*** Welcome to Chicago, Wild Door Theater Company. This is a new, young, and vibrant company that will be doing bold stories and unique offerings. They are starting with a tough play with Noah Haidle’s “Smokefall” which is still considered a new work. I believe that the Goodman did a production of this back in 2017 or 2018. The play itself is fairly new, making its debut in 2016/17. FYI- The script itself is 63 pages, meaning that it could be played out as a no intermission production at 105 minutes, but  WildTheater opted to do a two hour production with an intermission.

I will tell you that while I was impressed with this company taking on this unusual play combining realism with a little bit of vaudeville, as well as a family drama that moves about in generations, which might be confusing for many.  Director Andrew Gallant chose to perform the show in an arena type of setting ( certainly not in-the-round) where the stage areas are dead center, almost wall to wall and the audience is seated on the two other sides. There are a few scenes or parts of scenes that are harder to follow doing it this way, as we lose sight of the character talking. As we talk about talking, when I was an actor and director, the importance of projection to the last seat in the last row was of great importance. I felt that this production forgot that rule, and there were several times, where I could see people on the other side turning to the patron next to them to find out what they had missed.

Getting back to the story, one must pay very close attention to what they are seeing and who is who. The members of the cast are great at what they do, but it is often hard to figure out who is who and what generation we are at. The cast includes Isabella Isherwood as Beauty, Lucky Star as several roles including our “narrator”, Vilmarie Rosario as Violet  , Richard Schumaker in several roles, and Andrew Gallant. playing several roles. The set by Spencer Donavan is unique with three major play areas, including a powerful tree in the center, which also serves as something special when we meet the “twins” that are being carried by Violet.This scene is one that you might consider the vaudeville “bit”. While it has a serious ending, it is quite funny along the way.

There are a number of costume changes  (costumes by Saawan Tiwari) as the characters go back and forth in time. I had a problem with Beauty, who appears to be Violet’s daughter. She has a scarf over her eye instead of a patch. Her character is unique in that she eats dirt and searches high and low for the father that left the family years ago. This is a story about family and how with loss they still are able to start all over again. Again, I found myself a little confused by the unfolding of some of the story as I wasn’t sure which generation was which, but on the drive home, as I thought about the overall project, I found a story about love, loss and if nothing else, hope!

“Smokefall” will continue thru – Dec 21st with performances as follows: