Steppenwolf Theatre Company is currently staging the Chicago premiere of The Book of Grace, 2010, by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks in its Ensemble Theater at 1646 N. Halsted in Chicago through May 18, 2025. Strategically directed by Steve H. Broadnax III, the 3-person drama features the always excellent Ensemble member Namir Smallwood as Buddy, uncanny as a deranged middle aged son; a wholly sympathetic performance by Zainab Jah as Grace, a seemingly stunned emotionally abused stepmom just trying to bear it all and “be good”; and Brian Marable in his Steppenwolf debut with a luminous portrayal of Vet, a bitter, barely-in-control long estranged dad/border patrol agent whose vitriol escalates until the entire show detonates.
The acting is superior and absorbing, and more than enough to thoroughly engage the audience. But the play, while updated and extremely timely, still is somewhat over-the-top in length, (almost 2 ½ hours) overfilled with monologue/soliloquys vs. action, and mainly comprised of individuals in incipient or active hysteria. It’s hard to maintain a valid sense of tension when so much individual angst is developing, but what saves and elevates the play even beyond the sometimes tired dialogue is the diverting stagecraft as well as the genuine attentiveness to role and in- depth characters drawn by the performers.
These 3 actors fully inhabit the theater in-the-round, projecting from every angle, as do Rosean Davonté Johnson’s 3 large-screened projections: they simultaneously exaggerate, expand details, distort the main image, and fragment along with the personalities involved. Jason Lynch’s soft-core lighting illuminates the almost- threadbare furniture, the painfully clean kitchen, the small-box TV, in this small house on the edge of Nowheresville-Texas, barely containing a family on the verge of madness. Smallwood is mesmerizing, secretive while he tries to charm Grace. Jah as the waitress/consort is constant in her efforts to seem “normal”, yet a true Stepford wife, as scary as she is vacuous. And Marable is a dream nutcase, barking out orders, ironing out wrinkles, capable of anything at all.
What brings this piece of work fully within the Steppenwolf wheelhouse and lights up an audience nervous system, is the slightly off-kilter nature of each character and his/her trajectory. We don’t know quite where they are “coming from”, we cannot predict where the relationships have been or will take us. Why does Grace hide her writing beneath the floorboards; does Vet beat her? Why does Buddy call himself “Snake”; is it true that this son was ever involved with “Hi-Tech?” Is Vet really going to win an award for arresting a wagonload of immigrants smuggling pot and give a speech? And what is buried in the backyard?
Being compelled to ponder the answers to these questions in the wake of the play’s intensity is the inheritance of fine performance. Steppenwolf’s Amazing Grace is an absorbing interpretation, a memorable experience. Go see it!
For information and tickets, go to www.steppenwolf.org
All photos by Michael Brosilow
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