Both Chris Jones and TimeOut Chicago’s Christopher Piatt address the issue head-on at the beginning of their highly favorable reviews for Tracy Letts’s new play Superior Donuts, just opened at the Steppenwolf Downstairs Theatre: this is not August: Osage County/a great modern American play redux, so let’s just chill out and move on. And I think that is the savvy, responsible, truthful, and mature thing to do, just to neutralize the unrealistic and, frankly, unfair expectations all of us-critics, audience members, theatrical pundits alike- had for this play given the stature of its predecessor in the contemporary American theatrical canon. Superior Donuts, is not, cannot be, August: Osage County (and this is the last time I am going to conjure up the specter of that masterpiece), it is intimate, modest, heart-warming, focused, a gentle breeze on a hot summer afternoon. It is also one hell of a good, funny play taken on its own terms, and within its own low-flying ambitions.
Superior Donuts is the name of an old-style donut shop in the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago, owned by a laidback, amiable but aimless, joint-smoking hippie named Arthur, played with soulfulness and welcome subtlety by Michael McKean of the Christopher Guest ensemble movies (Best in Show, For Your Consideration) and Laverne and Shirley fame. He hires an assistant, Franco Wickes, a young, articulate, hyperactive student “taking some time off” who, in his own mind, has just written the “Great American Novel”. Franco is played in a knock-your-socks-off, riveting star turn by ensemble member Jon Michael Hill (who I also thought was phenomenal as the African teenager in Bruce Norris’s The Unmentionables a couple of Steppenwolf seasons back). Jon is both over-the-top hilarious (such as when he makes a bet that Arthur cannot name ten black poets) and also heartbreakingly genuine (a broken down Franco at the play’s end) - it is one of the most stunning Chicago theater performances of the year, in my humble opinion. The play charts the growth of their friendship and how in this relationship, Arthur, abandoned by his wife and child, perplexed by his inability to make sense of the urbanization and modernization exploding around him, finally finds a sense of self and purpose to last him till the end of his days. Simple and sweet, it’s a theme that is wonderfully fleshed out through the trademarks of the Letts playwriting genius: crackling dialogue (my shrieking guffaw when Franco tells ponytail-wearing Arthur that ponytails look good “..on girls - and ponies” nearly popped the false teeth out of my elderly seat neighbor’s mouth); measured, just-right pacing; and unique, interesting characters. Obviously, Arthur and Franco are the most well-fleshed out, and multi-dimensional of the play’s characters, but the supporting roles are also pungently drawn. I especially like ensemble member’s James Vincent Meredith’s tough but fatherly cop who is a Trekkie convention-goer on his off days (the scene when he comes out wearing a Captain Kirk uniform is classic); Cliff Chamberlain’s goon Kevin, who mumbles and echoes his boss’s threats and punchlines, and who is dismayed that he has to walk out of the donut shop with their blood money stuffed in a Kotex box; and, especially, the foul-mouthed, politically incorrect, hungrily ambitious Russian owner of the electronics store next door, Max, usually played by ensemble member Yasen Peyankov, but portrayed in the performance I attended by his understudy, the excellent Alzan Pelesic, who acted up quite a storm.
For me, though, the one great, resonant thing about Superior Donuts is the fact that ultimately this is also a play about Chicago - the hardy, plainspoken great American city built and continuing to be supported by immigrant ambition and roll-up-your-sleeves and calloused-hands hard work. Letts paints a beautiful portrait of the city- a city of neighborhoods and politics, of melting-pot values and urban intestinal fortitude, of unpretentious, straight-shooting characters. I also really like that the play is set in Uptown, very close to where I live in Lincoln Square, a fascinating neighborhood of contradictions and push-and-pull, where historical Chicago represented by the Green Mill and the Uptown Theater and small, family-owned stores such as Superior Donuts exists side by side with the incongruity of 21st century urban Chicago (the gentrification represented by the Borders on Broadway, the Starbucks at multiple street corners, the new condo construction all over the place, and the urban blight represented by the multitude of Section 8 housing in the neighborhood and the presence of Asian gangs on Argyle). Uptown, for me, is a great microcosm of a Chicago in flux, in the midst of change and renewal, but yet still stubbornly, and, at times, proudly, holding on to what made, and makes this city great and unique, both the good and the not-so-good. I can’t imagine this wonderful play, quite the homage to Chicago, being set in any other neighborhood in the city.
With the varied nature of his plays, I firmly believe that Tracy Letts demonstrates what differentiates all great artists - the ability to create meaningful, interesting art with different scope and intentions, using different tones, referencing different genres, defying predictability and categorization. Hey, come on, Picasso wasn’t painting Guernicas all the time, and Scorcese isn’t making every other movie a Taxi Driver. Since I am an all-weather Tracy Letts fan, I’m here to wholeheartedly embrace both his towering epics and his goofy dramedys, and whatever intriguing writing experiment he comes up with next.
Get your tickets quick for Superior Donuts, since it is running only till August 17 at the Steppenwolf Downstairs Theater, 1650 N. Halsted st. It is one good-natured, entertaining night at the theater. And that standing ovation last night was so well-deserved!
Tags: Steppenwolf Theatre, Tracy Letts
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