RECOMMENDED
The title of Kate Walbert’s “Genius”—now receiving its world premiere at the Profiles Theatre—refers to the MacArthur Foundation’s “genius” grants—the prospect of a MacArthur prize provides the turning point in the play. Walbert’s script presents strong ideas about large subjects.
First idea: Talented public men in America betray the women they love over money, other women, fame, position and influence in an instant. They do this because they’ve always done it, and nobody has thought or said much about it. The more intelligent the woman, the better it feels to wipe one’s feet on her.
Second idea: Even the smartest American woman by habit protects and nurtures her man’s over-estimation of his own powers as thinker, creator, artist, humanitarian or scholar. Superior women ego-stroke without thinking about it because it’s what they’ve always done. Walbert implies it’s time that women who think stop acting as props for mediocre, needy male egoists.
Third idea: A woman of strong independent intelligence may deny that she cheerleads for her man. She may deny that she routinely betrays the best qualities of her mind to keep her resident “genius” in countenance—but the scorned passion called intellect will tunnel to the surface to have its say. The intelligent woman’s intellect will form its secret, just judgment of the man she paragonizes. Her repressed reckoning will one day force a crisis—the worm will turn, or the woman will give up her life to be an accessory to narcissism.
I had prepared myself for a reprise of the virtuoso nastiness of Edward Albee. Walbert is so far above Albee’s sentimentality, her intellect so clear, strong and unsentimental by comparison, that ten minutes in I felt ashamed of how badly I’d misread her play.
The cast is good. Robert Breuler as Joel is lovable, hateful, admirable and contemptible, as Walbert specifies. Cale Haupert personifies the Midwestern doper mediocrity in Peter, the play’s most ungrateful role, and Stephanie Chavara suggests Charlotte’s inner conflicts with a gesture, a look. Liz Zweifler as Sara made me want to read Sara’s books that “beat Didion at her own game.”
Do you live for the exhilaration of being ruthlessly enlightened by a mind superior to your own? Then go see this play. (Bill Sweetland)
Profiles Theatre, 4147 North Broadway, (773)549-1815, $40. Through May 3.
Related Stories
Impressive Arrival: A Review of Yerma at Theatre Y and Red Tape Theatre This co-production with Red Tape Theatre marks a mature and invigorating new phase for Theatre Y.- A Long Time Coming: A Review of Caroline, Or Change at Firebrand Theatre & TimeLine Theatre Company Firebrand Theatre and TimeLine Theatre Company co-produce this stirring revival with book and lyrics by Tony Kushner and music by Jeanine Tesori.
- Good History: A Review of A Home on the Lake at Piven Theatre Workshop and Fleetwood-Jourdain Theatre Piven Theatre Workshop and Fleetwood-Jourdain Theatre co-produce this place-based world premiere about Evanston's racially-charged history.
- Them/Us/All: A Review of Self-Accusation at Theatre Y Beyond the window, the show is happening.
- Once Again And Better Than Ever: A Review of Once at Paramount Theatre The Tony Award-winning musical gets its regional premiere at Paramount Theatre in Aurora.
- Nearly But Not Quite: A Review of She Loves Me at Marriott Theatre Miklós László's play “Parfumerie” continues to give birth to charming, heartfelt comedies where the leading characters are of an everyman quality, allowing audiences from the multiple social strata of life to see a reflection of themselves as the leading lady and man fall in love with each other, despite obstacles presented by fate and the miscalculation and manipulation of others,…
