BlackTop Sky
(steppenwolf.org)
WHAT: BlackTop Sky
WHEN: February 15 – April 21, 2013 (schedule)
WHERE: Steppenwolf’s Garage Theatre (1624 N. Halsted St.)
RUNTIME: 1 Hour and 30 minutes, no intermission
WHO: Theatre Seven of Chicago
PRICE: $20
OUR RATING: Chance It!
You had to know it was coming: a review on the final show of Steppenwolf’s Garage Rep 2013, BlackTop Sky from Theatre Seven of Chicago.
(theatreseven.org)
Started in 2007, Theatre Seven of Chicago’s mission is to tell Chicago stories. After winning the League of Chicago Theatres’s Emerging Theater Award in 2012, Theatre Seven of Chicago has quickly jumped into the spotlight, along with emerging playwright Christina Anderson, whose Man in Love also played at Steppenwolf’s Next Up repertory back in 2012.
(Credit: Michael Brosilow)
Interestingly, although Theatre Seven of Chicago focuses on Chicago stories, BlackTop Sky and its setting of the David L. Hynn Housing Projects is not based in Chicago. Yet, as managing director Brian Golden notes in his program letter for the show, it is still a story reminiscent of so many pasts and presents in this city, with issues of love, violence, relationships, neighborhood and community within the public housing project.
(Credit: Michael Brosilow)
The play centres around a young woman who witnesses the mistreatment of a street vendor, and fellow resident of the Projects. This incident profoundly disturbs her, and leads to her befriending a young homeless man who lives in the courtyard of her building. But, her boyfriend doesn’t like this one bit, and thus the narrative unfolds around a tragic, torn centre, which leads us to question the assumptions we have about who we could have been had circumstances been different, as well as the relationship we have to the world as both a passive viewer and an active participant.
(Credit: Michael Brosilow)
Ultimately, with such a touching and piercing topic, we really wanted to like BlackTop Sky. With only three actors, what this play really called for was some powerhouse acting, and while Julian Parker (Klass) adroitly balances between vulnerability and passion, Kristin E. Ellis (Ida) and Eric Lynch (Wynn) really seemed to struggle through and didn’t offer much depth. This being said, BlackTop Sky deals with some extremely moving topics and lends itself well to the mission of Theatre Seven of Chicago. In fact, it seemed that the police brutality depicted in passing did not really emphasise its true horror, perhaps making the scenario less believable.
(theatreseven.org)
Scenic Designer Lizzie Bracken and Lighting Designer Lee Keenan once again strengthen the productions they work on, and with the direction of Cassy Sanders, these two designers help the audience transition through time, allowing us to spend day after day after day with Klass and his decaying, yet always-present, park bench home. We aren’t quite comfortable with these transitions though, for while they are powerful storytellers, scene changes and light effects probably took up at least 45 minutes of the production, making it move a little too slow. Or perhaps that was the somewhat awkward choreography of the run crew. We’re unsure.
BlackTop Sky provides mixed results, and will probably tighten as the run proceeds. But, for the sake of good storytelling it is certainly worth a ticket, even if you shouldn’t clamber to get one.
P.S. We’ve suggested it twice already, but check out the Garage Rep 2013 trailer!