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Chicago Tribune
14-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Review: Mamet's ‘Henry Johnson' sorts through the cards we're dealt in life
A defining theme of the plays of David Mamet, from 'American Buffalo' to 'Edmund' to 'Race,' is an individual's search for a moral center in a wholly transactional world. 'Henry Johnson,' his fascinating 2023 work now in its Chicago premiere at the reopened Biograph Theatre from the gutsy director Eddie Torres, makes that quest as raw and explicit as anything he's previously written. Watching this 85-minute drama, the very production of which by the long-dormant Victory Gardens Theater (in collaboration with the new Relentless Theatre Group) was enough to cause protests on the first night of previews, my mind kept going to what makes Mamet such an outlier now in the American theater. Some would argue that the theater is no place for an outspokenly conservative writer of political essays, but liberal-thinking persons have to dismiss that argument, if only on the grounds that there should at least be room for one. Others focus more on the content of his plays, angry at what they have to say. But what is that, actually? You can find a clue in the second scene of 'Henry Johnson,' wherein one veteran prisoner, Gene (played by Thomas Gibson) talks to the titular character (played by Daniil Krimer), now also an incarcerated man in a shared cell. 'Life everywhere is a jungle,' he says. 'Difference is, out there, there are those too ignorant to know it.' In other words, as in 'Edmund,' the title character here, a likable man who gets entrapped by the legal system, is on a fool's errand as his belief that the world can be something other than transactional is progressively shattered in four scenes. In the end, the veteran criminal turns out to be right: 'Some get rich, some get caught, and sent away to dissuade the others from figuring it out. You want someone to 'explain it to you?' Here's the wisdom: everything is what it seems. All the cards are in the deck. It just depends on where you cut 'em.' Or, a bit later in the play, a conversation between Henry Johnson and the prison guard Jerry (Keith Kupferer) puts it slightly differently. 'What should I do?,' Johnson asks. 'Do what you want,' Jerry replies. 'People generally do.' 'Henry Johnson' was first seen in Los Angeles in 2023 and also is about to be released as a film with Shia LaBeouf. The movie is advertised in the lobby for the current Broadway revival of Mamet's 'Glengarry Glen Ross,' an uneasy production when it comes to the application of the themes above, all of which are applicable to that play, too. This seat-of-its-pants Chicago production was, on the early night I was there, afflicted with some severe production management problems when it came to light and sound cues and the like. Gibson, in particular, was far from fully ready. But the skilled Kupferer was already excellent, as was Al'Jaleel McGhee, who we see as Henry's boss in the first scene. And Krimer's central performance is strikingly moving, which is never easy in a Mamet play and especially not in this one. The guy takes what could be an ice-cold show and gives it some heart. I think the difference between me and Mamet's many detractors now is not so much disagreement over the theme. Indeed, it is Mamet's apparent amorality and dogged refusal to ascribe moral worth to anyone that so infuriates people invested in the foundational idea of theater making the world better — a laudable goal — rather than exposing human narcissism and well-cloaked hypocrisy. It's more that I see Mamet's seeming cynicism, if that's the word, as part not just of a search for meaning, but actually for love. Anyone who recalls 'The Cryptogram' at Steppenwolf should know what I mean. I don't want to imply the man is being disingenuous when he makes public utterances, just that they should not always be taken on their face. Suffice to say that if the man's writing all these years interests you, 'Henry Johnson' is well worth seeing and there likely will be tickets at the door. Otherwise, you surely already know to stay away. Chris Jones is a Tribune critic. cjones5@ When: Through May 4 Where: Victory Gardens Biograph, 2433 N. Lincoln Ave. Running time: 1 hour, 25 minutes
Chicago Tribune
06-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Victory Gardens Theater will reopen with a new David Mamet play and starry cast
Chicago's historic Biograph Theatre, the home of the long-dormant Victory Gardens Theater Company, will reopen next month with a new play by David Mamet titled 'Henry Johnson.' The show will be directed by Eddie Torres, a longtime Chicago actor and the former artistic director of Teatro Vista, and will star Thomas Gibson, best known for playing Greg on the TV show 'Dharma and Greg,' and for his work on the CBS show 'Criminal Minds.' Performances of the play are scheduled to begin on April 9. Keith Kupferer, the Chicago actor who received widespread acclaim for the 2024 movie 'Ghostlight,' is also in the cast, as are the Chicago actors Al'Jaleel McGhee and Daniil Krimer. Krimer's Relentless Theatre Group, a new Chicago theater company that calls itself a 'theatrical home for public discourse, freedom of expression, and brilliant creation,' is a co-producer. Dennis Začek, the former artistic director of Victory Gardens for 34 years who retired in 2010, is an executive producer. 'Eddie Torres is my protege,' Začek said in a telephone interview from Florida. 'And it's Mamet.' In an interview, Krimer said he believed 'Henry Johnson' to be 'one of the best plays that Mamet has written.' The play was generally well-received following its 2023 premiere at the Electric Lodge in Venice, California, starring Shia LaBeouf, although it also flew under many radars, somewhat by design. It has not had any other U.S. productions. Torres described the play, which has a running time of a little over an hour, as 'interrogating the grey area of morality.' The title character is a college student who is easily influenced by others. Victory Gardens is calling the staging its '50th anniversary production.' The company has not announced further producing plans, should there be any, although the Biograph, located at 2433 N. Lincoln Avenue, has attracted plenty of attention from potential future mainstage tenants and will likely see more shows in 2025. Victory Gardens has not produced itself since 2022 following a rift between its board of directors, its resident artists and some of the members of its long-standing playwrights ensemble. The acrimonious dispute, driven by disagreement over the hiring of artistic and executive directors, led to the mainstage theater going dark for years, negatively impacting surrounding Lincoln Park blocks, and the historic building itself falling into some disrepair. The company does not currently have an artistic director or any permanent artistic staff. Krimer said that the companies were 'rebuilding infrastructure' for this show, although it was not yet clear whether this would be a one-off or the return of Victory Gardens as a viable entity. The Victory Gardens board did not respond to a request for comment. Zacek said that the future remains to be seen. Mamet, of course, has a singularly illustrious history in Chicago and New York and also is seeing a high-profile revival of his Pulitzer Prize-winning Chicago drama 'Glengarry Glen Ross' on Broadway this spring, starring Kieran Culkin, a recent Oscar winner. However, Mamet's emergent conservative and libertarian politics are at odds with the many progressives in the theater community and certainly the majority of the Chicago artists who protested against the Victory Gardens board, although some of those artists no longer live and work in Chicago. Mamet sent the following statement to the Tribune: 'Rudyard Kipling wrote, 'We've only one virginity to lose, and where we've lost it, there our heart will be.' I lost it at the Hull House Theater, and at Second City, in the early Sixties, and at St. Nicholas, and the Goodman, and when St. Nicholas left our car barn on Halsted, Steppenwolf took over the space. In short, I'm real real glad to have my work back in the 'hood.' Tickets ($64-$69) will go on sale 10 a.m. Friday at The show is announced as running through May 4 although an extension is possible.
