Steppenwolf Theatre Company Blog – Chicago Theater, World-Class Ensemble

Awhile back, Steppenwolf as an organization underwent the introspective exercise of defining our core values — those things, in the words of Theater Communications Group Director Ben Cameron, that one will “go to the mat for every single time”. We came up with three: ensemble, innovation, and citizenship.

Normally this kind of inward thinking remains internal to the organization. But today is David New’s turn to post on the blog, and he is not available to do it. Why? Because he is currently engaged in his civic responsibility, sitting, as summoned, on a jury in the Cook County Court system. So in his absence and honor, I started thinking about citizenship, and what it means to be a good citizen:

To be thoughtful about the challenges others face. To behave honorably, responsibly, and fairly, even when no one is watching. To communicate honestly and openly. To think and act for the good of others, not just our own. To provoke and be provoked, but civilly and in hope of genuine discourse.

Sometimes, as in Last of the Boys or the upcoming The Unmentionables, the connection between the behavior on-stage and in our civic lives is overt, and at others, it is more subtle and inferred. But we strive to meet our daily challenge to create theater that supports good citizenship, and to act as a good institutional citizen within our community. I hope some of you have found it a worthy aspiration.

It’s very exciting to have after the quake and The Well-Appointed Room running at the same time at Steppenwolf and be able to participate in the post show discussions for both shows. The plays are very different from one another – in tone, in production style, in their treatment of language and character – and yet the discussions they create share common themes.

The stories in after the quake were motivated by the Kobe earthquake in 1995. The two plays that comprise The Well-Appointed Room were written in response to the events of September the 11th, 2001. Both works register the after-shocks of these large cultural events on individual lives of those who have endured their disruptive force. Not insignificantly, both after the quake and The Well-Appointed Room use the crucible of a love relationship to examine the deepest tremors of these massive world events. And, not insignificantly, both works contain the presence of a child – the impressionable and innocent consciousness, the next chapter of the story.

The resonances of these two plays – especially striking, given their concurrent runs – begins to echo back to our opening production, Last of the Boys. Here, too, a central cultural event – the Vietnam War – is the instigating event for what becomes an examination of the effects of that war on individual lives. And here, too, that examination is cast in multi-generational terms: both a daughter and a son represent the living legacy of a culture torn asunder.

This is fascinating to me – to discover a set of themes and motifs in this season’s work. When we designed this season, our dedication was to present new work, to mark the 30th anniversary of Steppenwolf by looking forward. We did not thematize the work itself – we just wanted to find rich, fresh voices that spoke to the way we live now. Compelling, then, that in doing so, we discover stories of a great disruption – a great disruption and its afterlife. All of the plays display a profound sense of urgency, a sense that something has been broken and needs repair (or at least address) for the story to continue. And the story, very importantly, is the story of human connection.

I would love to hear your thoughts about this theme – a theme that is emerging in our post-show discussions. Is this the story of ALL time? Would we find ourselves discussing the quake/the attack/the war 20 years ago? Was this the sensibility of America in 1986? Would the story-of-the-times have been this common anxiety? What would the story have been in 1966? (I choose those 20-year intervals because 20 years is typically cited as “a generation” and, typically, cultural trends are said to recur every 20 years).

I guess one of the questions I am asking is: do we learn? Is “progress” a story we tell ourselves? (or do the permutations in the way the story plays out represent real change?) I don’t know the answers to these questions – I simply find them provoked by the work on stage and your engagement with it. I would love to hear your thoughts.