Jerome Lawrence, the late, great author of “Inherit the Wind,” had several commandments for playwrights. High on the list was “Thou shalt not take the money of thine audience without letting them know what goeth on.”
I’d say, observationally, that a fair portion of the audience at the opening night of Mia Chung’s “Catch As Catch Can” at Steppenwolf Theatre found themselves scratching their heads over precisely who was who and when and, yet more importantly, to what end in the here and now. Lawrence, I should note, did not write that edict to imply that an audience should be allowed to be lazy or to rest unchallenged. On the contrary. He was just observing that while bending form and assumptions can be deliciously challenging, especially for those who work in the theater and are bored with the conventional, there also is an obligation not to confuse the regular person seeking a little entertainment and enlightenment for an evening — ideally both.
Chung’s “Catch As Catch Can” uses three actors to play six characters, which should not be that hard to keep track of. (“Leopoldstadt,” this is not.) But the piece, seen off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons in New York in 2022, isn’t using that doubling to limit the cast size. Rather, the play is a conscious exploration of identity. To put it simply, Chung is interested in how the circumstances of life can threaten our sense of self, stripping away what we thought we were, as we are forced to become someone else as we collide with something we can’t control. Such as our kids. The playwright also left instructions that actors should be cast without regard to gender or age.
So, for example, in the first scene of director Amy Morton’s simply staged production (on a set from Andrew Boyce that does not seem to want to draw attention), we see Gary Cole and Tim Hopper playing two women of a certain age. Later, Audrey Francis plays a New England dude as part of this exploration of two intertwined, neighborly, working-class families, the Phelans (Irish, natch’) and the Lavecchias (Italians, natch’). The idea here is that the audience can witness both father/son and mother/daughter relationships without the baggage, I guess, of what an actor most obviously applicable to those categories would bring. The catalyst for the drama is the return home of Tim Phelan (played by Hopper); this prodigal son sets off a whole variety of crises, none more devastating than his own.
Before that, as they play the two matriarchs of these families, Roberta Lavecchia and Theresa Phelan, we listen to Cole and Hopper sitting at a table complaining that both of their sons are too interested in having relationships with Korean women; the scene at first reads like we are watching two actors assume stereotypically gay characters, which clearly sent some in the audience off in a whole other direction for a while. Once it becomes clear they are playing women, which does not cancel the stereotype, the next complication is that both of these women’s sons are played by the same actors as their mothers. Meanwhile, Lon Lavecchia, the Italian patriarch, is played by Francis, who, frankly, is rather better as a man than Cole and Hopper are as women, while Lon’s daughter, Daniela is played — of course — by Francis.
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Generally, critics worry greatly about spoilers. No such worries here. I actually think you need the above paragraph to get what Chung wants you to appreciate.
Does this production, populated by skilled, all-in Steppenwolf actors, help or hinder this situation?
Perhaps more the latter, to be honest, especially in that first scene, although it greatly improves once Francis, one of the best comic actors in the Steppenwolf ensemble, gets fired up, especially given her ability to channel authentic male energy, so to speak. I didn’t see this show in New York, although it is perhaps notable that it used two Asian American actors, which certainly must have changed the resonance of the first scene with all of its casually racist banter, better linking the structural experimentations to the actual theme of the play.
One of the challenges of this work is how it switches in the middle to become a play more about mental health and depression within a familial construct; it’s a very rapid and, it feels, inorganic shift in tone here.
In the end, white, working-class New Englanders are always something of an easy target for elite, nonprofit theaters and even the biggest fan of this play couldn’t reasonably claim that it fully understands their lived realities. That isn’t the attempt here. The idea, I think, is to foreground how we all play roles within our own families and thus, if you want to go there, most family plays (such as the ones Steppenwolf made famous) are composed of role-playing of role-playing of role-playing.
Chung is a highly skilled and accomplished deconstructionist, a subversive mode of great popularity in the academic reaches of the theater four or five years ago, and not without interest, fans or students. But it’s not one likely to secure this art form’s future, especially not at a theater so famously grounded in reality.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic
Review: “Catch As Catch Can” (2.5 stars)
When: Through July 12
Where: Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted St.
Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes
Tickets: $64.50-$158.50 at 312-335-1650 and steppenwolf.org