SELECTIONS FROM THE BOOK OF HOPE
Don’t believe the title. Selections From the Book of Hope is an unintentional journey to despair. The “hope” it holds would earn Nietzsche’s gratitude; if anything, Chicago playwright Keith Huff’s four short plays offer the perfect antidote to aspiration. As cruel as they are cerebral, as detached from their characters as they are devoid of compassion, these “selections” suggest that if there’s a Book of Hope, it’s a tome the devil sent to hasten our annihilation. (Speaking of hell, beware–there’s no air-conditioning.)
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Selections, a world premiere from a new company, Theater by Design, has the form of an arcane ritual. As the audience waits in the lobby, robed penitents begin a candlelit procession down some stairs that ends with Ralph Flores sitting while acolytes wrap him in billowing white curtains. As the audience patiently stands and watches, he delivers “St. Pookie” in a solemn deadpan.
In the fable of “Leon and Joey” (by this point the audience has reached the auditorium), Leon replaces Pookie as the sacrificial fool-of-God. Leon is a simple soul whose retardation is seen as semisaintly; his special friend is a wood nymph who offers him mystical advice. Looking after Leon is his suicidal evil twin, Joey, a selfish cur who denies the existence of the good wood nymph; instead he delights in gross-out stories (like the one about fetuses who eat each other in the womb).
It’s not enough that “To Autumn” offers an idea of hope that only a twisted Pollyanna would believe; what’s insufferable is that the characters aren’t even allowed enough dignity to realize that they’ve thrown their lives away. Huff prefers to pretend they’re still in love after so many wasted years. But the sitcom scenes he’s shown us suggest no such depth of caring: the ending lacks even a shred of conviction.
