In theater, a “misdirection” is when a writer intentionally deludes the viewer, making it look like an opening situation is something other than actually is the case, usually with an imminent plan to rock the audience back on its heels when it finds out the truth. “Mr. Wolf,” the riveting 2015 play from playwright Rajiv Joseph now getting an explosively emotional reboot at the Steppenwolf Theatre, comes with one doozy of an opening con trick.
In the first few minutes, we meet a smart and hyper-articulate teenage girl, Theresa (Emilie Maureen Hanson, whose performance is nothing short of phenomenal), who appears to have survived some kind of apocalypse. Certainly, the caring adult standing next to her, the titular Mr. Wolf (Tim Hopper), seems to view her as a sort of savant or prophet. At Steppenwolf, the designer Walt Spangler uses deftly selected imagery, much of it kinetic, to lead us to believe that we are witnesses to some kind of dystopian, post-apocalyptic scenario. You know, a la “The Last of Us.”
But we soon see this show actually is offering a vista of a chain of events all too familiar. We come to see that Theresa was abducted as a small child and removed from her family. For years.
“Mr. Wolf” is a play not so much about how and why that happened, but what it did to Theresa and those who love her. Most specifically, it explores the prospect and actuality of her return, which is as terrifying for everyone involved as it is an unparalleled relief.
All of that probably makes “Mr. Wolf” sound like a tough watch. Certainly, it’s no comedy, but it is a strikingly affirmative and humanistic work that any parent in the theater will easily relate to their own situation, even one that appears blessedly far removed. My head went to all kinds of places: What if you were gone from your child for so long, they became a stranger? What if they preferred (or prefer) being away from you? Would the return of a missing child end the trauma of the loss? Or would your anger at the lost time constantly eat away at your soul?
In Joseph’s strikingly credible scenario, Theresa’s parents (played by Kate Arrington and Namir Smallwood) have divorced, driven apart, it seems, by the loss of their daughter. Smallwood’s dad, Michael, has remarried Julie (Caroline Neff), a woman who already knows loss and thus Joseph is able to write about a stepmother’s complex set of third-wheel feelings in this kind of scenario as the man she loves essentially re-navigates and renegotiates the past.
At times, “Mr. Wolf,” with its concise focus on parents and children and on such existential questions, put me in mind of David Lindsay-Abaire’s “Rabbit Hole,” a fantastic play that also deals with the loss of a child and explores the existential question of whether moving on from a tragedy means erasure of the lost. But that play litigates the past; this one has the pulse of present change.
-
Tim Hopper and Emilie Maureen Hanson in “Mr. Wolf” at Steppenwolf Theatre. (Michael Brosilow)
1 of 4
Tim Hopper and Emilie Maureen Hanson in “Mr. Wolf” at Steppenwolf Theatre. (Michael Brosilow)
I really can’t praise K. Todd Freeman’s direction here enough. The veteran Steppenwolf ensemble member is primarily known as an actor, and a very fine one, so he has directed in Chicago only infrequently. But there is something truly special about how beautifully his measured, precisely calibrated and avowedly unsentimental production unspools on a gorgeously kinetic Steppenwolf set.
In scene after scene, we watch Theresa talking and feeling up a storm (something this remarkable young actress can do), even as Freeman has his adult actors hanging back physically in any shadow they can find, searching for words, watching intensely and often collapsing in on themselves as they try to figure out what life now demands of them. I found all four of these adult actors moving in different ways at different moments; in particular, Smallwood’s palpable expression of his inarticulate character’s pain sits with me as I write.
That is very much what Smallwood is known to do. But Neff is far more minimalist and controlled than usually is her style, but she is in a production here that is wholly unafraid of quiet. And she shows you the inside of every last feeling, all the more potent because she is playing a woman who does not know what she is actually allowed to feel. You see the wordless moment when jealousy rears its ugly head and you see what Neff’s character goes through in order to bat that away, as she knows she should.
Arrington and Hopper have similar moments from different points of view. Overall, this is the kind of gut-wrenching acting we all expect from Steppenwolf, and Freeman maintains a consistent tone of honestly representing the feelings of those living through chaos, those trying to physically hold it together in the face of disruptive change. Meanwhile, the set, like the world, only spins forward. These fine actors show you characters who always seem in danger of falling off its edge. The palpable emotional tension for 85 minutes flows from you so badly wanting that not to happen.
The production is exquisitely cast. Frankly, this is the best directed show at Steppenwolf in all kinds of important ways since well before the pandemic and the theater really should be focused on finding Freeman more shows to direct. It might sound perverse to say that “Mr. Wolf” is welcome at the door of the ‘Wolf, but shows like this exploring human coping mechanisms with such detailed compassion and even-handed understanding will always be essential to life in our great city.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
cjones5@chicagotribune.com
Review: “Mr. Wolf” (4 stars)
When: Through Nov. 2
Where: Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted St.
Running time: 1 hour, 25 minutes
Tickets: $20-$133.50 at 312-335-1650 and steppenwolf.org
