Steadstyle Chicago
October 2009 Theatre Review by Joe Stead
Days to Come
By all accounts Lillian Hellman's "Days to Come" should be a powerful and moving drama in the tradition of such great 1930's works as "Awake and Sing," "Waiting for Lefty," "Golden Boy" and Hellman's own "The Children's Hour". But despite a rare and first-rate revival by The Artistic Home, this obscure 1936 flop is largely unsatisfying. That is particularly surprising giving the timeliness of the subject matter. With the downturn in America's economy once again causing massive layoffs and unemployment, we can see grim parallels to the Great Depression. Just look at the controversy over the impending opening of a non-union Wal-Mart super store on Chicago's south side and you'll see the power struggle between Big Labor and industry is not just a historical anecdote.
Hellman set her follow-up effort to "The Children's Hour" in Middle America Ohio, historically a political and social hotbed where even the wealthiest citizens felt the pinch of the Depression. Andrew Rodman (Joe McCauley) is the sire to his family owned and operated brush factory. Costs are skyrocketing and the Rodman family is over their head in debt. Leo Whalen (Tim Patrick Miller) is the local labor organizer, a racketeer in the opinion of the employers who is in the business of hating. Whalen has experienced the dregs of poverty and claims to hate the poor but love what they could be. To the other degree, Andrew's wife Julie (Leavey Ballou) has never even known any poor people, having lived the most privileged of lives even she feels guilty for. "I never wanted to see a selected world, I never knew how to see anything else," she confesses to Whalen. She yearns to see that other world and all she needs is someone to show her the way.
Julie feels trapped in a comfortable yet loveless marriage to a man who is soft and weak. Andrew's haughty spinster sister Cora (Justine Serino) blames him for making bad decisions that have led to the failure of the family business. She reasons that if they are forced to pay their workers a higher wage anyway, why not just do it from the start and be done with all the unpleasant business. Andrew argues that when costs exceed demand everyone must be prepared to sacrifice. Factory worker Tom Firth (Patrick Raynor) soon learns how little his years of hard work and loyalty mean as he finds himself being squeezed out and replaced by lower paid "scab" workers.
Firth's tale is the real tragedy here, the plight of the blue collar family man who works and saves for years only to have his investment disappear. It's only a small part of Hellman's vision though as she focuses on the family fractions being torn between the labor union (as represented by Whalen) and the crass "strike breaker" thugs led by the opportunist Wilke (Gerard Jamroz) who have been hired to protect the Rodman family's interests. Just as in Hellman's "The Little Foxes," we see the ruthless ambitions and thinly veiled hatred of a close knit group implode a family's desire to do their best to live happily.
The Artistic Home production boasts an attractive set designed by Joseph Riley, nice attention to period detail and an altogether engaging ensemble cast under Kathy Scambiatterra's incisive direction. But the play feels hollow and unresolved. With the exception of the worker Tom Firth, none of the characters are particularly sympathetic or interesting. There's a sprinkle of violence, murder and suggested adultery but it doesn't add up to much. Just as the characters of Andrew, Julie, Cora and their lawyer friend Henry Ellicott stand helplessly by and watch their American Dream dissolve into a nightmare, the quartet sinks into a sad and bitter stew of animosity and indifference.
Andrew's milquetoast reaction to his wife's infidelity may be indicative of the problem with Hellman's script. If he barely cares, why should we as an audience? The Artistic Home follows an unusual tradition of uncovering challenging and often little known work from major writers. Once again I find myself in a theatrical quandary as I admire the execution of a weak script by a legendary playwright. It is with both respect and disappointment that I view The Artistic Home's current effort.
"Days to Come" plays through November 29, 2009 at The Artistic Home, located at 3914 N. Clark Street in Chicago (the old Live Bait space), 1 block south of Irving Park Rd. The play runs 2 hours 10 minutes with intermission and includes a fair amount of cigarette smoking in a small space. Performances are Thursdays at 7:30 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 p.m. and Sundays at 3:00 p.m. Tickets are $25 on Fridays and Saturdays and $23 on Thursdays and Sundays. Student/Senior tickets are available for $20 on Thursdays and Sundays only. Call (866) 811-4111 or visit www.theartistichome.org.
About Joe Stead
Joe
Stead has enjoyed a lifelong passion for the theatre, which has
involved acting, directing, producing, designing and reviewing for
the past twenty-five years. He served as founder, producer and
Artistic Director of Curtain Up Productions in Baltimore, Maryland
and Four Star Players in Tampa, Florida. Favorite productions
have included "Life With Father," "Deathtrap,"
"The Odd Couple," "The Miracle Worker,"
"Brighton Beach Memoirs," "You're A Good Man, Charlie
Brown" and "Godspell". He has also performed
leading roles in "Fiddler on the Roof," "Pippin,"
"The Phantom of the Opera," "The Front Page," and
most recently as Hucklebee in "The Fantasticks" for
Waukegan Community Players. Joe holds a degree in Commercial
Art from Tampa Technical Institute. As a critic, he has
reviewed everything from Broadway to community theatre and major
regional theatres throughout the United States including the Kennedy
Center in Washington, D.C., Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey,
Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut, and the Asolo Theatre in
Sarasota, Florida.
Since 1998, he has been a proud resident of Chicago, the greatest theatre city in America. He served for two years as Theatre Editor for College News and Central Newspapers. He created the website Steadstyle Chicago in 2000 to showcase the city's outstanding and diverse theatre scene. Joe was proud to serve alongside a distinguished panel of theatre professionals as a judge for two seasons of Speaking Ring Theatre's "Vitality" Festival of original short plays. His most fulfilling role, in addition to reviewer and all-around theatre fanatic, was as director of the 2007 production of Peter Shaffer's "Equus" at Actors Workshop (now Redtwist) Theatre, which was nominated for five Joseph Jefferson Award Citations and won for Best Actor (Peter Oyloe).