An old man is talking to his young adult son. They clearly love each other but they are arguing. We come to find the younger man was adopted by the older one. We come to realize the younger man is a ghost. They are arguing about whether the old man should accept money offered by the government to close the books on the police killing of his other child. Who may or may not actually be dead.
Emerging out of this elliptical and emotionally charged scenario, which takes place on the mostly bare stage of Steppenwolf’s Ensemble Theatre, is Windfall, Tarell Alvin McCraney’s deeply moving new play, which serves as a galvanizing cri de coeur that had much of Sunday’s opening-night audience in full participatory mode.
The energy was raw, unsettled, in need of justice and healing in the face of police-state tactics and the exploitative forces of late-stage capitalism on an unreasoning quest to grind most everyone down, especially the already down and out.
The plot of the story, allegorical and sometimes surreal, isn’t the point. The plot against the people is: calling it out, literally shining a light on it, rallying resistance to it, providing a modicum of hope that standing up can make some kind of difference.
It’s also often quite funny, with much of the humor delivered by Glenn Davis, as the son, Marcus, and by Alana Arenas, who, in a nod to A Christmas Carol, plays three government functionaries out to persuade and then cajole the righteous Henri “Mr. Mano” Tamaño (Michael Potts, riveting) into taking payment for the death of his beloved Eli (a soulful and clear-eyed Esco Jouléy), who was reportedly killed while leading a group protesting a wrongful arrest. Sometimes the events of life are so grim, you have to find a way to laugh.
This is a play, stripped to the essentials by director Awoye Timpo, very much of and for the extraordinary time we find ourselves living through. It delivers some catharsis, yes, but more than that, it lingers in your mind, a humming reminder that what is happening all around us is not okay, that we are not okay, and that something soon will have to give.
Windfall runs through May 31 at Steppenwolf Theatre.
For a full roundup of reviews of this show, visit Theatre in Chicago.
Photo by Michael Brosilow
