Fabrizio O. Almeida

"Lady," Craig Wright's funny, intense and deeply satisfying new play at Northlight Theatre works on at least three different yet equally powerful levels: as a political play with fresh insight into 9/11 and what it could or should have meant for the world in that 24-hour "cosmic window of opportunity" following the attacks; as a post-mortem of a deteriorated friendship among three men, replete with the painful intimacies and impossible loyalties that come with that territory; as a subtle condemnation of the aggressive male psyche. That so much can come from the simplest of premises--three friends on an annual hunting trip--as well as with the simplest of structures--ninety minutes of uninterrupted conversation--speaks to the quality of its writing. If the characterizations are equally as effective, it's not because they're terribly unique. Ironically, they're not. Instead, these memorably mediocre men, who vacillate between states of moral ascendance and moral naiveté, strike a chord precisely because they are so generically universal and representative of the three distinct American points of view towards present-day politics: anger, apathy or uncertainty. A history teacher passionately protests America's cocky cowboy attitude on the world's stage but is painfully oblivious to his own bad-boy behavior as an adulterer and uninvolved father back home. An uncomplicated man is content to go through life without forming or voicing an opinion on anything that truly matters. And a politician with the power to make change is numbed into ineffectuality by the uncertainty of who he is or what he believes in anymore. Who would you identify with? Do you know your closest friends well enough to know with whom they would? Does it even matter? These are the tough questions for the characters in this play. They are also the tough questions for the people of this country.

North Shore Center for the Performing Arts, 9501 Skokie Boulevard, Skokie, (847)673-6300. Tue 7:30pm/Wed 1pm & 7:30pm/Thu 7:30 pm/Fri 8pm/Sat 3 & 8pm/Sun 2:30pm & 7pm. $34-$56. Through Feb 25. (2007-02-13)

Also by Fabrizio O. Almeida

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