CATCH IT WHILE YOU CAN: Chaste at Trap Door Theatre

CLOSING WEEKEND - DON’T MISS!

By J. Scott Hill

A major philosopher, a minor philosopher, and a psychoanalyst walk into a platonic relationship….

The premise of Chaste, Trap Door Theatre’s world premiere “awful comedy” by Ken Prestininzi, could have started as an impromptu joke among grad students after a few too many microbrews. This is a show about three intellectuals who decide to forswear sex and live together, mindfucking one another all the while. They have entered into a threesome in which each of them is determined to make sure that the other two do not get what they want out of their communal experience. The depths of their love and their hate for one another take unusual paths in their pilgrimages to inflict emotional and intellectual intensity on each other. While much of the interplay among this trio of feral psyches would drive anyone to the heights of elation or the depths of despair, the most cutting barb they can receive is that they are found “ridiculous.”

This is a delightfully vicious comedy: poignant, desperate, controlled, unhinged. Chaste does not require the audience to know anything of the lives and works of Friedrich Nietzsche, his sister/keeper Elisabeth, Paul Ree, and Lulu Salome. Regular local theatre-goers will surely find resonance between Ken Prestininzi’s Chaste and the works of Chicago’s existentialist bard Mickle Maher; Maher’s work tends toward introspection and narration, whereas Prestininzi’s work here is relationship-based and dialog-driven: an angsty, nihilistic three-way game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Prestininzi gives us a play that transcends nihilism, existentialism, farce, and absurdity; we are given a vision of the internal disconnects in some of the nineteenth century’s great minds and the social impact of such mental process, mental processes and social impact that in the here and now are no longer reserved only for mad geniuses. This is writing at its highest level.

Kate Hendrickson directs her actors to render a difficult text with smooth flow and ready accessibility. Hendrickson’s blocking for this show is really an intricate choreography of parkour and Gracie Brazilian-style Jujitsu.

Set Designer Joseph Riley has worked a wonder, creating myriad levels, performance spaces, obstacles, and furniture pieces out of a few odd-shaped platforms with trap doors. The backdrop looks like a mural blown up from a single inch of a Monet and shifted from pastels to primary colors.

Light Designer Gina Patterson elegantly defines transitions of tone or location through her deft hand on the board. Nevena Todorovic captures both period and personality through smart choices in costume design.

All four actors are beyond splendid. Antonio Brunetti plays Friedrich Nietzsche like a man continuously coming down off of a crystal meth tweak. Sarah Tolan Mee imbues Lulu Salome with the intellect, charm, cunning, and beauty necessary to be a woman who bewitched not only Ree and Nietzsche, but Rilke and Freud as well. John Kahara is subtle and bawdy and conflicted and sure as Paul Ree. Tiffany Joy Ross plays Nietzsche’s sister Elisabeth with a sternly reverential mix of governess and acolyte.

This is the show with everything: droll wit and pratfalls, ecstasy and heartbreak, romantic intrigue and emotional violence, comedy and despair. DO NOT MISS the opportunity to see one of the final performances of the sublime world premiere of Chaste at Trap Door Theatre; to do so would be ridiculous.

4 STARS

(“Chaste” runs through June 26 at Trap Door Theatre, 1655 W. Cortland Ave. 773-384-0494.)

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Trap Door Theatre | Chicago, IL

Chaste production images by Michal Janicki.

* Visit Theatre In Chicago for more information on this show. Chaste- Play Detail- Theatre In Chicago

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