No Wake
Written by William Donnelly
Greenhouse Theater, 2257 N. Lincoln (map)
thru Feb 27 | tix: $20-$35 | more info
Check for half-price tickets
Wake me up when we get there
Route 66 Theatre Company presents
No Wake
Review by John Olson
Even in the minimal set by Brian Sidney Bembridge – a table and two chairs in front of a not very detailed representation of a hotel guest room – we know we’re at a hotel bar as this play opens. Two middle-aged men in dark suits are sharing drinks and polite conversation. Well, barely conversation. One of them – the one with the British accent (Raymond Fox) – is in the midst of a monolog in which he’s offering too much information to the other. Not too much in that it’s too revealing, as much as that it’s too much uninteresting information. The other (Stef Tovar) is apparently American, judging by the little of his accent that we hear in his few terse replies to the other man’s stories. If one can forgive playwright William Donnelly for hijacking the device used by Tracy Letts in his opening scene of August: Osage County (an interminable monolog delivered to a mostly silent scene partner), we get the point. Nothing of the details of the monolog have much significance, but the gist is that the British man, Roger, is trying in short order to connect with the second, Edward, by sharing details of his life. It takes quite a while before we learn the reason. When a woman (Lia D. Mortensen) enters and asks “Are you trying to get my husband drunk?” the two men are unclear who she’s addressing. They’re both, in a sense, her husband – one present (Roger) and one past (Edward). Roger, we presume, wants to ingratiate himself to Edward because they are all family. That’s particularly important at this moment because they’re in the midst of a family crisis. They’ve just attended the funeral of Edward and Rebecca’s adult daughter, Sukie. Making the funeral even more painful is the fact that Edward and Rebecca were estranged from Sukie for some years. The daughter claimed to hate them both – and it seems the estrangement resulted from depression or some other emotional/mental disorder on Sukie’s part.
Donnelly meticulously, exasperatingly, reveals all this as slowly as possible – apparently desperately trying to avoid any dialog that could sound too theatrically expository. It’s 20 minutes or so into this short (80 minute) play before we have any idea where it’s going, and even then, we learn it’s not going much of anywhere. That’s not to say there isn’t a point to it. Edward and Rebecca spend some time alone in which they try to make some sense of their lives and to understand how their marriage parenting resulted in such unsatisfactory conclusions – the dissolution of the marriage and the suicide of their daughter. One can’t help but have compassion for people in that situation, and Rebecca and Edward (and for that matter Roger) seem to be decent, intelligent people who have probably tried their best. In the hands of the three attractive and most capable actors cast here, warmly directed by Kimberly Senior, it’s not unpleasant to spend an hour in their company. Despite their conflicts, the three are likable and witty. Donnelly gives them some funny quips that enliven the hour.
The playwright is going somewhere with his story. For as indirect as he is in setting up the situation, he wraps it up quite explicitly. The title, you see, is a double entendre. Early on, we learn its first meaning: there was “no wake” for Sukie because the church doesn’t permit one in the case of suicide. Edward gives us the second meaning when he speaks of a boating trip in which he noticed harbor buoys marked “no wake,” and explaining to Rebecca that that means “slow down” when boating in an area with such markings. Donnelly’s point in his play No Wake may be simply to tell us to slow down in our lives – to give ourselves some slack and not beat ourselves up. That’s a good point – one which we could all stand to be reminded of, I suspect. But it’s a point he could have made faster – or more richly than he does here. The situation of a divorced couple dealing with a crisis of their offspring is a rich one. Donnelly tells us enough about Sukie that I would like to have learned even more about her and what broke up the family. As the script stands now, it seems more like a treatment for a play rather than a fully formed script.
Rating: ★★½
No Wake continues through February 27th at Greenhouse Theater, 2257 N. Lincoln (map), with performances Thursdays and Fridays at 8pm, Saturdays 4pm and 8pm, Sundays 2pm. Tickets are $20-$35, and are available by phone (773-404-7336) or online through Vendini.com (check for half-price tickets at Goldstar.com). More information at Route66Theatre.org. (Running time: 80 minutes without intermission)
Photos by Brandon Dahlquist
artists
cast
Raymond Fox (Roger), Stef Tovar (Edward), Lia D. Mortenson (Rebecca)
behind the scenes
Kimberly Senior (director), Brian Sidney Bembridge (scenic and lighting design), Alarie Hammock (costume design), Mikhail Fiskell (original music and sound design), John Tovar (fight choreographer), Frances Limoncelli (dramaturg), Ellen Eillett (production manager), Ari Crouse (stage manager), Brandon Dahlquist (photos)
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