In the contemporary New Orleans of Lisa D’Amour’s new drama Airline Highway, given an alternately stagnant and rousing Steppenwolf world premiere, only two types of people exist: the authentics and the inauthentics. Here, as in so many American plays over the past several decades, the authentics are the downtrodden, the unconventional, the penniless, the permanently marginalized. The inauthentics, by contrast, occupy the center wherever they go, remaking the world after their consumerist ideals, shopping at Whole Foods, taking Zumba classes, making crafty candles.
And that’s one big problem with D’Amour’s slice-of-life drama, which is headed to Broadway next spring: it’s less interested in giving characters fully fleshed-out lives than in teaching a Big Lesson about the importance of embracing the unconventional, defying the expectations of consumerist culture, and suffering the consequences. D’Amour’s so adamant about this point that she ends up dragging the decrepit, pain-killer-soaked Miss Ruby down a flight of stairs on a stretcher and putting her center stage in one of those magic theater moments (the lights go all moody and the other characters freeze) so she can snap to full lucidity and deliver her final inspirational lecture to the anointed. It’s not a bad lesson to learn, as far as it goes, and director Joe Mantello ultimately provides ample reason to care about this bunch, coaxing deeply compassionate performances from all of his actors.
Through 2/8: Tue-Fri 7:30 PM, Sat 3 and 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM Steppenwolf Theatre 1650 N. Halsted 312-335-1650steppenwolf.org $20-$86
