Playwright: Regina Taylor. At: Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn. Phone: 312-443-3800; $25-$78. Runs through: Feb. 20
The recent success of Steppenwolf’s August: Osage County and their current production of Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? having affirmed audiences’ tolerance for long sits in service of intricate Dickensian yarns, Regina Taylor’s “trilogy” may yet become the single play-in-three-acts it wants to be. As it is now, in its present incarnation, the literary structure is that of a two-parter-with-epilogue, even as its dramatic arc is that of a one-act bookended by both a prequel and sequel.
The first segment (or chapter, or episode), titled Jar Fly, introduces the women of the Spears clan in 1978: brainy 17-year-old Iris, whose single-mom Rose is away for the summer acquiring the education that leads to managerial salaries, leaving her daughter in the care of jovial Aunt Daisy, risk-taking cousin Jasmine and earthy step-uncle Ray. After precisely the kind of domestic trauma we expect of such shared-family dynamics, we proceed to 1995 and Rain, where we learn of Iris’ successful writing career and failed marriage, all of which pale when Rose is diagnosed with cancer. It remains for Ghoststory, the last of the plays, to reconcile Iris with her mother’s death and the secrets that continue to haunt her surviving kin.
No matter how you slice this text into easy-to-digest portions (did I mention Iris’ identification with cicadas, or the flower garden that might explain the family’s curious naming of its female children?), there’s still no denying the cozy appeal of tough women and clueless men enduring trials to emerge triumphant, both physically and spiritually. As portrayed by a carefully-selected cast under Ethan McSweeny’s direction, Taylor’s characters are uniformly endearing—even the villains, before the plot demands that they behave badly. Steven Cahill’s thunderstorms and Tyler Micoleau’s sunrises generate the requisite shock and awe, while Todd Rosenthal’s replication of a well-tended home with yard and patio in northern Texas exerts a powerful attraction on citizens chafing under a snowy Chicago winter.
Trinity River is, fundamentally, the saga of an author searching for her “voice”, its climax occurring when she suddenly finds herself at a complete and terrifying loss for the words that are her solace and protection—an abandonment that Taylor need never fear. With the exception of some protracted phantom conversation in the final moments, hers is a voice capable of conjuring seemingly endless images as lush and vivid as Mama Rose’s flowers in full bloom.