Shattered Globe’s “A Tale of Two Cities,” with Diego Vasquez Gomez, Demetra Dee, Penelope Walker and Jazzma Pryor/Photo: Michael Brosilow
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Dickens’ classic tale about terror and hypocrisy during the French Revolution receives a striking new adaptation by Brendan Pelsue in Shattered Globe’s “A Tale of Two Cities,” running through May 31 at Theater Wit. Director Mikael Burke makes his Shattered Globe debut leading an all-star production team—Milo Bue and Eleanor Kahn (co-set designers), Kotryna Hilko (costume design), Eric Watkins (lighting design), Christopher Kriz (original music and sound design)—to create an eerie atmosphere of Paris in upheaval, where rogues and spies lurk around every corner. The cast—Demetra Dee, Daria Harper, Jazzma Pryor, Diego Vazquez Gomez, Glenn Obrero, Jeff Rodriguez, William Anthony Sebastian Rose II and Penelope Walker—leap in and out of different roles in a flash as the story barrels along at a breakneck pace. The story presents parallels to the current rise in nationalist sentiment, and the play is uncannily prescient as the present begins to mirror the past.
The events leading up to and during the French Revolution represent a dichotomy of utopian ideals and dystopian results. The charming narrator (Harper) introduces us to Charles Darnay (Gomez), a French-born aristocrat who denounces his status as revolutionary fervor takes hold in France, but when it becomes open season on anyone with noble ties, he finds his life threatened by the very conspiracy he helped to foment. Darnay falls in love with Lucie Manette (Dee), the “golden thread” that binds her father, Dr. Manette (Walker), to reality after his years-long traumatic imprisonment in the Bastille. He now spends his time crouched in a corner, cobbling shoes and ominously whispering “one, two, three, four, five, six…” Competing for Lucie’s affection is Sydney Carton (Obrero), a scoundrel and drunkard who puts their own interests first, but the Revolution burns so hot that men made of tarnished metal may find opportunity to reforge themselves.
On the side of the revolutionaries is Madame Defarge (Pryor), full of bloodlust, who spends her time knitting a register of everyone, friend or foe, who must die for the revolutionary cause. A departure from the novel is the inclusion of King Louis XVI (Rodriguez) as a main character, a foppish man-child wearing a pink lace-lined coat and matching pumps, so innocent that you almost feel bad when he receives his coup de grâce. As the execution bell tolls, heads will roll, and when anyone can be accused of treason for any reason, it becomes clear that no one is safe from the chop of the guillotine.
Shattered Globe’s “A Tale of Two Cities,” with Jeff Rodriguez, Glenn Obrero, William Anthony Sebastian Rose II and Penelope Walker/Photo: Michael Brosilow
Small touches elevate the production. Actors refrain from using French and British dialects, which makes the work feel current and pressing. Comedic moments, like the portrayal of Louis XVI and a Monty Python-esque take on the revolutionary government, the National Constituent Assembly, add appreciable levity. Actors of different genders and race play any role that suits them, hardly worth mentioning were it not a rebuke, intentional or not, of the anti-DEI policies of the current U.S. government. As the French citizens in the play become “disappeared” just for voicing concerns over the government’s fascist acts, it’s hard not to feel a sense of foreboding given current events, as university students are deported for organizing protests.
Dickens’ story has proved timeless, but this update by Pelsue, Burke and Shattered Globe makes it also timely. Burke has the Midas touch and continues to direct engaging work, and this production is another jewel in his crown. While “A Tale of Two Cities” paints a captivating and capricious visage of both Paris and London, the place to be this spring is Chicago to witness this modern revamp of a beloved classic.
“A Tale of Two Cities” is presented by Shattered Globe Theatre through May 31 at Theater Wit, 1229 West Belmont. Showtimes: Thursday-Saturday at 7:30pm; Sundays at 3pm. An added 3pm matinee on May 31. Tickets are $15-$52, available at sgtheatre.org.
