Still Alice
Adapted and Directed by Christine Mary Dunford
Based on the novel by Lisa Genova
Lookingglass Theatre, 821 N. Michigan (map)
thru May 19 | tickets: $36-$70 | more info
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A poetic end
Lookingglass Theatre presents
Still Alice
Review by Lauren Whalen
This week has been all about endings. The news is rife with tragic ones. In four days I’ve seen three shows – Victory Gardens’ The Whale, the pre-Broadway tryout of Big Fish, and now Lookingglass’ Still Alice – that deal with a protagonist’s end. My teacher, the novelist Rebecca Makkai, says that endings are an art. “We skip over them so quickly,” she said to our fiction writing workshop, “often because it’s 2 a.m. and we just want to finish the book and go to bed. But the next time you read an ending, read it slowly. Good endings have poetry.” Still Alice can be described just like that. Christine Mary Dunford’s artful adaptation of Lisa Genova’s novel chronicles the ending of a brilliant mind, and does so with pure poetry.
Northwestern professor Alice Howland (Eva Barr) has a picture perfect life: an academic spouse (Christopher Donahue), two bright adult children (Cliff Chamberlain and Joanne Dubach), a lovely Evanston home and acclaim in her field of study, the human brain. It starts with little things: she forgets her purse at a restaurant, has the same conversation twice, is momentarily disoriented on a run. But when Alice is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s, she must navigate life in a new way. Her inner self (Mariann Mayberry) is her constant companion, changing as Alice does while maintaining a sarcastic wit and a sense of dark humor.
Adapting a novel for the stage or film can be an endeavor of Sisyphean proportions. A genius’ deterioration is compelling, sure, but eloquent prose doesn’t always translate to great theater. I haven’t read the novel, but I would wager that Still Alice isn’t lost in translation. Dunford’s adaptation of the novel was partially inspired by her work with The Memory Ensemble, her improvisational theater intervention for persons with early stage Alzheimer’s and related disorders, and that knowledge and experience presents itself in every decision. Still Alice isn’t an inherently happy story, but it also isn’t morbidly depressing. Thanks to Dunford’s intelligent decisions and penchant for finding comic moments, I wanted to stay in Alice’s world. It wasn’t all flowers and rainbows, but it was gorgeous to behold.
Lookingglass has never been afraid to take risks and to explore a story’s possibilities. Still Alice’s production design is black magic, both flawlessly executed and trusting the audience’s intellect, letting us fill in the blanks in a way that Alice increasingly cannot. John Musial’s set pieces shift and move, scrambling with Alice’s brain without beating the audience over the head with symbolism. A blank white canvas highlights Mike Tutaj’s colorful projections that illustrate the passage of time and the questions Alice asks herself (what month is it? How many children do I have?) that become more and more difficult to answer. Mike Durst’s lighting design has a spectacular climax, and Alison Siple’s costumes perfectly straddle the line of realistic and emblematic.
The show’s cast is just as solid, plucked from Lookingglass’ fantastic resident ensemble and the best fixtures on the Chicago theater scene. Donahue is the quintessential rumpled academic, worrying about grants and misplacing his spectacles. David Kersnar and Tracy Walsh shine in small but memorable roles as Alice’s doctors. Chamberlain (whom I loved in Steppenwolf’s Clybourne Park last season) brings just the right amount of pathos to Alice’s lawyer son Thomas, and Donahue (a standout in Gift Theatre’s 2012 Absolute Hell) gives a breakout performance as struggling actress and prodigal daughter Lydia. Barr is perfection in the title role: believable as a beloved professor and scholar, equal parts quirky and wry, a commanding but generous presence in an endurance test of a role (Alice is onstage for 99 percent of the intermission-less play). And Mayberry, last seen as a desperate unemployed retail clerk in Steppenwolf’s Good People, is a petite revelation. Utterly captivating from beginning to end, she is living proof that good things come in small packages.
Makkai said something else to our fiction workshop, held on the day of the Boston Marathon bombing. “Stories are important. We have to tell them. Whether they’re serious or escapist, we are lucky to be in a world of stories.” Still Alice is a serious story, but there’s humor in it. It’s a story of an ending, and a story of love. And sitting in the old Water Tower, watching a sadly beautiful decline and not wanting it to end, I felt very lucky indeed.
Rating: ★★★★
Still Alice continues through May 19th at Lookingglass Theatre, 821 N. Michigan (map), with performances Tuesdays/Wednesdays at 7:30pm, Thursdays at 3pm and 7:30pm, Friday at 7:30pm, Saturdays/Sundays at 3pm and 7:30pm. Tickets are $36-$70, and are available by phone (312-337-0665) or online through PrintTixUSA.com (check for half-price tickets at Goldstar.com). More info at LookingglassTheatre.org. (Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes without intermission)
Photos by Liz Lauren
artists
cast
Eva Barr (Alice), Cliff Chamberlain (Thomas), Chris Donahue (John), Joanne Dubach (Lydia), David Kersnar (Doctor David), Mariann Mayberry (herself), Tracy Walsh (Doctor Tamara)
behind the scenes
Christine Mary Dunford (director, adaptation), John Musial (set), Alison Siple (costumes), Mike Durst (lighting), Rick Sims (sound, original music), Mike Tutaj (projections), Maria DeFabo (props design), Amber Johnson (stage manager), Joel Hobson (production manager), Sean K. Walters (tech director), Liz Lauren (photos)
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