FOOD FOR THE GODS
Anybody interested in discovering the future powerhouses of Chicago theater should board the Jeffery Express and head south. Now. The future David Mamets and John Malkoviches who can put Chicago back in the smack-dab center of the theater universe aren’t plying their craft in some Highland Park basement or walk-up near Broadway and Grace. They’re on East 67th Street and South Chicago, performing some of the city’s most innovative and challenging drama.
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Though quite different in style and content, ETA’s Food for the Gods and Chicago Theatre Company’s The Mojo and the Sayso both address the difficulties of surviving in an increasingly violent and drug-infested urban society where the church no longer provides an antidote. Both plays offer methods to escape an environment where, as novelist John LeCarre puts it, one has to try to be a hero in order to be a decent human being. Neither work is perfect, but both have so much talent, intelligence, and depth they shouldn’t be missed.
Ifatunji’s script masterfully intertwines the commonplace with the supernatural to create an invigorating unpredictability that stretches our vision of reality. He glides with skill from everyday conversation to spiritualism, suggesting the works of August Wilson combined with Latin American magical realism. Moods shift rapidly as Ifatunji tempers moments of profound seriousness with witty dialogue, then undercuts the humor to leave us with jarring moments of tragedy.
Since her son’s death, the mother has turned to religion, lighting candles to his memory in a shrine made out of a red wagon. Her remaining son, Blood, has become paranoid, arming himself with a knife and an unloaded gun. The boy’s father, Acts, considers himself responsible for his son’s death and spends all his waking hours in the family living room rebuilding a vintage automobile with junkyard scraps, promising that one day the three of them will drive out of the house and start a new life.
