When she was three years old, Theresa was stolen from her parents. Now she’s fifteen and by some unexplained miracle, she has been rescued and returned home.
But Theresa did not want to be rescued and mourns for her kidnapper and the home she left behind. Is she better off now, or irreparably broken?
That’s the question that powers “Mr. Wolf,” a play by Steppenwolf ensemble member Rajiv Joseph now in its Chicago premiere at Steppenwolf’s Downstairs Theater.
This is a top-shelf production, tightly directed by ensemble member K. Todd Freeman and starring longtime Steppenwolf players Kate Arrington, Tim Hopper, Caroline Neff and Namir Smallwood. It has a magical set design by Walt Spangler, with set pieces appearing from every direction, along with psychedelic projections from Rasean Davonté Johnson reminiscent of the Stargate sequence in “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
The play itself premiered in California in 2015. “Mr. Wolf” is intriguing, thoughtful and often beautiful. But it’s also too spare and underwritten, coming in at eighty-five minutes and leaving much unexplored. After an inspired start that deals with heady questions about God, eternity and the nature of family, it declines into a crime drama with a disappointingly tidy ending.
Theresa, played by the wonderfully intense Emilie Maureen Hanson in her Steppenwolf debut, is a precocious teen who talks with passion about the nature of the universe. Her kidnapper has the fairy tale name of Mr. Wolf. Hopper gives a nicely creepy performance as an astronomy professor convinced that he is bringing up a prophet. In the first scene, he learns that Theresa’s location has been discovered by police. After warning her of the dangers of the world, he kills himself.
But Mr. Wolf keeps reappearing to Theresa, in the form of a doctor and a police detective. He also appears in flashbacks, explaining why he needed Theresa’s “purity” to fulfill his own dreams of transcendent knowledge.
Arrington gives a fine portrayal of Theresa’s mother—brittle and unable to connect to her rediscovered child. She had been so undone by the kidnapping that she divorced Michael, Theresa’s father, and fled to Canada.
Michael, played with quiet gravity by Smallwood, had kept searching for his daughter. He is remarried to Julie, a woman who lost her own child to illness. The father is so overwhelmed by the reunion that he can barely speak to Theresa. Or so we’re told—the character is sparsely written. We don’t know much about the parents, or what the family was like before Theresa disappeared, or who blamed whom for what happened.
Julie, played with great warmth and humanity by Neff, is able to break through to Theresa and learn dark secrets about what happened in Mr. Wolf’s house.
The play aims high—not surprising given Joseph’s other work, which includes the brilliant “Describe the Night” (at Steppenwolf in 2023) and “Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo,” which was a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize.
Theresa and Mr. Wolf are fascinating characters. Was he really guiding her to mysteries of the universe in his own twisted way? Did her captivity and fear give her insights she couldn’t have gotten in safety?
These questions are raised, but the play doesn’t go as deep as it could have. It doesn’t allow for the possibility that Theresa may indeed be a prophet, specially connected to God. Mr. Wolf, though a beast, may also be a hole in her life that can never be filled. The play ends neatly without delving into those scary places, and the challenging, difficult Theresa becomes just another innocent little girl, leaving the audience comfortable and safe.
The theater’s press material describes the drama as “unflinching,” but it flinches. That keeps an interesting play from being great.
“Mr. Wolf” runs through November 2 at Steppenwolf’s Downstairs Theater, 1650 North Halsted. Tickets start at $20, available at steppenwolf.org.
