My first visit to Provision last summer did not inspire much confidence. Their production of Godspell was energetic, but not particularly polished. And the selection of their current offering—Shadowlands—was not the sort of choice that gave much hope of innovation.

And certainly William Nicholson’s Shadowlands isn’t the sort of script that is going to do anything but make established theatre-going audiences comfortable. Based on the late-in-life love affair and marriage of novelist C.S. Lewis to American Joy Gresham, this story of affection, unexpected love, and difficult loss, is exactly the sort of fare that’s calculated to appeal to the older, educated, liberal audience that buys the vast majority of theatre tickets.

But what director Tim Gregory’s production has going for it is two exceptional performances from a pair of Chicago stage veterans. And that’s no small thing. Brad Armacost as Lewis and Susan Moniz as Gresham navigate Nicholson’s not-especially-subtle script with practiced ease. And they do a credible job of unfolding an intellectual connection that turns into romantic affection.

In fact the chief reason to see Shadowlands is to watch this relationship unfold. The supporting cast ranges from very credible (particularly Leonard Craft as Lewis’ brother) to slightly awkward. But even the awkward moments pass quickly, and the incidental characters mine their share of laughs. Designer Inseung Park has created a set that opens and closes on an interior that ranges from Lewis’ house to a hospital room to a college dining room. When closed it forces Gregory into some awkward blocking, but when open it’s a nice environment.

However, any complaints really come down to quibbling. Shadowlands gives us the kind of experience that Chicago theatre-goers love: the chance to watch two top-notch actors do their thing in a (relatively) small venue. Armacost and Moniz deliver admirably, bringing subtlety and a strong emotional connection to the material. And that makes a trip down to Roosevelt Road worthwhile.

Shadowlands, Provision Theatre

Zac Thompson , Time Out—"Gregory’s staging for Provision Theater is in some ways as standoffish as Lewis initially is. Trouble is, Gregory never quite achieves Lewis’s breakthrough. Armacost effectively conveys the man’s intelligence and decency, but he remains politely remote throughout, failing to generate even a whiff of chemistry with Moniz’s warm but mismatched Joy. Their scenes of supposed wedded bliss are the least convincing of the evening.”

Accidental Death of an Anarchist, Signal Ensemble Theatre

Kerry Reid, Reader—“Most of the ingredients are in place for a tasty staging of Dario Fo’s 1970 satire on police repression—director Anthony Ingram just needs to get them to balance on the palate. The contemporized references in Jon Laskin and Michael Aquilante’s translation (Enron, Desert Storm) work, for instance, but digs at the bourgeois aspirations of professional revolutionaries (‘Anarchists are very attached to their jobs’) seem beside the point in John Boehner’s America. Joseph Stearns’s turn as a madman who flummoxes the cops is a marvel of timing, but he pitches the volume too high too soon. And although each member of the ensemble finds at least one moment of inspired comic genius, the second act of this Signal Ensemble Theatre production still drags a bit.”

John Beer, Time Out—“The key to this travesty of travesties of justice lies in its unstable and unsettling tone, blending traditional commedia, blistering social commentary and modernist distance. Ingram’s production too often settles into a sketch-style jokiness; while Fo’s quicksilver sensibility has some common ground with, say, Mr. Show, the rhythms here aren’t quite self-assured enough to fully inflate the play’s anti-authoritarian soufflé. As the Madman, Joseph Stearns spends the better part of two hours onstage; his breathless, dynamic performance, shifting seamlessly from mousetrap to mousetrap of his own devising, keeps this Accidental Death worth watching.”

Neal Ryan Shaw, New City—“As the Madman who ends up impersonating the judge sent to investigate the death of the anarchist, Joseph Stearns deserves credit for never losing a beat in his character’s convoluted line of reasoning. Vincent Lonergan, Anthony Tournis and Eric Paskey are the police inspectors whose contorted attempts to avoid blame resemble Three Stooges bits. Simone Roos as a shrewd independent reporter and Elizabeth Bagby and Christopher M. Walsh as inept officers round out the cast. In the hands of director Anthony Ingram, Fo’s play often feels more like farce than satire, but, as with many great social commentaries, that difference is academic.”

The Big Meal, American Theater Company

Chris Jones, Tribune—“In just 80 minutes of stage traffic, Dan LeFranc’s arresting and moving new play The Big Meal serves up more truths about parenting, bereavement, divorce, irritating in-laws, economic stress, marriage and the modern American family than most plays of twice that duration. Unquestionably, this is the new play most to see in Chicago so far this year. [Director Dexter] Bullard’s production features some superb performances from a uniformly excellent ensemble; there is, I suspect, a good half-century between its youngest and oldest members. [Lia] Mortensen, who summons up great love and sadness here, is especially fine, as is [Peggy] Roeder, who evokes that sense of amazement that some older folks gain at all that has come to pass by the end of our messy lives.”

Hedy Weiss, Sun-Times—“There is an inherent danger in writing about “The Big Meal,” the staggeringly powerful play by Dan LeFranc now receiving its world premiere in an American Theater Company production. (It is a production, by the way, that is sure to enter the annals of Chicago stage history as one of the more emotionally consuming experiences of recent decades.) The danger is this: While it is easy to provide a thumbnail description of the play’s content—the intimate emotional dynamics of four generations of a suburban American family unspool with remarkable vividness as various family members gather at the same restaurant table over a period of 75 years—such a summary could just as easily trivialize the breathtaking joint achievement of LeFranc and his collaborators, including director Dexter Bullard, and a wholly remarkable cast of eight ever-morphing actors.”

Tony Adler, Reader—“[E]specially as directed here by Dexter Bullard, LeFranc’s play bears a much stronger resemblance to Our Town. LeFranc and Bullard use metatheatrical devices that echo Wilder: tables and chairs are set up and taken away by stagehands in plain view of the audience; cast members play multiple roles and remain visible when they aren’t performing; time is treated as a fluid, mutable thing. Like Wilder, also, LeFranc honors the centrality of food in family life: people spend a lot of time eating in both plays, and The Big Meal turns that communal time into a core motif. But the most important similarity is a shared breadth of vision… This, together with vivid performances by the entire ensemble, gives the piece a somber resonance despite all its great humor. A terrible beauty, indeed.”

Kris Vire, Time out—“This simple but remarkable device lends great heft to those small, inexorable moments of family life: first dates, fights, breakups, reconciliations, meeting the parents, birthdays, remembrances, memorials—all those things we do around the dinner table besides eating. LeFranc makes our 90-minute tour through Sam and Nicole’s life feel both specific and universal, while Bullard and his exceptional ensemble keep the action smooth and clear. “We really started something, didn’t we?” Nicole asks herself upon meeting her great-granddaughter. The Big Meal urges us to savor every bite.”

Neal Ryan Shaw, New City—“LeFranc packs an amazing number of scenes into the play’s seventy-five-minute runtime, and while this attempt to etch a grand narrative of the modern American family often feels cloyingly typical, and even exhaustive in its breadth, its depths are painfully and humorously familiar. An agile cast of four boy/girl pairs, at four stages of life, breathes life into Sam and Nicole, their parents and children and lovers, showcased well in Dexter Bullard’s effective, minimalist staging.”

Closer, AstonRep Theatre Company

Kerry Reid, Tribune—“[Playwright Patrick] Marber’s tensile dialogue and jaundiced view of romance retains enough brittle wit to work—if its interpreters find the right tone. That’s the main problem plaguing Rob Cramer’s staging for AstonRep. Though I caught the show in a preview, I’m not sure that more time in front of an audience will do much to allay the misguided overlong scene changes or the aggravating Pinterlike pauses. This isn’t Betrayal, though portions of the story of four Londoners exchanging partners and vitriol over nearly half a decade recall that superior piece. Aja Wiltshire as Alice, the purest soul among the quartet, delivers an unfussy performance, but there aren’t enough nuances here to hold our interest over two-plus hours.”

Lawrence Bommer, Reader—“Comprising two toxic acts full of gutter sex talk, Closer is definitely not Valentine’s Day date material. Patrick Marber’s 1997 portrait of serially cheating Londoners argues that people confuse love with sex, that they seldom fall equally or simultaneously for each other--and, more to the point, that hate comes easier and stays longer than adoration. But Marber’s shock effects aren’t what they used to be. His emotional roller coaster creaks now where it used to jolt, and though Rob Cramer’s cast stay on top of things, scene changes in this AstonRep Theatre production deplete the energy still further.”

Quote of the Fortnight:

“There aren’t many plays set on farms—theaters generally resist the potential need for livestock in the dressing room.”—Chris Jones reviewing XIII Pocket’s production of Dead Pile in the Tribune.