Review: ‘The Cave' at A Red Orchid Theatre is about an Ohio family at the start of the Gulf War
I don't know precisely how much of what happens in 'The Cave,' the interesting new show at Chicago's storied A Red Orchid Theatre, really happened to Sadieh Rifai, but this talented actress and playwright has been working long enough in Chicago theater for me to know that this is at least partly based on her childhood story. Although this world premiere is her first full-blown play, a small part of Rifai's biography showed up a decade ago in Stephen Karam's unforgettable American Theater Company drama 'The Humans.'
In 'The Cave,' it's 1990, the year Iraq's Saddam Hussein invaded neighboring Kuwait and the Gulf War began. We're in a gated community of homes in Columbus, Ohio, in the kitchen of a family of four. Dad is Jamil (H. Adoni Esho), a newly arrived Ohioan of Palestinian origins who is finding that both a past family tragedy and threatening geopolitical issues can find their way to central Ohio and through his front door. Mom is Bonnie (Kirsten Fitzgerald) and Noor (Milla Liss) and Dema (Aaliyah Montana) are the couple's two daughters, recently relocated in a hurry from Las Vegas and dealing with things teen girls always have to deal with, along with a good deal more that someone in middle or high school shouldn't ever have to worry about.
Rifai seems to be following an 'August: Osage County' template to some degree and surely knows she has one of Chicago's best acting ensembles at her disposal. She also introduces other eccentric characters: the girl's gritty Uncle Neil (Guy Van Swearingen in a knockout turn), their grandparents (played by John Judd and Natalie West, no less), a nosy, Ohio-type neighbor (Ashley Neal) and Omar (Omer Abbas Salem), a man who might change this family forever.
The family joshing and loving is great fun here; both Liss and Montana are terrific, live-wire young performers, thanks surely in part to Alex Mallory's direction, and Rifai has given them a banquet of vibrant lines. I'm not sure which of the two is her alter ego, probably both of them, but she surely understands what it is to be the child of an immigrant from the West Bank, in all of its complexity. I've long loved the warmth and empathy Rifai brought to her acting so it's no surprise that her play has much the same qualities. It's alive and honest and you pull for this family, as you should.
Less successful is the part of the play dealing with Jamil'spast, which doesn't always track or offer the right level of moment-by-moment tension and clarity. I think that's because Rifai never really decided whether this is a show fundamentally about the lives of two girls or about their father's journey, and thus a work that really delves into the political history of the 1990s and the roiling Gulf War. She goes for all of the above, but it's hard to pull off; at times, the mysterious phone calls and the like feel like mere background to the depiction of young Ohioans coming of age. At other times, they're take over the whole shebang and it's like Rifai is writing a kitchen-table espionage thriller, terrain in which she feels less secure and which would ideally need to roam beyond a Columbus kitchen and into the past.
And, unsurprisingly for a new play, this show would be a lot better if it were 15 minutes shorter.
So, all in all, a most intriguing (and, trust me, moving) work in progress from one of Chicago's most gifted artists, put on by a generous creative ensemble that did everything in its considerable power to bring her vision to life. Maybe aside from asking a couple of the harder questions, but there's still time.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
cjones5@chicagotribune.com
Review: 'The Cave' (3 stars)
When: Through March 16
Where: A Red Orchid Theatre, 1531 N. Wells St.
Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes
Tickets: $35-$50 at 312-943-8722 and aredorchidtheatre.org
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