Review: Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me (Oak Park Festival Theatre)

By Chicagotheaterbeat @chitheaterbeat

  
  
Someone Who’ll
   Watch Over Me 

Written by Frank McGuinness
Directed by Belinda Bremner
Madison Street Studio Theatre, Oak Park (map)
thru Nov 11  |  tickets: $15-$25   |  more info
  
Check for half-price tickets 
  
  
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Riveting drama laced with humor

     

  

Oak Park Festival Theatre presents

  

Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me

Review by Leah Zeldes 

The Middle East has been a seething pit of intrigue, danger and violence for thousands of years, and lest you think that the turmoil of today is the worst, I draw your memory to the soul-searing Reagan years. In the scenario that led to the Iran-Contra debacle, terrorists were blowing up Americans in Beirut right and left, TWA Flight 847 was hijacked; and Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and other extremist groups in Lebanon abducted scores of Westerners: CIA Station Chief William Buckley and American Chief of United Nations Truce, Lt. Col William Higgins, who were murdered; American University of Beirut President David Dodge and administrators Thomas Sutherland and Joseph Cicippio; British journalist John McCarthy; Associated Press correspondent Terry Anderson; Irish professor Brian Keenan; Catholic priest Lawrence Jenco; Presbyterian minister Benjamin Wier; CNN Bureau Chief Jerry Levin; Lebanese International School Head Frank Reed; poet Edward Tracey, American professors Alann Steen, Jesse Turner and Robert Polhill and others. Terry Waite, the envoy from the Archbishop of Canterbury, went to Beirut to negotiate for the hostages and wound up a hostage himself. Many were kept imprisoned in terrible conditions for years.

That was the inspiration behind Irish playwright Frank McGuinness‘s Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me, currently staged by Oak Park Festival Theatre, Based on conversations with Keenan, the play was first produced in 1992 once the last living hostage, Anderson, was released after 2,454 days in captivity. The drama doesn’t get into the overview, the politics, the reasons at all. Performed on an all but bare stage, it concentrates solely on the day-to-day existence of three hostages held in a Beirut basement, chained by their ankles to a wall.

The first to come was Adam, an American doctor. Next, Edward, an Irish journalist. Finally, Michael, a British professor of English. Each was plucked out of his life and thrust into a dark neverland, not to know if it’s day or night or to know any news of the outside world.

Tedium, terror, rage, nationalism, resignation — they experience it all. The three spend much of their time just biding their time, but although the men’s utter boredom forms a focal point of the play, it’s never boring. And despite the stereotypical nature of the characters — the earnest American, the flip Irishman, the prim Englishman — they’re never quite expected. The drama’s title refers to the 1926 George and Ira Gershwin song "Someone to Watch Over Me," one of Ella Fitzgerald’s signatures, and that’s what the prisoners do for each other, as alternately they bicker and buck each other up and engage each other with fantasies and fear, hysteria and humor.

Yes, humor. Human beings find it, and need it, in the grimmest realities. McGuinness’s often dry wit is presented with perfect timing.

Chris Rickett as the spiritual Adam and Jack Hickey (who bears a strong resemblance to Terry Waite) as the mild-mannered Michael both put in strong performances. Kevin Theis, as the mercurial Edward, is just simply brilliant.

In the intimacy of the Madison Street Studio Theatre, this is riveting drama. Don’t let the bleak subject matter keep you away.

  

Rating: ★★★★

  

  

Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me continues through November 11th at Madison Street Studio Theatre, 1010 W. Madison (map), with performances Thursdays-Saturdays at 8pm, Sundays 3pm.  Tickets are $15-$25, and are available by phone (708-445-4440) or online through OvationTix.com (check for half-price tickets at Goldstar.com). More information at oakparkfestival.com.  (Running time: 2 hours 10 minutes, includes an intermission)

     

artists

cast

Kevin Theis, Chris Rickett, Jack Hickey

behind the scenes

Belinda Bremmer (director, costume and properties designer); Adam Hildner (set designer); Claire Chrzan (lighting designer); Kyle Irwin (sound designer); Kevin O’Brien (production executive); Julia Zayas-Melendez (stage manager); Robert W. Behr (production consultant); Lucy Carr (assistant director); Jessica Lotz (house manager)

12-1030