The Incessant Dirt and Dust

Fen

When the audience enters the beautiful Court Theatre they will behold a startling sight. Collette Pollard’s naturalistic scenic and projection design for this production of Caryl Churchill’s play is a vast, terraced expanse covered with dry soil and pocked with a few dying plants and rocks. This wasteland is a metaphor that visually represents the parched, hopeless lives of the characters we’re about to meet in the land they call home. The darkness is occasionally broken as the shadows part through Keith Parham’s eerie, moody lighting; and Jeffrey Levin’s magnificent sound design hovers over the production like a wings of a giant predatory bird. The atmosphere is complete for this ghostly story.  

Eastern England was once a swamp. It used to be an endless bog, filled with muddy water, fish and eels. But the English government, in one of the worst ecological decisions in history, decided to drain this area. It completely destroyed the ecosystem and left the region stripped barren. Ms. Churchill’s play takes the audience into the incessant dirt and dust of this region. It’s 1980 and, throughout the next 100 minutes, we’ll encounter dozens of dirt-poor English men, women and children, just striving to exist. They dig through the terra firma for potatoes and onions, attempting to earn a meager living. Crawling through the shriveled, dried up terrain, the actors kick up clouds of dust and the dry dirt that wafts over the stage and billows into the audience. It’s an environmental production that’s as unforgettable as the magnificent performances of this cast.

Through Ms. Churchill’s bold imagination, we’re treated to a number of short, often startling vignettes. By play’s end, our imaginations have melded together every scene into one. They all come together, blending into a somewhat fragmented, but emotionally explosive story of survival. Five actresses and one actor each play multiple roles, portraying over 20 different characters. They vary in age and social class. Some are single ladies, but many are mothers or grandparents. A few of the characters are children; some are even the ghosts of this poor, agrarian society.

Director Vanessa Stalling understands this form of storytelling better than many other theatre artists. She is, after all, the  adaptor of the Jeff Award-winning “United Flight 232.” Ms Stalling’s skillfully taken her cast through the evolution of the many characters they all portray. She has shaped and crafted this entire production, making it one of the most poignant and passionate productions in recent memory. Assisted by Eva Breneman, Chicago’s noted excellent Dialect Designer, the production sounds as authentic as if we were attending this production in London’s West End.

Each of the six actors in this production are incredibly and equally fantastic. This talented ensemble cast features electrifying performances by every single person on the Court stage. Cruz Gonzalez-Cadel is a particular standout in what might be considered the story’s leading role. She plays Val, a  young married mother of two daughters, who’s fallen in love with a handsome young farmer named Frank. She’s conflicted by her decision to run off with him to London while leaving her children home with her husband, who, she insists, loves them. When Frank convinces Val that realistically there’s nowhere to live and very little work available for them in the city, the couple decide to remain on Frank’s farm. Feeling guilty about her choice, Val often finds herself drifting back home to spend time with her two girls, Deb and Shona. But then, feeling equally guilty about leaving Frank, she returns to his loving arms. Val’s emotional conflict doesn’t end happily for any of the individuals, but life does go on.

The always astounding Alex Goodrich plays all the men in this production. He’s deeply sincere and forever caring as Frank, a character who exudes love for Val. But, like his lover, Frank is equally filled with guilt and pain. Goodrich also plays four very different additional roles with equal power. Alex opens the play as a Businessman, extolling the profits that his Japanese company has gleaned from this land. Then, a couple scenes later, Mr. Goodrich seen is driving an actual tractor across the stage as a tenant farmer who works the land for 55-year-old Mr. Tewson, another character he portrays.

Morgan Lavenstein plays Deb, the eldest of Val’s two daughters. As Shona’s older sister, she torments and bosses around her 6-year-old sibling making the little girl, beautifully played by Genevieve VenJohnson, as confounded and miserable as she is sweet and appealing. This accomplished actress also plays Shirley, a middle-age woman, for whom work gets her through the pain of living. Ms. VenJohnson is as sound in all her other roles, as well. Morgan Lavenstein also portrays Mrs. Finch, the minister’s wife and devout leader of the Baptist women’s group. But she’s especially terrifying as Angela, another hard-working laborer, who takes out her anger and frustrations on Becky, her stepdaughter, played with terror and sadness by Lizzie Bourne. Ms. Bourne also portrays Mrs. Hassett, a middle-aged labor gang-master who is trying to organize a union of coworkers. In addition, she also plays Ivy, the 90-year-old great-grandmother of Deb and Shone, celebrating her birthday with her friends and family and recalling memories from the past. The stunning Elizabeth Laidlaw returns to the Court Theatre to portray Nell, a hard-working laborer who, because of the manly way she dresses, is mercilessly teased and tormented by the children. She also plays Deb and Shona’s gently, kindly grandmother, May, as well as Mavis, a staunch member of the Baptist women’s group.

All of the characters end the play become like ghosts, silently haunting the dust and dirt of the Fens. In this respect, they’re somewhat like Cruz Gonzalez-Cadel’s ancient specter. She’s a peasant woman from Medieval times who now stalks the desecrated land, howling and raving at its landowners for all eternity. There are no winners in this play, but we meet so many intriguing individuals, whose stories are told in fascinating bits and bobs, that it’s almost all right. All of these dramatic fragments add up to a most powerful, compelling and hard-to-forget evening of theatre, as told by one of England’s most inventive and finest avant garde  playwrights, the brilliant Caryl Churchill.   

Highly Recommended

Reviewed by Colin Douglas

Presented February 10-March 5 by the Court Theatre, 

5535 S. Ellis Ave., Chicago.

Tickets are available in person at the theatre box office, by calling 773-753-4472 or by going to www.CourtTheatre.org.

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