Graveyard Shift

[rating=3] “Black Lives Matter!” Over the last decade this phrase has been said, printed and seen more times than I can count. We have also seen countless plays and movies dealing with the topic of how the police, in many cases, either rust to judgment or decide that  their lives are in jeopardy, even if they are not.  In Korde Arrington Tuttle’s “Graveyard Shift”, now in its World Premiere at The Goodman Theatre, we have such a story. Based on the actual events in th elife of Sandra Annette Bland ( 1987-2015), this story directed keenly by  Danya Taymor, we meet a young couple, Kane ( a strong character played to perfection by Debo Balogun) and Janelle ( incredibly brought to life by Anesia J. Hicks. Janelle represents  Ms Bland. We meet them in Chicago, their home, but as they plan to move to Texas, where Janelle will have an opportunity of a lifetime. The excitement is there and we see that this couple is on the way to happiness.

In the small Texas town where they will settle in, we meet three local police officers. Trish ( the always reliable Lia D. Mortensen), who kind of runs the night shift. Her cohorts are  Elise ( Rae Gray, who many of us have watched grow up on Chicago’s stages) and Brian ( Keith D. Gallagher) who feels inadequate being our ranked by a woman. We find out a great deal about these three, their lives and the inner action between them.

One of the things that we need to advise you on is that this play has been in development with the Goodman for several years and is now ready to be truly shown. It is  100 minutes of story-telling that will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very end. As usual, I will not give away any of the end, but will tell you that different audience members will probably see the end differently than their neighbor. I was not impressed with the ending, yet the people next to me loved it. Often, interpretation by the viewer is important.

Some of the incidents of importance in the play and the story is that of the relationship between  Brian , a married man, and Elise. We learn that there is chemistry between them and that she is unhappy with her life and is leaving. She is also with child. Brian is upset over what is going on with his love life in addition to being passed over for promotion by a woman and later takes it out on a woman who he stops for not signaling a move from one lane to another. That woman is Janelle. This scene escalates to something that is hard to imagine, but is the even that truly will have an impact on you.

This woman is Janelle on her way to her new career and what takes place is horrifying and we see exactly what can happen to a person in a situation they are unprepared for. What follows is powerful story-telling and highly emotional drama. The heavy acting is that brought to the stage by Hicks and Balogun . All five of the cast memebrs bring great energy to the stage, but this couple are amazingly strong.

The Owen Theatre is laid out so that the audience is very close to the action. In fact, so close that I felt I could reach out and touch them. Kristen Robinson’s set is designed for ease of moving from scene to scene in order to keep the atory moving. The lighting (Marcus Doshi) and sound /original music ( Richard Woodbury) work to perfection and the costumes by Montana Levi Blanoc were very fitting. I guess one of the surprises is when the stage opens up and we watch Janelle descend into the pit. It sounds like water, but we are never sure exactly where she went. This was the flaw in what I saw along with her final scene with Kane to end the story.

“Graveyard Shift” will continue thru March 8th with performances as follows:

Stage: Owen Theatre

Show Type: Drama

Box Office: 312-443-3800

www.goodmantheatre.org

Goodman is located at 170 N. Dearborn Street

ACCESSIBILITY PERFORMANCES:

3/1 touch-tour  12:30

audio described  3/1 at 2 p.m.

ASL Interpreted  3/7 2 p.m.

Open Caption  3/8  2 p.m.

More info visit www.GoodmanTheatre.org/access

To see what others are saying, visit www.theatreinchicago.com, go to Review Round-Up and click at “Graveyard Shift”.