Former Reader staffer John Conroy spent 17 years reporting on systematic police torture at Chicago’s Area 2 headquarters. His meticulous, evenhanded coverage should’ve sparked civic outrage, forced massive police reform, and toppled Mayor Daley. It would probably have won him a Pulitzer, too, had he been writing for a daily newspaper—though it’s doubtful that a daily would’ve printed his stories, and not just because the first one, “House of Screams,” ran to nearly 20,000 words. For most of those 17 years the mainstream media—along with the legal world and the public at large—responded to Conroy’s revelations with a collective shrug. Cops were roughing up poor black men with long rap sheets, forcing them to confess to violent crimes? Well, as long as our streets are safe . . .
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
So it was painful to sit in the opening-night audience for My Kind of Town, Conroy’s new drama based on his Reader investigations, and hear TimeLine Theatre Company artistic director P.J. Powers say he hopes the show will “spark a much larger conversation.” Civic engagement is a fine thing, but the time for that conversation has long passed—much to the city’s collective shame.
Most of My Kind of Town‘s first 15 minutes is given over to an examination of the legal web that’s ensnared a young, black death row inmate named Otha Jeffries, who claims that Area 2 detective Dan Breen and his cronies got him to confess to a double murder by hooking him up to a pair of mysterious black boxes and giving him repeated electric shocks. Jeffries’s lawyer, Robert Morales, leads his client through an extraordinarily perfunctory interview, setting up what appear to be the play’s primary questions: Where are these alleged black boxes? Why has no other prisoner made a similar complaint? How can it be that assistant state’s attorney Maureen Buckley, who took Jeffries’s confession at Area 2, didn’t know about the abuse? And what about the other Area 2 cops? Just how extensive is the cover-up?
Yippies and Black Panthers make impassioned speeches. Hippies get high and spread love. Cops hate the freaks and try unsuccessfully to stay cool. A pair of idealistic McCarthy staffers learn how undemocratic police with nightsticks can be. A reporter tries to figure out what the hell is going on. This is theater as Wikipedia entry.
Through 7/29: Wed-Thu 7:30 PM, Fri 8 PM, Sat 4 and 8 PM, Sun 2 PM, no show 6/1, TimeLine Theatre Company, Wellington Avenue United Church of Christ, Baird Hall Theatre, 615 W. Wellington, 773-281-8463, timelinetheatre.com $10-$42.
The Whole World Is Watching
