Review: In Lifeline Theatre's ‘War of the Worlds,' comedy wins out over human drama

Chicago Tribune

03-06-2025

Lifeline Theatre's new adaptation of the 1898 H.G. Wells novel 'The War of the Worlds' has many of the hallmarks of a campy sci-fi B movie: cheesy dialogue, exaggerated stock characters and visuals with the low-budget charm of mid-aughts 'Doctor Who.' With these bold stylistic choices by adapter John Hildreth and director Heather Currie, the play satirizes contemporary American society in an unconventional take on the science fiction classic. While Lifeline's version has its entertaining moments, the comedic approach comes at the expense of the story's human drama.
Hildreth's loose adaptation changes the setting from southern England to northern Illinois, name-checking a litany of familiar cities, suburbs and rural townships throughout the play. The scientists who first discovered unusual activity happening on Mars work at 'the renowned Illinois Technological Institute, outside of Skokie, Illinois,' a fictional locale that is repeatedly introduced with the exact same wording until it becomes a mantra of sorts. This setting makes sense for a Chicago production, more so than English towns such as Woking and Weybridge, but the hyperlocal references sometimes feel a bit too cute.
Professor Wittington (Mark Mendelsohn) narrates much of the action, and the dialogue is interspersed with clips of fictional TV news broadcasts — a nod to the format of Orson Welles' infamous 1938 radio adaptation, which reportedly convinced some listeners that aliens were actually attacking the United States. The professor and a small crew of scientists from the Institute, including an artificially intelligent humanoid called Assistant Professor Whitehurst (Amanda Link), investigate a series of strange explosions on the surface of Mars. Months later, the mystery is solved when cylindrical space capsules begin to crash on Earth, letting loose an army of giant metallic tripods wielding weapons that blast deadly heat rays.
With Illinois at the epicenter of a national and potentially global crisis, the play satirizes a range of all-American ideologues: conspiracy theorists, doomsday preachers, isolationists and jingoistic military types. Even J.B. Pritzker gets a sendup with Anthony Kayer's performance as the fictional governor of Illinois. Reading 'The War of the Worlds' as a satire is not a novel interpretation; Wells himself acknowledged that the book's anti-imperial themes were inspired by the brutality of European colonialism. But at Lifeline, the comedic tone is dialed up so high that the social commentary loses some of its bite.
The production team augments the cast's over-the-top performances with floor-to-ceiling tentacles (set designer Lindsay Mummert), bursts of green light from the heat rays (lighting designer Sarah Riffle) and warbling sound effects that evoke a 1950s sci-fi film (sound designer Joe Griffin). The onstage violence is occasionally macabre but never gruesome; when Whitehurst, the android, loses both arms in battle, their silver-tipped severed limbs go flying (props designer Jenny Pinson), but none of the human characters shed visible blood. Later, during the dissection of a captured Martian, the creature's blue and orange color scheme mimics the Illini jacket that the governor previously appeared in (costume designer Aly Amidei).
What gets lost in this inventive production are the human relationships that could give it more heart. For most of the play, Professor Wittington thinks that his wife, Dr. Wittington (Jocelyn Maher), has been killed by the Martians, but this emotional arc is overshadowed by the narrative weight his character bears. Since Lifeline can't recreate an alien invasion onstage any more realistically than Shakespeare could cram armies into his 'wooden O,' audience members must exercise their imaginations to picture the battles that Professor Wittington describes. There's little room for character development amid the action sequences, so the play doesn't have much of an emotional impact despite its high stakes for humankind.
The inhabitants of Earth never get answers to the question of what they've done to deserve this catastrophe, but the play points the finger back at humanity by claiming that war is our greatest export and that the militaristic Martians offer a glimpse into our collective future. Toward the end, Whitehurst has a crisis of faith, revealing that the scientists have programmed the android with some sense of belief in god and an afterlife. It's a strange interlude that hints at the often-fraught relationship between science and religion.
While hardcore sci-fi fans may be disappointed by this 'War of the Worlds,' those who appreciate the genre's more irreverent side will likely enjoy it. Lifeline never shies away from scaling epic stories to fit onto its small stage, and the company's gutsy creativity is evident in this latest world premiere.Review: 'War of the Worlds' (2.5 stars)
When: Through July 13
Where: Lifeline Theatre, 6912 N. Glenwood Ave.
Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes
Tickets: $20-$45 at 773-761-4477 and lifelinetheatre.com