Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Court Theatre’s perfectly-acted revival of August Wilson’s TWO TRAINS RUNNING is theater at its most life-giving

• By drediman
• June 4, 2022
• No Comments

My theater-going winning streak in Chicago continued with the sensational revival of August Wilson’s Two Trains Running by the Court Theatre. Located on the South Side of the city on the stately campus of the prestigious University of Chicago (my alma mater once upon a time), the Court has long been in my opinion one of the undisputed jewels of the robust Chicago theater scene. In fact, it was recently announced that the company is the well deserved recipient of this year’s Regional Theater Tony Award for its continued excellence in breathing invigorating life into classics. The current Two Trains Running revival continues the theater company’s ongoing journey – thanks largely to the effort and vision of director Ron OJ Parson – to stage every work in Wilson’s monumental 10-play cycle depicting the African American experience in the 20th century (the playwright wrote a play set in each decade).

Written in 1990, Two Trains Running takes place in 1968 in a run-down diner in the Hill District neighborhood of Pittsburgh, the city in which nine out of the ten plays of the cycle are set. The play depicts a fast-deteriorating city in which denizens are struggling to scrape by (if at all) and keep their heads above water. Each moment of the rich and sprawling play seems conscious of the fluidly alternating desperation and fleeting joys that make up the fabric of life. There’s always been muscular musicality and gorgeous texture in Wilson’s language, but I think it reached an apotheosis in this play. Indeed, the text is loose, poetic, and confident – just like jazz – giving the characters the room to breathe and get under your skin by simply being. It’s a work that people may not be as familiar with as the playwright’s Fences, The Piano Lesson, or Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, but it absolutely deserves to be.

In short, the revival is perfectly acted by a company of actors who are well-versed in the Wilson canon. Two actors in particular – the commanding Chicago stalwarts Alfred H. Wilson (as Holloway) and A.C. Smith (as Memphis) – are masterful in the way they handle Wilson’s language, expertly riding its waves with laid-back ease and thorough authenticity. Other standouts in the superb ensemble include the deeply melancholic Kierra Bunch and the restless Jerod Haynes as the play’s central romantic couple; it was a joy to behold their characters’ cat-and-mouse courtship. I’ve seen a number of Mr. Parson’s revivals of Wilson plays at the Court Theatre, and this simply adorned yet beautifully calibrated staging of Two Trains Running may just be his crowning achievement to date. It’s theater at its most life-giving.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

TWO TRAINS RUNNING
Regional, Play
Court Theatre
2 hours, 30 minutes (with one intermission)
Through June 12