BEATEN UP FOR COMING OUT
Awesomely authentic, Chelsea M. Warren’s setting for after all the terrible things i do isn’t just a character in itself—it’s a cast. This designer has perfectly constructed the cluttered interior of an independent bookstore in a small Midwestern town. Comfortable chairs are set out for browsing. There’s a green banker’s lamp on the counter and a floor lamp in a nook. The packed shelves are lit from behind to suggest secrets to share or hide. Warren’s cozy retreat is also an old-school oasis of civilization. It’s so believable that you can’t imagine that Theater Wit’s Stage Three ever had or will have another set.
But About Face Theatre’s Chicago premiere is far from comfy. A lacerating drama by A. Rey Pamatmat, this 100-minute, two-character one-act, magnificently mined by Andrew Volkoff, delivers a painful set of confessions. These erupt between Linda, the Filipina owner of Books To the Sky, and a young gay wannabe novelist named Daniel, newly returned from Chicago to his hometown in the heartland. Is he here to restore a false innocence, to make sense of a lapsed life? In any case, when this apprentice author gets a sales job at this 15-year-old family firm, it sets off a train of devastating blackout scenes: As only art can achieve, we get to know these people better than actual life often allows.
When he’s not clerking, sorting out stock, or doing inventory, Daniel is writing a first novel about a late love between fictional partners. These men bound through abuse as much as adoration are not unrelated to Daniel’s love life in the big city. As Linda tries to understand his “alternative lifestyle,” she offers truths about her gay son with whom Daniel went to high school. Eager to act as Daniel’s muse, she’s equally keen to learn his story, specifically the self-hatred, internecine bullying, and defensive cruelty triggered when oppressed minorities turn oppressive in their own wrong.
Unavoidably, Pamatmat’s revelations are so intricately intertwined that even relating a few of these amounts to unintended spoilage. The connections (or coincidences) that create powerful parallels between this mother and this writer may seem contrived or convenient but, well, if fiction doesn’t imitate life, what good is it? Anyway there’s nothing abstract about the drama’s depictions of writing as a plagiarism of life, the many mutations of homophobia, the danger of blaming the victim, guilt as a goad for redemption and absolution, and the risks taken by old friends who become uncertain lovers.
Demonstrably, this poetically named play covers a ton of territory. It feels and fits right, thanks to the remarkable honesty of veteran player Lisa Tejero and worthy newcomer Colin Sphar. A marvel of industrial-strength make-believe, Tejero captures the quicksilver protectiveness of a haunted woman with a past that she wrenchingly wishes both to protect and expose. A kind of surrogate son, this inventor of a “real novel” (“What, instead of an imaginary one?” Linda queries) sublimates regret into imagination. But it’s not enough to find expiation. Daniel’s unseen readers can’t do that (and not just because the novel remains unfinished) but Linda may.
Plays where people are good to and for each other are rare–and therapeutic for more than the characters. Pamatmat’s thinking/feeling work confirms what we forget at our peril—that books are powerful means to earnest ends.
photos by Michael Brosilow
after all the terrible things i do
About Face Theatre
Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont Ave.
Thurs and Fri at 7:30; Sat at 3 & 7:30; Sun at 3
scheduled to end on February 21, 2016
for tickets, call 773.975.8150 or visit About Face
for more Chicago Theater, visit Theatre in Chicago