STRANGE SNOW
It’s the strangest coincidence: in both these living-room dramas a male character expresses his uncontrollable anger by putting his fist through a window. At face value, this show of passion might be a symptom of an uninventive playwright. Thankfully, these two plays both use simple story structure and standard conventions of drama with intelligence and charm.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
In Strange Snow, author Steve Metcalfe serves a meat-and-potatoes tale that is so simple structurally it seems criminal. David, a truck driver and Vietnam vet who drinks too much, lives with his sister Martha, a middle-school teacher on the road to spinsterhood. Into their somewhat unhealthy relationship comes Megs, a good ol’ boy mechanic who was in the war with David. Martha is taken by Megs’s rustic charm and simple romanticism, but David claims Megs is unpredictable and dangerous. One indication of this is his habit of smashing windows with his fist. As it turns out Megs is a changed man, gentle and sympathetic, who only wishes to make peace with the ghosts of his past. David, on the other hand, cannot seem to face his demons, and as a result lives in the fading glow of his high school glory days. Megs not only delivers David to his redemption as a human being but saves Martha from the fate of remaining an old maid.
Visionary Theatre Company at Cafe Voltaire
Nevin’s addition of several original between-scenes torch songs (written by Nevin and sung well by Jennifer Bradley) is the only really unwise choice in this production. They not only break up the flow of the play but are also filled with cliched lyrics like “You’re killing me though you hold no knife.” What’s odd is that Nevin avoids using cliches when working with an old dramatic structure but can’t help himself with his songs. Go figure.
