Nelson Algren: For Keeps and A Single Day Review

Four Stars

CHICAGO - The only problem with Nelson Algren: For Keeps and a Day is the play's title. Not only doesn't it make much sense, it's beside the point. This show by the Lookingglass Theatre does use Algren's words, but it's not about the author, it's about the city of Chicago, and a remarkable show it is.

The Lookingglass is presenting the 70-minute performance piece at the Museum of Contemporary Art, just a block away from the company's normal home at the Water Tower. This is the first live theatrical presentation I've seen at the MCA that effectively utilized the museum's auditorium.

Nelson Algren is a multi-media work that combines Algren's lyrical writings about Chicago with film images created by Lookingglass ensemble member John Musial. Algren's texts were taken from his long 1951 essay 'Chicago: City on the Make' and a 1973 collection of short stories called 'The Last Carousel.' The show features Thomas J. Cox in a dazzling performance as Algren. He's the only live actor on the stage, delivering Algren's language in a continuous stream of poetic prose. Cox nails all the rhythms and nuances of Algren's language with such fluency and such narrative vigor that the audience is liable to take the stunning performance for granted. The actor and the words are wedded together in a seamless whole of complete understanding. The memory work by itself must be daunting. The expressive rendering of the text is astonishing.

The play is an impressionistic collage of Chicago history, Algren's autobiography, and word pictures of the city and its people and places. The presentation echoes Carl Sandberg's 1914 free verse poem 'Chicago,' celebrating the 'hog butcher' of the world. It¹s a tough love valentine to the city that Algren wrote. He celebrated the city's spirit and the richness of its diverse population. He also recognized Chicago as a city of gangsters, hustlers, and corrupt politicians, the city of the 1919 Chicago Black Sox and of prostitutes who overdose on heroine in cold dingy apartments.

The format of the show is simple. Cox delivers Algren's texts either sitting in front of a typewriter at an old desk or while roaming the stage. The film images are projected onto a large square of white fabric, and Cox periodically pulls smaller curtains of cloth across the stage so we frequently are watching two sets of film images at the same time.

Much of Musial's film is a cityscape of Chicago, always in gritty black and white and often at night. There are autobiographical interludes, especially of Algren as a boy from the South Side who moves to the North Side and the culture shock that entails. There are mini scenes from his youth and adolescence that look like authentic candid camera film shots. The scenes were actually filmed with local actors but their appearance is always persuasive in their portrayals of time and place, specifically Chicago in the early years of the 20th century.

The play has the spontaneous quality of a jazz performance, enhanced by on-stage musicians Kevin O'Donnell (percussion) and Bob Lovecchio (bass), who lay down a swinging, and sometimes dramatic, carpet of background jazz sounds composed by David Pavkovic.

The synchronicity between Musial's film and Cox's words is brilliant. And for all the lyricism of the language and images, the play never turns pretentious or obscure. The result is a comprehensive and convincing portrait of Chicago, warts and all. But it¹s a Chicago Algren obviously loves: 'Once you've become part of this particular patch, you'll never love another.' Nelson Algren thematically is a site specific show for Chicago audiences, audiences who are likely to recognize the names of the streets and the names of the ball players and the political figures that flow throughout the evening. An outsider can still enjoy the play without recognizing a name like Edward Hanrahan, but this is 70 minutes directed at viewers who are generally, if not intimately, familiar with the sights and sounds and personalities of the city.

Nelson Algren ultimately is a kind of small classic. Customers are urgently advised to attend the show during its short MCA run because the production is unthinkable without Thomas J. Cox and who knows if Cox will ever return to the vehicle? Let's just be grateful he's with us now.