By Venus Zarris
We are all children, moving about in our adult lives. We play the parts of adults based on observation and training, or the lack thereof, but when it comes right down to it we are still children. This is of course opinion. There are some who would disagree. I would argue that the more vehement the disagreement, the more entrenched (albeit buried) the child exists in that “sophisticated” adult. – Much like when you call a child a baby and they scream to the contrary, “I am NOT a BABY!” – This is also of course opinion.
Playwright Sarah Ruhl places children in adult bodies and then maneuvers them through adult situations in her play Late: A Cowboy Song. There is childlike wonder that they all find in life’s simple things. There are naïve notions applied to adult circumstances that both serve them well and trip them up. Late: A Cowboy Song resembles a staged production of a children’s book. You can imagine the illustrations, possibly by Chris Van Allsburg, but this is a children’s book that would be banned from children’s shelves because of adult content.
The children within us will recognize this in the play and will be both drawn to and frightened by it. The adults within us will recognize this and will be entertained or annoyed by it. Most likely, the adult/child and the child/adult will not understand these reactions on the surface because neither is completely conscious of how the other’s perspective simultaneously exists within us. They are often internally at odds, much like they are in Ruhl’s characters.
Mary and Crick are childhood sweethearts, living together in a vacuum of a relationship that has thwarted their development both internally and externally. Mary runs into a woman named Red, a childhood friend that has retreated to the world of cowboy life outside the city limits. Mary and Crick are frenetic and often at odds. Red is calm, confident and at peace. Mary is drawn to this contrast. Crick is threatened by Mary’s newfound relationship with a cowboy-woman. As Mary’s life opens up to a new possibility, Crick tried to close ranks. When Mary becomes pregnant, she recommits to the original relationship. They get married and make a go at family life. This becomes suffocating, especially when the baby is born intersexed. Doctors operate on the newborn to assign female gender. Crick is happy with this assignment but Mary wonders why it is necessary and thinks the baby should be free to develop naturally. Obviously her relationship with Red gives Mary a more sympathetic perspective on the fluid nature of sexual identity.
Mary and Crick’s relationship is depicted as suffocating. Mary and Red’s relationship is depicted as redemptive. All of these adult situations unfold in a sometimes dreamlike and always childish way.
Ruhl fluctuates between realism and romanticism with varying degrees of success. What works the most in Late: A Cowboy Song is the language. Ruhl writes lovely passages, sometimes funny and sometimes heartbreaking. What works the least is the character’s interaction with each other. Even between Mary and Red, the two characters with the strongest emotional bond and development, there seems to be a lack of three-dimensional connection. Much like in an illustrated book, we see the characters as colorful and detailed but somewhat flat.
Director Jessica Thebus creates this theatrical pop-up book with impressive depth. Thebus is a master at handling Ruhl’s idiosyncratic characters and extracting the humor and poignancy from the script. There are laugh-out-loud moments as well as heartrending ones. She strikes a lovely and merciful balance between the contrast of Mary and Crick’s chaotic relationship and Mary and Red’s gentle interactions.
Lawrence Grimm delivers a heavy-handed portrayal of Crick. It is hard to muster sympathy for this lost soul and even harder to believe his relationship with Mary. The petulance of Grimm’s depiction far out shadows his humanity. This creates an inadvertent “man bashing” atmosphere in the production. You see only desperation when he declares his love for Mary and when Crick becomes potentially violent we see him as more a bully, rather than a wounded lover.
Polly Noonan is captivating as Mary. This is Mary’s story, as she undergoes the most transformation, and Noonan generously keeps us in the loop of her awkward emotional journey.
Kelli Simpkins is remarkable as Red, creating the perfectly tranquil contrast to Mary and Crick’s turbulent world. Cowboy Red is the most cartoonish of the play’s characters and yet Simpkins delivers her with the most nuance. She is charming and patient, wise and unassuming. Her cowboy song musical asides are subtly playful and softly melancholy. Simpkins is a master of restraint. In dramatically offering so much by projecting so gently, she creates a real person from a caricature and proves just how much more less can be.
Amy Warren’s original music fills in the whimsical blanks to this storybook play with cowboy songs that lift you off the pages of the script and into a beguiling world. Since “cowboy song” is part of the play’s title these musical delights could be thought of as a starting point, but they are actually more a resplendent finishing touch. Warren delicately captures and then conveys mood and emotion with her ingeniously elegant magical composition.
Stephen Mazurek’s projection design creates Red’s sprawling outdoor world on the ranch and effectively delivers it to the small black box at Piven Theatre. Andre Pluess’s sound design is exceptional.
Late: A Cowboy Song is an unusually fascinating play and Piven Theatre Workshop places it in loving hands that overcome its shortcomings, accentuate its wonder and ultimately deliver a compelling production.
3 STARS
(“Late: A Cowboy Song” runs through August 29 at Piven Theatre Workshop, 927 Noyes Sreet, Evanston. 847-866-8049.)
Late: A Cowboy Song production photos by Chris Tzoubris.
* Visit Theatre In Chicago for more information on this show. Late: A Cowboy Song - Piven Theatre - Play Detail - Theatre In Chicago
