**** Sam Shepard, as a playwright is quite gritty. His characters are for the most part people who are undereducated and for the most part, people that are what you might call under achievers. Sam Shepard’s “A LIE OF THE MIND” follows two families, connected by marriage, as they grapple with the pain and fear of loving and living. Famous for his imagery, language, and tour-de-force roles for actors, Shepard’s plays dig deep into the ideas of family, destiny, and American idealism.Raven Theatre’s production, sharply directed by Azar Kazemi, on an interesting set designed by Lauren M. Nichols, allows us to see several different locations, and yet switch from one to another with no lost time. In this production they have made one of the families involved immigrants, thus adding an Immigrant story on top of the already searing critique of the American Dream at the heart of this American Classic.
At the onset of the story, Jake ( deftly handled by Ian Maryfield) calls his brother Frankie ( played to perfection by John Drea) that he has injured his wife Beth ( Gloria Imseih Petrelli) and that he may have killed her. Frankie cannot believ that this is the case and vows to help him find her. Meanwhile, Jake goes home to his mother Lorraine ( the always relaible Meighan Gerachis) and sister, Sally ( Jocelyn Maher), where we watch Jake slowly lose his mind over what his life has become.
Meanwhile Frankie heads out to find Beth. We see Beth for the first time in the hospital recovering from the beating and her brother Mike (Arash Fakhrabadi) prepares her to go home to their parents. While Beth and Mike appear to be immigrants, as does their mother Meg ( played to perfection by Joan Nahid), their father, Baylor ( Rom Barkhordar) appears to be very down home southern, a man who prefers hunting deer to doing anything else and who complains about anything and everything.
What takes place during this two act, two hour-fifteen minutes of action ( there is a 15 minute intermission) is all about what we think we see and feel compared to what is actually taking place. The brain is quite fragile and once set off in the wrong direction, we tend to lose control of what we think. In this case, Beth finds that Frankie, who appears to care more about her welfare than her husband, might be the right man for him. Jake knows that he must get away from the power of his mother and uses his sister to do so. Baylor finds that everyone around him is different and finds that his wife is in fact the love of his life and not a servant. While there are some confusing moments in this story, it is Sam Shepard’s work and with this interpretation we see the American Dream through different eyes than normal.
The sound (Thomas Dixon) and lighting (Liz Gomez) worked well with the props (Jamie Auer) and the fight choreography by Stephanie Mattos, effective.
“A Lie of The Mind” will continue Thru – Mar 22nd with performances as follows:
Thursdays:7:30pm
Fridays:7:30pm
Saturdays:7:30pm
Sundays:3:00pm
Show Type: Drama
Box Office: 773-338-2177
The Raven Theatre is located at 6157 N. Clark Street ( at Granville) in Chicago
Some parking in adjacent lot- street parking available- Bus stop right at door
To see what others are saying, visit www.theatreinchicago.com, go to Review Round-Up and click at “A Lie of The Mind”.
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