Saturday Night /
Sunday Morning
Written by Katori Hall
Directed by TaRon Patton
at Steppenwolf Garage, 1624 N. Halsted (map)
thru April 19 | tickets: $20 | more info
Check for half-price tickets
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A theatrical gem worth seeing, loving and sharing
Prologue Theatre i/a/w Steppenwolf Garage Rep Series presents
Saturday Night/Sunday Morning
Review by Lawrence Bommer
A fascinating amalgam of “Steel Magnolias,” “Stage Door,” “The Barbershop,” “Waiting for the Parade,” and “Cyrano de Bergerac,” prolific playwright Katori Hall’s very moving group portrait depicts, tenderly and tartly, seven African-American wives, widows, and sweethearts awaiting the return of their men in the last months of World War II. Like August Wilson’s time-drenched sagas, these site-specific characters all but create themselves through chat, conflict and confessionals. Set in “Miss Mary’s Press and
One of three shows in Steppenwolf’s annual Garage Rep, Prologue Theatre Company’s Chicago premiere is a discovery worth seeing, loving and sharing.
Presiding over this fractious family is recently widowed, good-hearted Miss Mary (Kona Burks), full of tough love and wary admonitions – eager to primp, style or burn hair, if only to defeat the competition across the street. Staff, relations, customers or boarders, the other ladies are Taffy (Jennifer Glasse), a self-denigrating, easily infatuated teen who fights with sassy, sharp-tongued Mabel (Krenee A. Tolson), a reckless shampoo girl always looking for a good time even with a boyfriend fighting abroad; and gossipy Jackie and her bosom buddy Dot (Earliana McLaurin), Memphis belles. The two most developed survivors are lovely Leanne (ardent McKenzie Chinn), a rich girl who’s almost melodramatically miserable over her beloved Bobby fighting overseas, and new girl Gladys (virtuous but vulnerable Angela Alise), a very religious typist looking for work. (The only men we meet are Bobby (Tyrone Marcus Phillips), seen through the letters he sends and receives, and Buzz (Michael Pogue), the postman/peddler who enjoys being cock of the walk in this happy hen house.)
 
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Their encounters, including assorted clowning in the salon that leads to Mabel’s monumentally bad hair day, would be plot enough. But a story develops: The girls persuade budding writer Gladys to console “drama mamma” Leanne by forging letters from Bobby: In short time illiterate Leanne is also “writing” letters to him (as vividly imagined by a sublimating Gladys). Quickly, Leanne, who had been desperate for letters Bobby never wrote, falls in love with “Bobby” all over again. Or–closeted Gladys wonders and dares to hope—is she really falling for the author of the letters? Unlike Rostand’s novel, this Cyrano/Roxane mistaken situation pushes everyone’s luck too far to grant their hopes. But the formula works just as well in 2014 as it does in 1945 or 1897.
But then everything works in TaRon Patton’s lovingly wrought, hilarious and heartbreaking tour d’ensemble, including period-perfect wigs by Sarah Jo White, Beth Laske-Miller’s vintage costumes, and Yu Shibagaki’s wonderfully detailed and accurate composite set. Both melded and distinguished, these nine performers create a larger-than-life action album, a whole greater and truer than the sum of its parts.
Rating: ★★★★
Saturday Night/Sunday Morning continues through April 19th at Steppenwolf Garage, 1624 N. Halsted (map). Tickets are $20, and are available by phone (312-335-1650) or online through Steppenwolf.org. (check for half-price tickets at Goldstar.com). More information available at PrologueTheatreCo.org. (Running time: 2 hours 20 minutes, includes an intermission)
Photos by Joel Moorman
artists
cast
Angela Alise (Gladys), Kona Burks (Miss Mary), McKenzie Chinn (Leanne), Jennifer Glasse (Taffy), Earliana McLaurin (Dot), Kyra Morris (Jackie), Tyrone Marcus Phillips (Bobby), Michael Pogue (Buzz), Krenée A. Tolson (Mabel)
behind the scenes
TaRon Patton (director), Yu Shibagaki (scenic design), Beth Laske-Miller (costume design), Sarah Jo White (wig design), Sarah Hughey (lighting design), Curtis Powell (sound design), Sarah Burnham (properties design), Leonicia Berry Bongorno (assistant director, stage manager), Anthony Rodriguez (assistant stage manager), Jennifer McClendon (production manager), Christopher Kristant (technical director), Margaret Lebron (dramaturg), Joel Moorman (photos)
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