“Hang Man” Review – A Complex and Important Look at Racial Prejudice at The Gift Theatre, Chicago

Martel Manning and Jennifer Glasse in The Gift Theatre's world premiere of HANG MAN
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HANG MAN, written by Stacy Osei-Kuffour and directed by Guest Director Jess McLeod is currently in production by the Gift Theatre, 4802 Milwaukee Ave., Chicago through April 29th, 2018. The play, launching Gift’s 17th season, is a world premiere, and according to Artistic Director Michael Patrick Thornton, it is framed in a voice that is “singular, bold, decisive and humorous,” a piece that “demands to be experienced right now”.

Scenic design by Arnel Sanciano, costumes by Alarie Hammock, lighting by Mike Durst, sound design by Stephen Ptacek and violence and intimacy design by Rachel Flesher work together with strong direction by McLeod to create an important story of suffering, hatred and prejudice in an area of America untouched by political correctness, let alone resurrected by The Reconstruction.

Absurdity and deeply dark humor combine to produce a chilling vision of a community’s complicit acquiescence to racial violence, women’s anguish, childhood’s end and the tragedy of lives lived without grace or beauty, and seemingly without mercy.

Angela Morris and Paul D’Addario in The Gift Theatre’s world premiere of HANG MAN

The community of a backwoods- and backwards- little Southern town deals with the aftermath of a confounding death. A Black man is found hanging; as the story develops, we witness the transformation of the community, from incredulity and wonder, through a journey of comprehension, to a joining of their own roles in this terrible modern lynching and other violent acts.

Featuring Paul D’Addario in a stunning performance as the twisted, enraged Archie; Andy Fleischer as the struggling, fearful Wipp; Gregory Fenner as the tortured soul upon whose dependence the entire plot hinges; Angela Morris as the fascinating and multi-layered Margarie, who is determinedly fixated on self-transcendence; Martel Manning and Jennifer Glasse, whose unlikely pairing as Jahaad and Sage creates, with Mariah Sydnei Gordon as G, a newer and truer family. The acting was almost scary in its stark pastiche of the human condition in all its twisted shapes. Certain characters pathology is relentlessly explored, while others seem as blatantly obvious as the atrocious language they use toward each other.

The performance takes off like a house afire and really never lets go until the very end. 85 jam-packed minutes can barely contain the various aspects of the drama, but an intensely and intimately controlled script and perfectly projected personalities take the audience on an inexorable and uncomfortable plummet toward realization and denouement. This is not an easy play to experience, but you will come away, as this reviewer did, with a sense of completion, if not moral victory. In the midst of rampant self-betrayal – because isn’t the despising of any person by any other person an act of self-betrayal? – a miracle transpires.

The Gift Theatre calls itself “the most intimate ensemble in the country” and in the confines of their comfortable up-close space, watching, for example, Margarie try to educate herself about what white Americans have done to their Black brothers, fetishizing, tokenizing, and ultimately uniting with them, we are joined and made one with the universal saga conjured up before us. The play is highly recommended.

Mariah Sydnei Gordon, Gregory Fenner and Jennifer Glasse in The Gift Theatre’s world premiere of HANG MAN

For information and tickets to all the fine performances by The Gift Theatre, go to thegifttheatre website

All photos by Claire Demos

 

 

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