• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Newcity Stage

Theater, Dance, Comedy and Performance in Chicago

  • Newcity
    • Newcity Network
    • Best of Chicago
  • Art
  • Brazil
  • Design
  • Film
  • Lit
  • Music
  • Resto
  • Stage
    • About Newcity Stage
    • Currently Running Shows

Review: Vigils/Goodman Theatre

November 9, 2006 at 11:20 am by ilanakowarski

by ilanakowarski
November 9, 2006July 8, 2009Filed under:
  • Recommended Shows
  • Theater
  • Theater Reviews

RECOMMENDED

It’s the playwriting trend of the day: take an uncomplicated plot laced with familiar themes, add a narrative twist, and then deliberately muddle the storytelling by way of loopy chronology, meta-theatricality and replayed sequences of dialogue. I can immediately name two contemporary writers who have followed this trend to qualified success and one of them is Noah Haidle. His outré play—a Goodman Theatre world premiere capping off its limited run this weekend—is “Vigils,” and the director faced with the Sisyphean task of making this structurally challenging play work for an audience is Kate Whoriskey. She’s only partly successful, the problems having to do more with the play’s dramaturgy than with its production, and yet “Vigils” is noteworthy for Haidle’s highly theatrical and whimsical playwriting voice, an irreverence for traditional structure and fearlessness with form—he’s the playwriting equivalent of a child unafraid to color outside the lines—that may alienate more literal-minded audiences. Concerning a widow unable and unwilling to let go—literally and figuratively—of her dead husband’s soul after two years (she traps it in a box), “Vigils” boasts a character known as the Soul that provides narrative, counterpoint and humor to the punchy proceedings, especially when his widow tries to date again, unsuccessfully. Thematically, there’s nothing new here, especially if you’ve seen anything by Chekhov: lamenting the past; only flirting with the future; not coping with the present. But people grieve differently, and if time stands still and/or limps along like a wounded dog for some, for the characters in “Vigils” it loops around and around, echoing their obsessive mourning. Haidle’s playwriting pyrotechnics, excitingly evoked by Whoriskey’s atmospheric and painterly production, may lack the poignancy to imbue this bittersweet comedy with the memory-play melancholy that just sits above its surface. But it is never pointless, and serves as a guidepost to an exciting new voice in the theater. (Fabrizio O. Almeida)

“Vigils” plays at Goodman Theatre, 170 North Dearborn, (312)443-3800. through Nov 12.

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • More
  • Print
  • Tumblr
  • Google
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Reddit
  • Pocket

Related

Tagged:
  • Goodman
  • Kate Whoriskey
  • Noah Haidle

Post navigation

Previous Post Preview: Opening Weekend/Dance Chicago Festival
Next Post Review: Disposable Nation/The Second City e.t.c.

Primary Sidebar

Popular Stories

  • The Not-So-Carefree Life: A Review of Grand Hotel at Kokandy Productions
    The Not-So-Carefree Life: A Review of Grand Hotel at Kokandy Productions
  • Separate and Surrounded: A Review of A Blue Island in the Red Sea at Collaboraction
    Separate and Surrounded: A Review of A Blue Island in the Red Sea at Collaboraction
  • Let Them Eat: A Review of The Cake at Rivendell Theatre Ensemble
    Let Them Eat: A Review of The Cake at Rivendell Theatre Ensemble
  • Fake It 'Til You Break It: A Review of The Doppelgänger (an international farce) at Steppenwolf Theatre Company
    Fake It 'Til You Break It: A Review of The Doppelgänger (an international farce) at Steppenwolf Theatre Company
  • Dance Top 5: April 2018
    Dance Top 5: April 2018

Sign up for Newcity’s free email newsletter


Copyright Newcity Communications, Inc. © 2018

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.