Opening Statement: Tragic heat and endless rain

By Julian Frazin
Michael Best & Friedrich • Entertainment Critic

May it please the court —

For five years now the Bush administration has been warning us that if we don’t fight ”them over there” (in Iraq), we will have to fight them ”over here.”

But there is an important lesson to be learned from inept responses to recent natural disasters. As the Chicago heat wave during the tragic summer of 1995 demonstrated, the real threat we face is our own neglect, intolerance, and indifference.

As the old comic strip Pogo used to say, ”We have met the enemy and it is us!”

In 2002, Eric Klinenberg, an associate professor of sociology at NYU, and a native of Chicago’s Old Town community, wrote a book entitled, ”Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago,” which documented the loss of 739 lives as the result of temperatures that reached 106 degrees from July 12 to 16.

Now, playwright Steven Simoncic has written a fictional drama, adapted from Klinenberg’s book, which is being presented by Pegasus Players in conjunction with Live Bait Theater, at the O’Rourke Theater at Truman College, 1145 W. Wilson Ave.

Staged against a backdrop of large, gray shelving for the storage of corpses in the examination room of the Cook County Morgue, this excellent production examines the calamity from many perspectives that of the victims, the medical examiners, city health officials, mayoral staff, and the media. The victims were overwhelming the poor, the sick, the old, and the neglected. They were largely racial minorities who remained ”invisible” even as they perished.

As the mayor vacations in Michigan, his staff and the press try to keep the lid on this dire situation as the death toll keeps mounting. Television news reports fail to recognize the crisis, choosing, instead, to chatter on inanely and broadcasting cute scenes of children playing in fountains to keep cool. Meanwhile, the morgue has run out of body bags and the coroner must commandeer refrigerated meat trucks to transport the dead.

One of the most compelling and moving scenes opens the second act.

A young woman, performing court-ordered community service at the morgue, sits in the middle of the floor as other workers come, at first one-by-one, and drop plastic bags containing the personal property and identification of the deceased for her to sort. Soon they are coming at such a pace and with such frequency that she, bewildered and shocked, is literally covered by the bags.

This technique is repeated at the final curtain, as the ‘’sky” opens and a continuous barrage of personal property plastic bags fall to the floor, flooding the stage. These are the meager last remains of 739 of our neighbors.

Heralded as ”one of Chicago’s top ten productions of 2007,” Chicago Dramatists’ ”A Steady Rain,” written by Keith Huff and directed by Russ Tutterow, recently moved into the cabaret performance space at the rear of the Royal George Theatre, 1641 N. Halsted St., where it will remain until its much anticipated move to New York.

The intimate space is a perfect venue for this two-character drama about Chicago police officers, partners and best friends since childhood, who are as different as night and day.No ”Starsky and Hutch,” this is a serious work, set in what appears to be a station house interrogation room. But, here, there are no defendants, only the officers who, instead of taking a statement, give their own to the audience.

In typical good cop/bad cop form, Randy Steinmeyer is Denny, the bad guy. Bitter about being passed over many times for promotion, he feels ”entitled” to take bribes and carry on an affair with a hooker, in spite of having a loving family. He is also one mean SOB.

Joey (Peter DeFaria) is the good guy, although not really. He likes his alcohol a little too much and has an eye for the women. Unfortunately, the one he wants is Denny’s wife.

When a pimp, angered by Denny’s attention to his hooker, has a brick thrown through Denny’s living room window, critically injuring his son, Denny metes out his own brand of street justice and all hell breaks loose.

This is story made for the movies. It has it all lust, jealousy, betrayal, violence, revenge, and rage. It takes you across the city the good neighborhoods and the bad ones. The car chase. The shootout. The endless rain. And it all is told by just two guys sitting at a table in a room that they never leave. And yet you ‘’see” everything; ”feel” every emotion. Amazing.

I rest my case.

Final Verdict:

“Heat Wave”: 3 Gavels

“A Steady Rain”: 4 Gavels