Post Script

One of only two Shakespeare plays American Players Theatre is mounting this season, Cymbeline has been characterized as both a comedy and a tragedy over the last four centuries. A work written later in the bard’s life, it’s also been criticized for simply mashing up the plots of several of his other plays and presenting them in a long, somewhat convoluted story that involves wrongly presumed infidelity; wagers between men about the obedience and faithfulness of their wives; stolen love tokens; sleeping potions; a failing king in his dotage; an overzealous queen who wants her own son on the throne; kidnapped royal children discovered in their adulthood; and a British rout against hostile forces, though they were severely outnumbered on the battlefield. (Any of these sound familiar?) And just for good measure, there’s no surer way to identify someone as a family member than by their distinctive moles.

APT’s provocative new production of Cymbeline has had an unusual journey from concept to completion, led by director Marti Lyons and the artistic team at American Players, who believed that this lesser known Shakespeare play was ripe for modern reinterpretation. The resulting adaptation uses a smaller, all-female cast to question the historic mistreatment of women whose virtue was questioned and who ultimately would not submit to being controlled by their fathers, suitors, or husbands.

It began last summer, when American Players Theatre switched to virtual readings in lieu of live performances, abandoning its original slate of plays for a selection of pieces that lent themselves well to the medium of Zoom. In one of many covid-related changes of plans, director Marti Lyons directed a video reading of Shakespeare’s Cymbeline for APT instead of helming Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility for the company.

This Cymbeline, adapted by Henry Woronicz, trimmed the play down to eight actors and used some powerful doubling, while streamlining the plot and themes. After watching the Zoom production, the APT artistic staff began to see new perspectives in the play, including a powerful examination of toxic masculinity and difficult questions about vengeance and forgiveness.

Following American Players Theatre’s thrilling remount of An Iliad earlier this season, the company is presenting another modern retelling of an ancient tale in a decidedly lighter vein. A Phoenix Too Frequent, a one-act written in blank verse by British playwright Christopher Fry, is a comic retelling of a story from the Roman poet Petronius. (The obscure title is from Robert Burton’s translation of an epigram from another Roman poet, Martial. Pining for his lost love, he proclaims that in comparison to his lady, “a peacock’s undecent, a squirrel’s harsh, a phoenix too frequent.”) Described by director Keira Fromm as “meet cute in a mausoleum,” the play tells the quirky story of three people facing death who unexpectedly discover the meaning of life.

American Players Theatre’s new production, Rough Crossing, is a frothy comedy of errors — a romp through a 1930s romance fraught with misunderstandings and mistaken directions — and it is exactly what we need right now. The play, which opened July 3 in The Hill outdoor theater, is Tom Stoppard’s playfully witty parody of movie musicals with overly complicated plots and outlandish resolutions. It is also an opportunity for area audiences to see APT favorites doing what they do best. The cast, made up of very familiar faces from APT’s Core Company, is extraordinary. Each actor seems to revel in filling a role that begins as a comically broad and overwrought stock character, moves on to the edge of ridiculous, and then is saved from himself (and other castmates) when everything miraculously works out. Frequent APT director William Brown brilliantly layers smart physical comedy over an already smart script, resulting in an evening full of double entendres, dramatic reversals, slapstick, word play, and delightful song and dance. To his credit, this is a production that is undoubtedly even more amusing on stage than it was on the page.

The Poet is back. He is at American Players Theatre in An Iliad through August 15, and he is not to be missed. Tapping into the emotional truth of an ancient war, the play not only penetrates the mind and heart, but seizes our imagination through a masterful storyteller who alternately fascinates and horrifies us. He tells the tale of a historical event, but more importantly, he paints a picture of human slaughter from plagues, from misplaced loyalties, from the evil whims of the gods, and most of all from succumbing to our own worst impulse: unbridled rage.

The house was less than half full in the outdoor Hill Theatre on opening night — Saturday May 29 — due to COVID restrictions. But the cheer that went up from the audience was raucous as soon as American Players Theatre Core Company Member Sarah Day took the stage and raised her arms in welcome. In character as Mistress Quickly, Day exclaimed “We’ve missed you so!” before bidding us to turn off our cell phones and enjoy the evening’s performance.

She then took her place behind the bar at the Boar’s Head Tavern — the 17th century London inn that is the setting for James DeVita’s new play, An Improbable Fiction. After receiving a virtual reading last summer, the script has been revised and the play is now fully realized. Directed at a brisk pace and with great balance, Tim Ocel delivers a story tailor-made to welcome audiences back to in-person performances at the classical theater.

In the opening moments of Natural Shocks, Angela’s house is shaking. And Angela is shaking. Recording herself on her cell phone, the camera shakes as she locks the doors to the basement and tries to calm down. Quickly we realize that she is sheltering from a tornado that’s heading her way, set to destroy everything in its path. Overwhelmed by the enormity of the deadly storm , defenseless against nature, and uncertain if she’ll survive, Angela embarks on a stream-of-consciousness monologue that is also a reckoning. If these are her last moments, then she will confess to us, an unseen audience, the mistakes she’s made and the efforts she has taken to ameliorate the chaos — so like a force of nature — that has molded her life up to now.

Last summer American Players Theatre produced a series of staged readings over Zoom, to keep spirits up and audiences engaged while we all waited out the COVID-19 restrictions that closed down all live, in-person events. One of the most intriguing evenings featured APT Core Company Member Gavin Lawrence and Chicago-based actress Sola Thompson in a reading of Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop.

The two-hander imagines an encounter that might have taken place on the night before Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in 1968. After delivering his sermon, “I Have Been to the Mountaintop,” Dr. King (Lawrence) is trying to unwind in his hotel room when he strikes up a conversation with Camae (Thompson), a maid who brings him room service. Over the course of the stormy evening the two flirt and argue while discussing politics and religion. In between chain-smoking Pall Malls and ducking for cover at every crash of thunder, King grapples with his mortality, his disillusionment, his ambitious plans for the future and his aching weariness.

Sequels are very rarely better than the original stories. But Forward Theater’s current production of 46 Plays for America’s First Ladies is a definite exception -- it is even better than its predecessor and companion piece, 44 Plays for 44 Presidents. Written and developed by many of the same artists from Chicago’s Neo-Futurists (Genevra Gallo-Bayiates, Sharon Greene, Chloe Johnston, Bilal Dardai, and Andy Bayiates), this funny, inventive, sometimes poignant, sometimes bizarre, episodic variety show focuses on the women behind the men who have led our country over the past 200+ years. A virtual performance that was filmed in the Overture’s Playhouse in front of a socially distanced live audience, the play is available to stream until May 23.

Next Act Theater’s production of 9 Circles is a devastating look at one soldier’s journey through Dante’s mythical nine levels of hell. Deftly directed by Michael Cotey and featuring an extraordinary cast led by Casey Hoekstra, the play is composed of nine scenes that jump backwards and forwards in time. The story chronicles the destruction, resurrection, and ultimate murder of one man’s soul, while also documenting the havoc he wreaks around him during his descent. And for those in the audience who believe this story could never really happen, well, I have some bad news for you. Lauded playwright and Jesuit priest Bill Cain based this harrowing play about the dangers of antipathy and the horrors of war on a story ripped directly from the headlines.