THE MEEK A RED ORCHID THEATRE
WHEN Through 6/3: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 7 PM WHERE A Red Orchid Theatre, 1531 N. Wells PRICE $20-$25 INFO 312-943-8722
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On occasion directors have even squelched Neveu’s attempts at profundity: in early 2006 A Red Orchid turned The Earl, a sobering examination of ritualized male violence, into frat-party mayhem. But this time a different Red Orchid director, Brennan Parks, has gotten Neveu’s intriguing new The Meek exactly right–or as right as this flawed work can be got.
It’s a bumpy opening. Parks treats the initial encounter between Glynn and Patrick so realistically that Voni seems to come from another play. But once she settles in, Parks lets the realism warp in subtle, playful ways. In one of many intentionally clumsy yet poetic monologues, Voni explains her existence: she was walking through the woods, stepped into a stream, took her foot out–and realized that the water she’d stepped in had flowed downstream and taken her reflection with it. Flopped on Glynn’s cruddy sofa like a graceless teenager, she concludes, “At that moment, I became both book and person.” Then a man, Kenneth, appears in a black recess in the back wall, telephoning Glynn to inform him that “the department of grants” is giving him $8,000. Kenneth keeps calling back, then finally admits he’s lost and needs Glynn to rescue him.
