Just Another Day

Utility – Interrobang Theatre

Amber and her family live in a small town in East Texas. Like many families, they are perpetually just short of making ends meet. Amber works two jobs but is still always trying to pay off last month’s bills. The play finds her trying to balance providing a life for her children that she wants them to have, while deciding if she should give her well-intentioned, but less than competent, husband another chance.

Where the show excels is when is centers on Amber, portayed by the show’s lead, Brynne Barnard. Barnard’s portrayal has an effortless reality to it that I really enjoyed. She gives real depth to the grind of Amber’s life, and how it’s changing her. The constant struggle to end up just treading water and the uncertainty that goes with it are wearing her down. She is starting to distrust people, even when they offer help. All she sees are the things she can’t do, can’t provide, and it’s turning her into a person she doesn’t recognize. Barnard did a great job of portraying Amber to evoke the countless other women in her position, but still creating a specific character.

Most of the action of the show focuses on Amber’s attempt to throw a party for her daughter’s 8th birthday. We see Amber try to arrange the cake, the balloons, the presents, the clown, etc… all while never having quite enough money or quite enough time. What all this drives home is how much Amber is expected do, whether she has the resources or not. The idea of not having a party never crosses her mind. It’s not because she is wasteful with money or because she isn’t aware of her own finances. It’s because if she doesn’t throw the party, she’s a bad mother. Even the tiny compromise of balloons they blew up themselves rather than ones filled with helium cause this look of self-recrimination to cross her face. Something that I hope is not news to people, but something I acknowledge does not get discussed as often as it should, is that poverty comes down harder on women. The combination of earning less money but often bearing more responsibility for caring for family means women have the most to do with the least resources, and this show does a great job of portraying that imbalance.

Another layer the show adds well is how credit is unevenly doled out to parents. Amber has done and been doing everything for years. Chris is back now, but it would be a stretch to say he’s pulling his weight. He’s nice and he’s trying, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t regularly forget something important. At one point, Amber even says that doing it alone was easier because it was predictable even though it was more work. Wondering when and how she’ll have to pick up his slack is just one more thing to do. Still, Amber’s mother, played fantastically by Barbara Figgins, can only praise Chris, sometimes just for being around. Amber lives in a world where she’ll have to do everything without being asked and for pretty much no credit. Chris lives in a world where getting 2 out of 3 things on a list, after being asked explicitly several times, is treated as going above and beyond the call of duty. Patrick TJ Kelly gives Chris enough earnest charm that you won’t end up disliking him, but you will spend the show mentally urging him to get it together.

The play is performed without an intermission and was about an hour and 45 minutes long, which is just about the edge of my tolerance for not having a break. Exacerbating that is that the final third of the play centers on two very long scenes, both of which could have been considerably shortened to have more punch. Essentially, when the show lost its focus on Amber as a person just living her life and tried to tie together a broader narrative and some of the other characters, it lost me. Trimmed to a flat ninety and keeping the focus on Amber throughout, I think the show would be more successful overall.

Ultimately, I don’t think the story of the play will (should?) be a shock to anyone who has been paying any kind of attention to the world lately. Being poor is extraordinarily difficult, and it’s harder still for women and mothers. That said, while I don’t think Utility offers too much in the way of new information on that topic, as a character study, I think it works very well. In Barnard’s hands, Amber shines through. She is tired, but not broken and for her performance alone, Utility is worth seeing.

Recommended

Reviewed by Kevin Curran

Presented April 9-May 4 by Interrobang Theatre at Rivendell Theatre, 5779 N. Ridge Ave., Chicago.

Tickets can be purchased at interrobangtheatreproject.com.

Additional information about this and other area productions can be found at www.theatreinchicago.com.