Sophocles isn’t the only tragedian currently playing on Chicago stages. One of my favorite Chicago-based playwrights, Keith Huff (whose Chicago-originated A Steady Rain will be produced on Broadway this fall with Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman playing Chicago cops, a fantasy twosome that deserves another blog post all on its own, ahem), wrote a Greek-style contemporary tragedy about murder, incest, and angel-sightings in a small town, with a happy ending, way back when (actually in 1989). Mud People is now in a Midwest premiere from the ballsy, scruffy, rocknrollin’ Lakeview theater group, Mary-Arrchie Theatre. I think it’s a curious, and ultimately disappointing, blip in the Huff dramaturgical canon, written much earlier than A Steady Rain and the wonderfully compact Pursued by Happiness, part of Steppenwolf’s First Look Repertory of developmental plays in 2008, two much more accomplished and mature plays. In the Mary-Arrchie production, I think strong ensemble acting, a steady hand from director Carlo Garcia, and some crisp, biting one-liners elevate muddled, credulity-stretching, first-draft seeming playwriting.
It has been that kind of a week. I am mentally and physically fried from having to work the weekend and really, really early mornings (4 am anyone?) as well as dealing with spring allergies and this crazy it’s summer-one-day, it’s-cold-and-rainy-the-next early June weather Chicago is having. So instead of writing on a focused topic, which I normally like doing, I’m just going to blog on a bunch of things. And, anyway, lots of bloggers blog on in this stream-of-consciousness manner all the time (and many of them are not even remotely close to William Faulkner’s talents…). I’ve also gone to a lot of things over the past weeks and months and have not had the catch up time necessary to write about them, and this is the time to do so.
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