No sooner did Ian Barford lay claim to most distinctive lead performance in Steppenwolf’s 50th season than Jeff Perry said, Hold my schnapps! Perry’s offbeat take on the mercurial Captain in Conor McPherson’s adaptation of August Strindberg’s The Dance of Death took the audience on a memorably wild ride during Saturday’s opening.
When I say that Perry’s singular portrayal of Edgar was like watching Mr. Furley-era Don Knotts wreaking havoc on this grotesquely comic spiritual precursor to Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? please know that’s not a condemnation. Full of physical and verbal tics and abrupt tonal shifts that somehow add up to a fully realized character, it’s a performance worth seeing. I suspect it will resonate with me for years. (I’d love to know how close a collaboration with director Yasen Peyankov these borderline-absurdist character choices reflected; one can easily see him taking a similar approach to the role.)
Meanwhile, Kathryn Erbe’s Alice calmly patrols Collette Pollard’s foreboding stone-tower set like a sniper, getting off crack comedic shots in counterpoint to her loose-cannon husband as they contemplate the upcoming 25th anniversary of their disastrously unhappy marriage and navigate the petty military politics of a Swedish coastal island defensive fortress tied to the mainland by only a ferry and a telegraph line.
The arrival of Alice’s cousin Kurt, in a comic-foil role capably executed by Cliff Chamberlain fresh off his enjoyable turn in the Affleck-Damon Netflix thriller The Rip, both raises the dramatic stakes and gives these sharks fresh chum to feed on. (Kurt would find a lot of common ground with Martin in Fool For Love, which Chamberlain nailed on this stage last year.)
Are there tonal issues? Yes and no. It’s hard to see Perry’s Edgar as the string-pulling tyrant Alice makes him out to be, but despite some indications that he truly is a formidable force in the garrison, it’s easy enough to chalk up the disparity between the fearsome reputation and the blowhard we see to the fact that Alice isn’t exactly a reliable narrator.
In truth, none of these characters, including Kurt, are quite what they appear to be at the outset. Peeling back the layers until we see them in all their bleak glory is half the fun, with the other half lying in the funhouse mirror the play holds up to what makes a long-term marriage tick.
The Dance of Death runs through March 22 at Steppenwolf Theatre.
For a full roundup of reviews of this show, visit Theatre in Chicago.
Photo by Michael Brosilow
