Review: Water by the Spoonful (Court Theatre)

By Chicagotheaterbeat @chitheaterbeat

  
  
Water by the Spoonful

Written by Quiara Alegría Hudes 
Directed by Henry Godinez
at Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis (map)
thru April 6  |  tickets: $45-$65   |  more info
  
Check for half-price tickets  
  
  
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Exploring the destructive effects of drug addition

     

  

Court Theatre presents

  

Water by the Spoonful

Review by Oliver Sava

Addiction is messy. It destroys lives and tears families apart, and once an addiction has been formed, it always lingers under the surface, scratching away at the resolve of those in recovery until there’s a moment of vulnerability. It’s a constant struggle, and Quiara Alegría Hudes’ Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Water by the Spoonful suggests that the only way to make it through is by depending on other people and finding strength in community.

Hudes’ play begins with two separate storylines that intersect at the end of Act One: the first focuses on a wounded Marine trying to find his place in his home country after returning from Iraq, the second on a group of recovering addicts who frequent a message board that gives them a safe place to share their struggles. Water by the Spoonful is the second play in a trilogy following Elliot (Edgar Michael Sanchez) the Marine, but each work stands on its own with a specific focus. In the case of Spoonful, the focus is on drug dependence and how it rocks the lives of the addicts and everyone around them.

When it comes to metaphors for addiction, a pit is far from original. John Boesche’s set design features a giant crumbling hole downstage center, and the characters move closer to it as they become vulnerable to a relapse. It’s a striking visual, but also a very obvious one, and the stylized movement that unfolds around the hole doesn’t add much to the script. The extra ornamentation detracts from the action during the message board sequences, adding visual flourish to heightened online language to diminish the reality of the characters’ situations.

The major through-line of Hudes’ trilogy is the importance of family, which includes blood relations as well as groups of people that form tight bonds because of shared circumstances. As Elliot mourns the death of the woman who raised him, his birth mother Odessa (Charin Alvarez) moderates a Narcotics Anonymous message board so that she can quell the urges that took her children away from her. Much of the action unfolds in that internet message board, a conceit that allows Hudes to have fun with the dialogue, but also poses some problems when it comes to characterization.

  

People interact on the internet much differently than they do in real life, and while Hudes captures the uninhibited aggression of online speech, performing that language live pushes the characters into caricature territory. When newcomer Fountainhead (Daniel Cantor) enters the NA message board and delivers a falsified, sugar-coated speech about his crack cocaine addiction, users Orangutan (Marissa Lichwick) and Chutes and Ladders (Dexter Zollicoffer) immediately attack him and make him feel ashamed for seeking help without being completely honest. They act as if they were never addicts themselves and don’t live with the same anxiety and guilt as Fountainhead, and it makes it difficult to sympathize with Orangutan and Chutes and Ladders.

Luckily, Fountainhead has Odessa (username: Haikumom) to offer him support. She offers to meet with him in person, and the scene they share in a restaurant is the highlight of the production, offering a stark look at the reality of addiction for these characters. Alvarez and Cantor do the strongest work internalizing their characters’ dependence, with Cantor giving a tense, jittery performance as a man trying to make it through day one while Alvarez plays a more serene, but equally tortured figure. Alvarez’s fantastic work realizing Odessa’s heartbroken, desolate character, and the threat of relapse is present at all times. This quality makes Elliot all the more despicable when he lashes out against his mother and sends her on a dangerous downward spiral, but Sanchez redeems the character with a tragic confession in the play’s final moments.

  

Rating: ★★½

  

  

Water by the Spoonful continues through April 6th at Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis (map), with performances Wednesdays and Thursdays at 7:30pm, Fridays 8pm, Saturdays 3pm and 8pm, Sundays 2:30pm and 7:30pm.  Tickets are $45-$65, and are available by phone (773-753-4472) or online through their website (check for half-price tickets at Goldstar.com). More information at CourtTheatre.org.  (Running time: 2 hours 25 minutes, includes an intermission)

Photos by Michael Brosilow 

     

artists

cast

Charin Alvarez (Odessa/Haikumom), Daniel Cantor (Fountainhead), Yadira Correa (Yazmin), Anish Jethmalani (Aman/Ghost), Marissa Lichwick (Orangutan), Edgar Miguel Sanchez (Elliot), Dexter Zollicoffer (Chutes and Ladders).

behind the scenes

Henry Godinez (director), John Boesche (set design, production design), Linda Roethke (costume design), Heather Gilbert (lighting design), Joshua Horvath, Kevin O’Donnell (sound design), Amanda Weener (stage manager), Donald Claxon (asst. stage manager), Michael Brosilow (photos)

  

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