A Parallelogram Steppenwolf Theatre COMPANY
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
That’s a tall order, and that Norris feels he’s got to rewrite the laws of physics in order to fill it is the first sign that he may’ve bitten off more than he can chew. After all, Beckett needed nothing but a couple of clowns on a nearly empty stage to reduce all human striving to deluded farce. But if Norris ultimately fails to make a convincing case for enlightened fatalism, he does, ironically, create a compelling, painfully familiar picture of love fighting to gain a foothold against a torrent of everyday doubts.
A Parallelogram opens in the tastefully nondescript bedroom of an upscale condominium, where Jay and Bee (Tom Irwin and Kate Arrington) are in the midst of a petty squabble. Jay smells cigarette smoke and wants Bee to admit she’s smoking on the sly. Bee insists she isn’t, but refuses to explain where the smell might’ve come from. Jay knows Bee’s been depressed and wants to promote honesty in their relationship, but given how much time he spends staring through the open door at the television in the other room, it seems he wants to watch the big game just as ardently. Bee laments the ways in which modern creature comforts—television, the Internet, air conditioning—have insulated her from anything that feels like an authentic life.
The answer here is almost nothing. At first Bee insists that her actions can change the outcome of events. To prove her wrong, Bee 2 rewinds a few seconds to the interaction with Jay. All Bee can think to do to change things is throw a beer bottle at him. The bottle shatters, and later Jay cuts his foot on the glass, but otherwise nothing is different. This episode is virtually all it takes to make Bee concede that human effort is futile, and she spends almost the entire rest of the play in bed—either at home or in a psychiatric hospital, after she’s been committed for delusions about old-lady time travelers—playing solitaire and eating Oreos.
