STEAMSHIP QUANZA
Building Company’s Steamship Quanza is therefore a rarity–everybody does everything right, from the writers who came up with the idea to whoever chose the shoes worn by Eleanor Roosevelt in act two. The playwrights, Stephen Morewitz and Susan Lieberman, keep their objective in focus, while giving their characters sufficient humanity to prevent the script from resembling a history lesson. The spare action is stripped bare of histrionics, and the actors are not afraid to display emotion but know how to play subtleties. The technical staff have also done their homework, weeding out any inaccuracy that would derail our perception of the period.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
“We are all patriots, and we’re all refugees,” says Eleanor Roosevelt in the play. “My family came here a very long time ago, but they were refugees too. It’s only a difference of time between me and the people on that ship. Eventually they too will be ‘patriots’–terrified that a stranger will slip in through the door and take their country away from them.” It is easy for Americans to become insular and self-protective. On this 50th anniversary of the Quanza incident, Lieberman and Morewitz’s play serves to remind us of other refugees looking to the United States for safety and freedom, while Building Company’s production shows us how their story should be told.
