Reviews

Elbow Room’s Saints is hugely dense and ambitious.  Set in a fractious England in 1654, a time when the monarchy has fallen, and the country is in violent chaos.  People yearn for certainty but reject the old order.  Who will be on the ‘right side of History?’  England is or was supposedly ruled by the failed ‘Parliament of Saints’, and the play depicts contending forces and communities, now largely subsumed by History: naïve anti-authoritarian but self-sufficient groups and sects that flower until swept away.  Playwright

Larry Kramer’s angry, activist play premiered off-Broadway in 1985 just as the first test for AIDS was created.  Kramer’s targets were slowly responding to an epidemic that had been killing gay men for four years: the media, New York City and the US Government were all ignoring it, urgent medical funding and research was denied, even families turned their backs; the “gay plaque” was left to spread and do its worst.

Going into this I knew almost nothing about the Arthur Miller classic Death of A Salesman - and honestly - that makes this complete reimagining by Shopfront Arts all the bolder, funnier, and more impactful. It must also be said how refreshing it is to see passionate and enthusiastic young people performing in a show that contains the term “junior” somewhere other than at the end of the title.

Chicago’s Steppenwolf theatre is well-known for its dinner party plays, as in this premiere production of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' masterpiece Purpose and the much-acclaimed August: Osage County.  And another American theatrical trope is familiar in Purpose:  it revolves around a family reunion, in this case an upper middle class, African American family in Chicago, famed for their historic roles as celebrity preachers and leaders in the civil rights movement.