Arts & Events

--"I think it was Tolstoy who said that all great stories start with either a man going on a journey or a stranger coming to town ... " 

A young man (Seton Brown) sitting on a folded-out Hide-a-Bed, putting on his shoe, looks up with surprise and anguish as an older, bearded man (Julian Lopez-Morillas) standing by him offers him a gun ... That's the opening tableau in the premeire Jonathan Spector's often engrossing new play, 'In From the Cold,' now playing at Live Oak Theater through the 23rd. 

'In From the Cold' is about Alex's return to the family home from Japan at the urging of his father (the bearded Howard--aka Ivan--first seen by Alex, gun proffered), who's concerned about his safety. Howard ("Howard Johnson," a kind of Witness Protection Program type of name, in this case, complete with Russian accent)was, it seems, a Soviet defector who supplied US intelligence with information, and maybe more than just information. Spooks (played by David Sinaiko) show up through the sliding glass door of the basement rec room where Alex is staying, along with Alex's high school buddy Damian (Harold Pierce), now a manager at Chili's ... Meanwhile, Alex is a substitute teacher at their old high school, where he meets Carrie (Sarah Moser), his late brother's ex-girlfriend, another teacher, and spends his classtime lecturing--or herding--his teenage charges through his own, movie-filtered version of recent American History. 

Spector, co-artistic director of Just Theater, remarked that he found out that one of the major spies of the Cold War had lived, pseudonymously, across the street from Spector's suburban high school, and that they'd met a few times. He also mentioned his ongoing interest as a playwright in people caught in great moments of historical change--and their entanglement in normal, day-to-day living. 

And his play follows that alternating scenario, weaving together the global and the local in a funny, if sometimes malign sense, following out a truism of Cold War politics: "We'd like to fight the Russians, but we can't, so why not fight these other guys over there ... " If the upshot of Howard's paranoia reflects on the old, wry saw "Even paranoids have true enemies," it's also self-fulfilling: someone always shows up to fill the job opening. 

Christine Young's tight direction orchestrates a motivated ensemble to bring out the best in a funny and thoughtful kind of moral comedy. Everybody's fine, but Sarah Moser should be singled out for her splendid, nuanced characterization of the sometimes wayward Carrie, who pursues Alex as "kind of the Road Not Taken," the reminder of his dead brother she'd broken up with in late adolescence, the kind of nostalgia that floats over the younger characters. (Pursuant to her pursuing, she also manages a very funny walk to the bathroom after a literally hysterical scene, trying to square things with Alex in his basement abode.) Seton Brown deserves mention, too, for fleshing out what could've been a kind of aging ingenue-straight man role, playing the script well, which gradually shows how much more Alex sees than he lets on. 'In From the Cold' is a solid success for Just Theater.  

Thursdays at 7, Fridays-saturdays at 8, Sundays at 5 through November 23, Live Oak Theater 1301 Shattuck at Berryman in Live Oak Park. $15-$25. 214-3780; justtheater.org 

--A confusion of media clips, of voices from broadcasts, speeches ... A psychiatrist, Andrew Peric (Dan Hiatt) is ushered into a palatial reception room by a security man (Adrian Roberts as Gabriel)--he's a native white Zimbabwe doctor, scion of farmers, a farmer himself, alongside his practice ... 

Peric's been engaged to treat Robert Mugabe (L. Peter Callendar), President of the Republic, because--as his much-younger second wife, former secretary Grace (Leontyne Mbele-Mbong) tells the psych, "The President's behaving very strangely right now ... " It appears Mugabe's been afflicted by the apparition of a ngozi, the spirit of a vengeful, unpropitiated dead person, according to Mugabe's Shona tribe and Peric's been summoned as not only the best psychiatrist in the country, but for his interest in African native religions.  

But Grace Mugabe--who, nettled, tells Peric at one point that she is not used to hearing her husband referred to as "a case"--wants something else--the promise that the doctor will extract a promise from his patient, giving the wife and their children freedom to leave the presidential palace. "I'm here purely in a professional capacity," Peric protests, a disclaimer that will be often repeated. "And what in Zimbabwe do you think is pure?" is Grace's riposte.  

And then Mugabe enters, by quick turns as capricious as many a CEO in his mood shifts, showing just under the glaze and sometimes charm of the national leader and hero the boyish expression, seemingly, of every conflicting thought, emotion, including his deceptive, burgeoning self-confidence ... "To the disappointment of my enemies, death has apparently misplaced my address." 

So Peric enters the labyrinth of his conversations with Mugabe--and the hall of mirrors of African Liberation and post-colonial history--as Mugabe one moment seems talkative, open, eager to share information, the next proving uneasy, vindictive ... 

British playwright--former actor-performance poet--Fraser Grace's play, which seems when described to be yet another two-hander at best playing with character study and a media-and-psychologically compressed "overview" of recent history, turns out itself to be something of a hall of mirrors. It's the type of play that does descend into melodrama, in some ways ending by telling the audience what it already knows (from the news), intimating that human nature's always the same, history's the same old dirty business, except when it's a celebration of that same humanity--but 'Breakfast ... ' is able, almost through sleight of hand, to give quick, sideways glimpses into something of the contradictory public and domestic social life of southern Africa in the throes of trying to wrest itself from European dominance, to find itself in the modern world. 

A fine cast works an intelligent script well together, a real ensemble. Dan Hiatt, maybe known to audiences more as an accomplished comic actor, puts in one of his very best performances as the slightly reserved, professionally committed, but patriotic--and to which idea of a homeland?--Peric. Ditto Peter Callendar, who delineates the mercurial, sometimes charismatic Mugabe with his usual skill--and more. Both Leontyne Mbele-Mbong and Adrian Roberts distinguish themselves in what at first appear to be side roles--they take the opportunity afforded to make real characters out of Mugabe's enterprising younger wife, of his deadpan security man. 

And John Tracy's direction, too, is the best I've seen, his longtime interest in technics beautifully subsumed into the rhythms of the text as played out, expanding on them as well. It's an unusually thoughtful work among the plays staged over the past few years by Aurora.  

Tuesdays at 7, Wednesdays through Saturdays at 8, Sundays at 2 & 7, Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison near Shattuck. $32-$50, Half-off tickets available for those under 35, students and groups. 843-4822; aroratheatre.org 

(Putting together the two plays above is, in part, my way of featuring a couple of just-opened, ongoing productions that show in different ways--one a comedy, the other a drama--the upbeat side, the viability of a type of play that I often criticize negatively, common fare along with other more amorphous styles derived from sitcoms and sketch comedy in our professional theaters as well as independent ones. These two are notable successes in their genres--and well worth seeing, both thoughtful and very entertaining.)