Playwright: Bruce Norris
At: Steppenwolf, 1650 N. Halsted
Phone: (312) 335-1650; $20-$60
Runs through: Aug. 28
When one of the funniest moments of a play occurs when a perky Grandma exclaims, ‘I had chlamydia once!’ you know you’re in for some dark, dark comedy. Playwright Bruce Norris’ main literary currency is the darkest of dark humor, paired with cutting social commentary. This is the third Norris play I’ve seen at Steppenwolf (the other two were Purple Heart and We All Went Down to Amsterdam) and each of them was marked by the blackest of humor, the kind of stuff that makes you laugh with a kind of uncomfortable giddiness. Norris always makes you wonder, ‘Should I really be laughing at this? It’s terrible, just terrible, what’s happening to these folks.’ But you can’t help yourself.
The Pain and the Itch is no exception. In Norris’ most finely honed and sharply crafted play that I’ve seen, this hugely comic and hugely disturbing look at a Lincoln Park family puts Norris in a class with Edward Albee. His ear for dialogue, for the absurd, and for family discord and the rot that lurks beneath the surface put him squarely in the same league, i.e. great contemporary American dramatist.
The Pain and the Itch begins with an innocent disruption in a yuppie family of four: something has been gnawing on the avocados left out on the kitchen table. Worries of critter infestation plague stay-at-home Dad, Clay (Zak Orth in a richly textured, pull-out-all-the-stops performance) and corporate wife and mom, Kelly (an appropriately cold, brittle Mariann Mayberry). Clay and Kelly aren’t the types to look for easy, obvious solutions, which is part of their problem: they overanalyze everything and have no idea what it means to communicate. These failings, along with a general sense of entitlement and self-righteousness, are what mark this couple. Their daughter, Kayla (Darragh Quinn Dolan) is a five-year-old with a problem: a pain and an itch ‘down there.’ Because the family keeps a lot of explosive secrets lying around the house (none of which I will reveal here; part of the momentum and power of this play lie in its talent for exposing layer after rotten layer), the child’s pain, and her itch, don’t get the attention they should. But Kayla’s problem isn’t the only cause for concern in the household: an immigrant cab driver, Mr. Hadid (James Vincent Meredith) has come to call, looking to the couple for recompense for the tragic and avoidable loss of his wife, a loss to which the couple is connected. Norris shifts cleverly back and forth in time between time spent with Mr. Hadid and a holiday meal in which the rest of the clan is trotted out, in all their maleficent splendor, mother Carol (an amazing and mesmerizing Jayne Houdyshell), brother Cash (Tracy Letts, in a role he was seemingly born to play the fit is so snug), and Cash’s Eastern European girlfriend, Kalina (an honest, provocative Kate Arrington). Norris and director Anna Shapiro merge the two time frames perfectly, winnowing them down to disturbing revelations that all fit together.
This is the kind of fine, inspired display that gives Steppenwolf its stature. You’d be hard pressed to find a new work more entertaining, troubling, and accomplished on a stage anywhere else this summer.