Jackalope Theatre Company’s 15th Living Newspaper Makes Art from Headlines.

“How to make a living newspaper: Pick and prod through current events from around the country, choose five. Pair stellar playwrights and directors and assign each pairing an article. Let sit for a bit, let a 10-minute play bake. Cast from Chicago’s talented actor pool. Rehearse for a smidge. Meet at the Armory to share our stories.”

Thus opens the program for Jackalope Theatre Company’s Living Newspaper Festival, and I couldn’t have described it better myself. Tucked away in a corner of the Armory on N. Broadway, The Jackalope space is warm and inviting. The theater itself is small, the backdrop a wall papered by newspaper. The stage is plain black, the sets or props for each short play simple and suggestive:  A tool cart, a leather chair, a corner table, hot stones, and a picnic blanket. Ryan Emens’ thoughtful, specific scenic design suggested just enough of an environment to ground each story in its own reality. Sound Designer Anna Jackson filled each show with atmosphere that was engrossing and affecting.  Each play opened with a tightly designed, humorous video intro by designer Tony Santiago.

This year’s memorable headlines included the retirement of the Chuck E. Cheese Animatronic Band (Out of this World by Rammel Chan and Directed by Wendy Mateo), the shocking loss of the Titan Submersible (The Depths by Paloma Nozicka and Directed by Gus Menary), the closing of many maternal wards in the rural U.S. (Into the Breach by Madhuri Shekar and Directed by Wendy Mateo) The Mi’kmat Nation’s choice to use opioid settlement funds to open a sweat lodge to treat addiction in Maine (A Drop in the Bucket by Ireon Roach and Directed by Sydney Charles, and the small movement of “pronatalists” furiously having babies to save the world (The Best of Us by Ike Holter and Directed by Gus Menary).

The headlines served more as a jumping-off point than content. This approach lent itself to an imaginative, sharp, thoughtfulness to each play. While it seems nearly impossible to find a headline these days that isn’t a at least a little bleak, it’s often mixed with a ridiculousness that clearly inspired each playwright. The night began with Out of this World, a slightly surreal, heartfelt story of an Uncle accepting his beloved niece’s transition to college, with the help of a nihilistic Chuck E. Cheese. Alex Hand made a particularly creepy Chuck.

The second play, The Depths, is a dark fever dream about a billionaire who meets her reckoning after playing fast and loose with a submersible’s design. Actors Christina Gorman and Claudia Quesada had wonderful timing, occasional saying lines in unison that created an unsettling, skin-crawling feeling that is released with a horrific thrill at the end.

Into the Breach is a satirical, razor-sharp take on a dystopian future when AI assisted births through smart phone apps are the only option for some young mothers. It was funny, but it was also scary, because it came so close to the truth. So much so that the play felt more like a prediction than a fantasy. Claudia Quesada also managed to keep her face in a blank, unmoving smile that is exactly what an AI midwife’s face would look like.

Fourth, we were swept into A Drop in the Bucket; a complete immersion into a poor soul, detoxing not only drugs but inner demons. The cast, Ashli Funches, DeVaughn Loman and John-Payne moved around the stage in what felt like a blend of dance and poetry. The heady mix of emotion, politics, legacy, grief and love felt like story telling from inside the mind of the storyteller, rather than viewed as an audience.

The final play, The Best of Us, brought everything home on a lighter, if still stinging, note. Niko Kourtis and Liz Sharpe play a pronatalist, Silicon Valley power couple, hiding from their insufferable, eight children. They’re conversation runs like an unhinged Twitter rant by a certain billionaire even more insufferable than the fictional characters he has inspired. All five plays combined made for a sleek, polished, funny and incisive body of work. 

The night served as a reminder that local, topical, immediate theatre can take the social conversation and make it into art. I am looking forward to seeing more of what Jackalope Theatre Company has to say next year.

Highly Recommended

Reviewed by Alina Hevia

Tickets are $15 – $30 and are available at www.jackalopetheatre.org or by calling 773-340-2543.

Show times are: Saturday, Sept. 14 at 7:30 p.m., Sunday, Sept. 15 at 3 p.m. and Monday, Sept. 16 at 7:30 p.m.

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