One day you’re a father of four pitching life insurance to other parents, the next day you’re a youthful-sounding dude pushing fast food on teenagers.

Or, you’re a pimply-faced teenage girl extolling the virtues of acne medication, then you’re a tall, statuesque woman with long-flowing hair voicing a diet soft drink commercial.

In the recording booth, a voice-over actor can be anyone.

But can they be political?

Toward the very end of the press performance of Steppenwolf’s spellbinding current production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, as Tracy Letts’ surprisingly fearsome George approached Amy Morton’s Martha to drop a blanket over her hunched, defeated shoulders, something unbelievable, yet perhaps inevitable, happened: a cell phone began ringing in the audience.

Once I got over my first feral instinct (“Find cell phone owner – dismember cell phone owner!”), I realized that it was a pretty good metaphor for theatre in Chicago in 2010. Some absolutely gorgeous memories and heartening news, interrupted by nagging irritations and rumblings of discontent. Oh, and heartbreaking loss, too.