Playwright: Ensemble

At: Studio Theater, Chicago Cultural Center

Phone: (773) 486-8261; $10

Runs through: Dec. 20

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Believe me, the title of this ‘ensemble-created show about personhood’ is its most provocative aspect. What we have here is a collection of banal rites of passage experienced by young American girls and women. Those looking for innovation, freshness, or a new outlook on femininity or growing up should kindly look elsewhere. The all-female, six-member ensemble takes us through a slow 50 minutes, touching on such run-of-the-mill milestones as menstruation, growing breasts (naturally), relationships with the opposite sex, eating disorders, and sisterhood, in the universal sense.

Now, that’s not to say such material is intrinsically dull. The universality of the commonplace can often be gripping, funny, and poignant, as it hits home with all of us. But if you’re going to build a theatrical piece around these rather pedestrian passages, you need to bring to it some fresh perspective, a unique vision, and a clear and engaging voice. This Adler Danztheatre Project production does none of this.

The press material promises a program of ‘poetry, dance, text, music, and movement.’ All are present here. But the poetry is of the rhyming, high-school level of depth and execution. The dance is no better than what one can see on the dance floor at any club on Saturday night. Worse, the dance is accompanied mostly by recordings of bland Top-40 style music. The ‘text’ and ‘movement’? Well, those things exist in any play … one needs to do something creative with them to make an audience sit up and take notice.

Under Kerensa Peterson’s seemingly non-existent direction (one has the sense that the performers directed themselves; and such direction is often self-indulgent and not critical), the show meanders through its topics without a clear through-line. The ensemble itself is game enough—and they’re out there with big grins and an obvious desire to give their all to the show—are not accomplished performers, although some of them demonstrate potential for more finished talent down the road, in particular Claudia Walters, who seems to have a firmer reign on her abilities and limitations than the rest of the cast.

I had hoped for more from this feminine-centric, multi-media piece, perhaps something along the lines of the annual (and very good) Estrogen Fest. These women need to take some time to attend the next incarnation of that performance piece … to see how it’s done.