THE GEOGRAPHY OF LUCK
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
These little excursions used to involve Shepard himself, whose True West not only helped Steppenwolf break through to a national audience but gave that audience most of its sense of what a Steppenwolf show looks, acts, and sounds like. Since then, scripts like Lynn Seifert’s Coyote Ugly have kept the tradition alive. Even Steppenwolf’s late, epic production of The Grapes of Wrath traveled somewhat the same region.
There’s a definite value in this. The occasional camp-out at the ranch constitutes a sign that Chicago’s most visible ensemble is still interested in working through and playing out American subjects. And as long as that interest holds, there’s a possibility we might yet get another idiomatic masterpiece like Balm in Gilead or Lydie Breeze or Orphans–or even True West–out of them.
Jim True is a fine Dixie–never taking the James Dean way out; maintaining his considerable poise despite the fact that Meyer places him on the listening end of so much babble, and that Arney makes him go around naked for no reason. Amy Morton’s wry vacancy is perfect for the role of Teddy, Dixie’s savior. Alan Wilder and Robert Breuler are their normal expert selves in supporting roles, while David Cromer gets to show a self-possession that’s never come out in the smaller roles I’ve seen him play in the past. Cromer provides a much better slimeball than I would have expected from him.
