WINDOWS A New Play by Tawni O’Dell

Tawni O’Dell‘s new play WINDOWS illuminates the changes that have washed over us these past three years. Starring Avantika, Craig Bierko, Tony Danza, Erin Darke, Jeffrey Donovan, Tovah Feldshuh, Adam Kantor, Carolyn McCormick, Jesse Nager, & Tonya Pinkins. FIVE PERFORMANCES ONLY at Town Hall. March 25-27. Who have you become? Learn more.

11 lives, 8 stories, endless frustration.

Fear, hilarity, anger, loss, and love unfolding behind curtains, blinds, broken glass, and bars. Whether navigating the self-reflection of isolation, or the unease of a chance meeting between strangers in need, or the simple realization of how much we value our most basic connection with others, Windows delves into the devastation and new beginnings found in a world forced to face an abyss together but alone. What we each endured as individuals when time suddenly stood still may have differed, but we were all changed by the experience. Our characters reshaped. For better or worse.

Review: “This is not a time of peace” Written by Deb Margolin, Mounts a Multi-layered Memory Play

Charlotte Cohn as Alina, Roger Hendricks SImon as Hillel. Photo by Steven Pisano.

The title of Deb Margolin‘s new play, This is not a time of peace, is spoken twice in the course of the performance, each time in reference to a different era. This doubling not only draws attention to historical correspondences but also evokes the play’s emphasis on memory and experience–every part of which, we are told, “is still happening” “somewhere in time”–as fluid and malleable and exceeding boundaries, a conception echoed in the form of the play itself. Based in part on autobiographical connections to Margolin’s actual father during the Cold War and making its world premiere at Midtown’s Theatre Row, This is not a time of peace sketches parallels between the personal and the political in its compelling rendition of a story at once intimate and with far-reaching resonances.

Steven Rattazzi as Joseph McCarthy. Photo by Steven Pisano.

A pair of monologues delivered by professional writer Alina (a spectacular Charlotte Cohn) provide a frame for the play and, taking place in 2020, represent its most contemporaneous portions. The rest of the show looks back, back to when Alina was still married to her gadget-loving husband Moses (Simon Feil) in the early 2000s, and further back to her father Hillel’s (Roger Hendricks Simon) encounter with McCarthyism half a century prior. The boundaries among these tangled threads of memory prove less than resilient as the narrative progresses, but one certainty from the outset is that Hillel’s past experiences have resulted in passing on what Alina refers to as a kind of “epigenetic” trauma. Hillel, a Jewish scientist with roots in Russia who worked for the U.S. government, lost his security clearance during the national persecution of Communists in the 1950s. But what were the specific circumstances? Was her father in fact a Communist? And did he really cross paths not only with the reprehensible Senator Joseph McCarthy (Steven Rattazzi) but also with storied McCarthy opponent Adolf Berle (Frank Licato)? Where does a Muscovite named Daniil (Richard Hollis) fit in? While Alina can still talk to her elderly father about his past, she commits to unraveling its mysteries and ambiguities.

Charlotte Cohn as Alina, Simon Feil as Moses. Photo by Steven Pisano.

As she attempts to pin down answers concerning Hillel, whose age-related lapses are an affecting part of Hendricks Simon’s multi-dimensional performance, Alina’s own domestic life is threatening to come undone. While she loves Moses, or maintains that she does, she has found herself having an affair with poet and novelist Martin (Ken King), about whom she has similarly conflicted feelings, and whose possessive passion and alpha masculinity present a sharp contrast to amiable IT worker Moses. The assertive physicality in scenes between King and Cohn fruitfully complements the sense skillfully created in scenes between Cohn and Feil of a sort of polite marital machine chugging along atop an expanding void of distance between its partners. Throughout, the sound and lighting design is put to subtle, even sparing, but quite effective use to generate unease, suggest confusion, and more, while the set design hints at a mesh of neural pathways as much as it does a network of roots.

Ken King as Martin, Charlotte Cohn as Alina. Photo by Steven Pisano.

This is not a time of peace makes clear the consonance between McCarthy’s language of internal enemies and the political rhetoric of today (“Communist” has retained its place among those enemy ranks by morphing into the more nebulous “socialist”). Alongside but inextricable from such linkages are its insightful explorations of guilt, betrayal, and fractured senses of belonging, as well as of the strength to do what we can for others/the Othered. Alina says that things only seem to end, and This is not a time of peace can be one of those things for anyone who sees it.

This is not a time of peace

Written by Deb Margolin
Directed by Jerry Heymann
Presented by New Light Theater Project at Theatre Row
410 W 42nd Street, Manhattan, NYC
February 20-March 16, 2024

THE FLATLANDERS World Premiere at 1812 Productions in Philadelphia, PA

Running January 25 – February 18th, get your tickets HERE.

Susan Gurman and Bruce Graham at The Flatlanders at 1812 Productions in Philadelphia, PA

“Childs and Greer’s comic skills have only grown with time, and they give ample evidence here of their status as Philadelphia living treasures”

-Philadelphia Magazine

The Flatlanders
Written by Bruce Graham
Starring Jennifer Childs and Scott Greer

Directed by Matt Pfeiffer

A Poconos blizzard puts a chill on a couple’s relationship in this brisk comedic romp. Stuck in a cabin belonging to total strangers, “flatlanders” Ronnie and Michael uncover truths, secrets, and new ways to heat things up between them. But will their relationship weather the storm?

Learn more here.

Review: How Will the World End? Fire, Ice or Water? In Flood at Shattered Globe, the Answer Is Water

By Nancy S Bishop for Third Coast Review

Shattered Globe Theatre’s new play, Flood, is about family issues—parents who don’t understand their children, children who never call home, elderly parents who ignore the realities of today’s world. There may be nothing new about that, but the clever script by Mashuq Mushtaq Deen starts a smart, lightning-quick conversation about the looming climate disaster. The result is an entertaining play that will make you wince in recognition of its righteousness.

Flood is skillfully directed by Kenneth Prestininzi. His staging creates dueling scenes between parents Edith and Darren, apparently living in the 1950s, and adult son and daughter Edith Junior and Darren Junior, in today’s world—or in the future. In their world, the water is rising, rising, rising but Edith (Linda Reiter) and Darren (H.B. Ward) can’t see that from their 19th floor apartment. Darren is obsessively building his wooden matchstick masterpiece and ignores Edith’s pleas for him to finish so they can have a cup of tea, sit side by side, and look out the window at their beautiful view. 

Meanwhile, Darren Junior (Carl Collins) and Edith Junior (Sarah Patin) call home on the available tin-can phone system and desperately ask to talk to their father. But Darren is too busy and will call later, after he finishes his masterpiece.

Linda Reiter and H.B. Ward. Photo by Liz Lauren.

Playwright Deen’s script features plenty of examples of theater of the absurd and may even remind you of Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth with its climate disaster theme. His stage directions specify that Darren wears a mask that covers most of his face; the playwright notes that the mask is “something we see and he does not.” At times during the play, the wall behind Darren’s worktable becomes a window that displays clouds, a heavy rainstorm or other inclement weather. (Projection design is by Smooch Medina.) 

Chicago theater veterans Reiter (London Road, Rose) and Ward (Rock n Roll, Chimerica) provide compelling, realistic performances as Edith and Darren. (I almost didn’t recognize Ward without his mustache.) Collins’ and Patin’s roles are smaller but give them the opportunity to display their comic talents. 

Lauren Nichols’ scenic design perfectly represents a mid-century living room (that starburst wall clock!), properly lit by Jared Gooding. Danny Rockett’s sound design, which we always appreciate in his role as resident sound designer at Trap Door Theatre, brings eerie and watery sounds as the flood approaches. Yvonne Miranda’s costume designs are especially clever in preparing Edith and Darren Junior for the watery end of the world. I also admired her choice of Edith’s spectator pumps.

Carl Collins and Sarah Patin. Photo by Liz Lauren.

Deen’s script shows his talent for sharp, witty dialogue and realistic character conflict. His other plays include The Betterment Society, The Vessel and The Shaking Earth. Director Prestininzi directed Flood in its world premiere at Kansas City Rep in 2022; Chicago actors Laura Fisher and Matt DeCaro starred. He teaches at Connecticut College and the National Theater Institute and has directed plays across the US and in other countries. 

Flood by Shattered Globe Theatre continues through March 9 at Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont. Running time is 90 minutes with no intermission. Tickets are $15-$52 for performances Thursday-Sunday. Buy tickets and get more info at sgtheatre.org or call the Theater Wit box office at 773-975-8150,

For more information on this and other plays, see theatreinchicago.com.