Gapers Block has ceased publication.

Gapers Block published from April 22, 2003 to Jan. 1, 2016. The site will remain up in archive form. Please visit Third Coast Review, a new site by several GB alumni.
 Thank you for your readership and contributions. 

TODAY

Thursday, March 28

Gapers Block
Search

Gapers Block on Facebook Gapers Block on Flickr Gapers Block on Twitter The Gapers Block Tumblr


A/C
« Dorian at House Theatre: It's All About the Movement Transcendence, Heaven Is for Real, The Railway Man, Only Lovers Left Alive, The Unknown Known & Hateship Loveship »

Theater Thu Apr 17 2014

Memories Become Questions in The Great God Pan

"If you could kindly remember what we've told you to forget, please," is the undercurrent that takes hold of Jaime (Brett Schneider) in The Great God Pan just as he's settling into a new job as an internet wunderkind journalist and the idea of girlfriend Paige's (Kristina Valada-Vlars) "unplanned" pregnancy. The job is what he lives for, while he is still so unsure of committing to the woman he's been with for six years that upon Paige's pregnancy announcement, Jaime negotiates for "one week, just one week" before he will let her know if he's ready and willing to stay and be a permanent fixture in her and the child's life.

Next Theatre  The Great God Pan
Bret Schneider as Jaime (left) and Matt Hawkins as Frank in The Great God Pan. Photo by Michael Brosilow.

It is only fitting that a "wunderkind" internet writer would find his whole meaning of life and self-doubt hijacked through the omnipotent power of social media. Childhood acquaintance Frank (Matt Hawkins) tracks down Jaime's whereabouts via — well, the same way perhaps every last person in the developed world has been tracked down in the last few years — social media sites. Frank wants to reconnect and meet in person with Jaime, to catch up — which seems odd to Jaime because Frank and his family, the stereotypically "weird" family of the neighborhood — moved away when Jaime was 7, and he barely remembers Frank, except for the lingering memory of 7-year-old Frank's weepiness and neediness, especially when both boys were with babysitter Polly (Margaret Kustermann). But Jaime agrees, perhaps persuaded by Frank's present-day neediness, or Jaime's unacknowledged need to see Frank more than Frank may need to see Jaime.

It's at a neighborhood coffee shop in Jaime's Brooklyn neighborhood where the two men chat over coffee, albeit stammered and forced memories. Mostly the conversation centers on the now dementia-afflicted Polly, whom Frank has visited at her assisted living home. Once what little reminiscing the men can muster dissipates, Frank lays the reason for his visit bare: seems that Frank was sexually abused by his own father, with his mother aware of the abuse. Jaime is empathetic, in a journalist-empathy kind of way. Frank's bomb-drop explains a lot — Frank the almost perpetually crying little boy, his pulling away from the other adults but clinging to Polly, the family being designated as the "weird family" of the neighborhood.

Jaime gives nodding approval to Frank's refusal to no longer be defined by his father's crimes against him, and his mother's "benign" betrayal. Frank plans to sue his father for the harm he inflicted, that harm having nothing to do with Frank's ability to build out a successful relationship with his male partner, but perhaps everything to do with his two prison stints for bad check writing and thefts.

Jaime wonders aloud, "What do you need from me? I don't remember your parents, never went to your house for a play date..." But Frank pushes back, "You don't remember anything?" "Why should I?" What Frank reveals next shakes Jaime to the core, and affects his relationship with his parents, his lover and his own memories.

Playwright Amy Herzog brings out questions that will confound present and future philosophers and social archeologist for ages: how do we repress memories — good and bad, mythologized and ripped to the nerve — in the age of Google? How does one escape the whiny-ass/difficult childhood acquaintances when the moving van you were secretly relieved to see pull away pulls right back in to the driveways of the mind, already junked up with the challenges that it takes to get through the day without completely losing grip?

The social media age and childhood sexual abuse ride in-tandem on one main construct: our ability to control what we remember; to repress "the bad" even when we are the bad. Our Facebook pages are carefully cultivated and pristine, until our bully reaches out, and we're reminded of our past humiliation, even as our bully remembers not their bullying. He/she remembers "the good times," same as Jaime's parents and even Polly, who will only remember and share the pristineness of "the good times."

The cast gives an admirable performance in a complicated and difficult story. Like his character, Frank, skinned alive in his weakness as a child but finding his footing to pursue what is just and place his experience in perspective, actor Matt Hawkins stands out for his steadiness while delivering a thankless message and subsequently holding down what can for the first time be defined clearly as a friend in Jaime. Schneider and Valada-Vlars's scenes hurt to sit through; both deliver solid performances as a couple on the verge. However, Schneider stumbles a little in his opening scenes with Hawkins, pushing the dialogue delivery a little too quickly, and his cadence is more Tucker Carlson than Matt Taibbi. Director Kimberly Senior choreographs the one-act, 75-minute production with genteel and subtle footing, perfect for a subject that walks eggshells when too much weight could crack the whole thing.

Next Theatre Company's The Great God Pan runs through May 11 at the Noyes Cultural Arts Center, 927 Noyes St. in Evanston. Tickets are $30-40 online or through the box office at 847-475-1875 x2.

 
GB store
GB store

Architecture Tue Nov 03 2015

Paul Goldberger Describes the "Pragmatism and Poetry" of Frank Gehry's Architecture in His New Book

By Nancy Bishop

Architecture critic Paul Goldberger talks about Frank Gehry's life and work in a new book.
Read this feature »

Steve at the Movies Fri Jan 01 2016

Best Feature Films & Documentaries of 2015

By Steve Prokopy

Read this column »

Blogroll

ACRE
An Angry White Guy
Antena
AREA Chicago
ArchitectureChicago Plus
Arts Engagement Exchange
The Art Letter
Art or Idiocy?
Art Slant Chicago
Art Talk Chicago
Bad at Sports
Bite and Smile
Brian Dickie of COT
Bridgeport International
Carrie Secrist Gallery
Chainsaw Calligraphy
Chicago Art Blog
Chicago Art Department
Chicago Art Examiner
Chicago Art Journal
Chicago Artists Resource
Chicago Art Map
Chicago Art Review
Chicago Classical Music
Chicago Comedy Examiner
Chicago Cultural Center
Chicago Daily Views
Chicago Film Examiner
Chicago Film Archives
Chicago Gallery News
Chicago Uncommon
Collaboraction
Contemporary Art Space
Co-op Image Group
Co-Prosperity Sphere
Chicago Urban Art Society
Creative Control
Defibrillator
Devening Projects
Digressions
DIY Film
ebersmoore
The Exhibition Agency
The Flatiron Project
F newsmagazine
The Gallery Crawl...
Galerie F
The Gaudy God
Happy Dog Gallery
HollywoodChicago
Homeroom Chicago
I, Homunculus
Hyde Park Artcenter Blog
InCUBATE
Joyce Owens: Artist on Art
J-Pointe
Julius Caesar
Kasia Kay Gallery
Kavi Gupta Gallery
Rob Kozlowski
Lookingglass Theatre Blog
Lumpen Blog
Marquee
Mess Hall
N'DIGO
Neoteric Art
NewcityArt
NewcityFilm
NewcityStage
Not If But When
Noun and Verb
On Film
On the Make
Onstage
Peanut Gallery
Peregrine Program
Performink
The Poor Choices Show
Pop Up Art Loop
The Post Family
The Recycled Film
Reversible Eye
Rhona Hoffman Gallery
Roots & Culture Gallery
SAIC Blog
The Seen
Sharkforum
Sisterman Vintage
Site of Big Shoulders
Sixty Inches From Center
Soleil's To-Do's
Sometimes Store
Steppenwolf.blog
Stop Go Stop
Storefront Rebellion
TOC Blog
Theater for the Future
Theatre in Chicago
The Franklin
The Mission
The Theater Loop
Thomas Robertello Gallery
threewalls
Time Tells Tony Wight Gallery
Uncommon Photographers
The Unscene Chicago
The Visualist
Vocalo
Western Exhibitions
What's Going On?
What to Wear During an Orange Alert?
You, Me, Them, Everybody
Zg Gallery

GB store

 

Events


A/C on Flickr

Join the A/C Flickr Pool.



About A/C

A/C is the arts and culture section of Gapers Block, covering the many forms of expression on display in Chicago. More...
Please see our submission guidelines.

Editor: Nancy Bishop, nancy@gapersblock.com
A/C staff inbox: ac@gapersblock.com

Archives

 

A/C Flickr Pool
 Subscribe in a reader.

GB store

GB Store

GB Buttons $1.50

GB T-Shirt $12

I ✶ Chi T-Shirts $15