Ena Lemont Stewart's "Men Will need Weep, " the warm-hearted though unstinting story of a Scottish beloved ones enduing grinding Glaswegian poverty along the Great Depression of the 1930s, is one favourite plays that few people on this region of the Atlantic have seen. Even role-specific theatergoers. A closely observed have fun with playing about women desperately trying to grasp their families together, "Men Should Weep" has been overlooked and marginalized.
Is niagra due to the gender of its playwright? Prone so. A consequence of the limited regarding food for social realism in the post-war era, when people needed cheering -up and preferred the likes of "Brigadoon"? Obviously. And, to be fair, Stewart to be able to exactly come up with a smash-hit title for my child play back in 1947. One can suppose the conversation — or what probability producers across the years have thought possible the conversation to be. "Let's go to this play called 'Men Will need Weep' tonight, darling. " "Let's not. "
But "Men Will need Weep" is a masterpiece. It is the homogenous of many of the plays about the managing class penned by male article marketers — Sean O'Casey's plays on Dubliners or Clifford Odets' depictions of New Yorkers come most constantly to mind as comparatives. And here back in Chicago for griffin iphone5 Theatre, chief director Robin Witt has crafted a great extraordinarily honest, intimate and flowing ensemble production that immerses its actual audience in this distant milieu. Men and women hardly moved a muscle not to mention Thursday night inside the rented Raven Theatre.
Lori Myers, Ellie Reed and Katherine Banks in Griffin survivor iphone Theatre's "Men Should Weep. in
The story is perfectly simple: Finally, the Morrison family struggles with the endless traps of poverty. They can't location clothes on their kids' backs — even underwear is too expensive — and thus they cannot build the fabric in a home. They fight among everyone is. They claw back those many love who try to escape.
Stewart, who was no sentimentalist, fully gets the casual brutality of the course of action working-class families typically raised their children during this era, hitting and sloshing them at every turn.. So many community occupy so little space that they usually explode all over each other's home business. The man of the house (played by Scot West), unable to adequately provide for his/her family, rages through his self-esteem sapping impotence. And through it all, the ladies are charged with holding it all together.
As you watch, the endless cycle of poverty and condition is writ large. This sequence of cause and effect is not that fundamentally different from that which afflicts Manhattan families today. The characters right from 1930s Scotland observe that they have none of privacy — only the rich can sometimes to themselves, they say. And they suggest that even affection cannot breathe under such duress — a mere "laying down with someone a person will fancy. " Love can't live comfortably here.
Witt's production is confident by close attention to detail, actually down to the right, meager kind of Any party decorations on the tenement walls. Finally, the accents are remarkable, a gratitude to dialect coach Adam Goldstein, and the acting is unstinting while in. The anchor of the cast is definitely Lori Myers, a longtime Manhattan actress doing the scruffiest and most efficient work of her career this site — it is one of the performances with this year in Chicago theater — and she is supported by the likes of Ellie Reed, Amanda Powell, Curtis Fitzgibbons and Katherine Banks.
A few of the comedy characters are a wee bit extensive, but then again, Stewart knew that the have fun with playing needed some levity. And I had created argue that Courtney O'Neill's set absolutely looks a good bit nicer in contrast to room the Morrison family relates.
But those are minor predicaments. Despite keeping things simple, Witt captures this milieu with a mixture of alacrity and studied determination. This unique director achieved the same level of Chicago-style ensemble with "Flare Path, in the World War II drama my friend directed for Griffin last year. Having said that "Men Should Weep" is by far the more play. Its presence in Manhattan this summer is both timely coupled with welcome.
Where: Raven Theatre, 6157 N. Clark St .
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