. Ruhl offers up delightful one-liners ("Would you rather a Negro Protestant or an Irish Catholic?"), the nearly-mandatory excoriation of critics, and an interesting interpretation of the relationship between love and poetry. Clearly, she is having a great deal of fun with this play - fun she effectively invites us to share with her.

As for the vibrators? Oh, they are present, and while the application of those tools is discreet, the "paroxysms" of the patients to whom they are applied are compelling and superbly timed. The material is never prurient, but it is intimate - which is really what this play is all about.

Can intimacy become mechanical? Can the mechanical spark genuine intimacy? Are we "meat and bones," or do our souls live a couple of inches outside our eyes? Come enjoy the delicate handling that In the Other Room provides to these issues, and prepare to be tickled - and touched - by this wonderful production.

"Tree" at Victory Gardens - 4 of 5 stars

Tree, by Julie Hébert, is a great example of the strength of community theater in Chicago. Certainly, Victory Gardens is one of the better "second tier" theaters here, and as such I've come to hold it to higher standards than others. Tonight, it lived up to those standards - quite nicely!

Probably the best dimension of this play is the writing. Ms. Hébert knows her characters: their voices, their demons, their desires. And she's not afraid to take us into the magical realism of Alzheimer's, trusting the audience to piece it together. The puzzle parts are richly offered up, and they eventually coalesce to tell a deeper, more moving story than we thought was in store for us.

The presentation of difficult issues - racism, abandonment, neglect, Alzheimer's, gender stereotyping - are portrayed authentically and with an excellent balance of humor and pain. Only once did one of these issues get "short shrift" - Leo and Didi's exchange at the very end about her love life - and I take that one lapse as the exception that proves the rule. Well done, Ms. Hébert!

The acting is fine by community standards, and in particular Leslie Ann Sheppard as JJ (the strongest of the lot, despite her relative youth) and Celeste Williams as Jessalyn give spirited and well-rounded performances. While it may seem trivial, I was particularly moved by Ms. Sheppard's singing at the end of the play - her voice carried the angst of the entire story in a way that was profound.

Be ready for some coarse language, though I never found it offensive. It worked best for me when it was surrounded by the humor that Ms. Hébert is quite skilled in evoking, but less so - mainly on the strength of the acting, in my opinion - when it was purely the servant of anger.

The set was a visual treat, though the choice of the boat rising from the mist at the play's opening seemed overly symbolic. The lighting design was also quite good, and the use of a few audio tricks was in the main effective.

The "bookends" of the story were the weakest, particularly the ending. Stop reading now if you don't like spoilers.