The Walls Have Ears in Windy City Playhouse’s ‘Southern Gothic’ (Review)
“Mad Men” meets “Desperate Housewives” in this vouyeristic delight in Chicago.
Suzanne Wellington is turning 40. What beings as a simple celebration turns into a life changing evening for eight friends. The evening is kicked off into disaster by a catering truck accident that results in a new menu of the finest offerings of leftovers and snacks that 1961 has to offer. Each drink consumed reveals more hidden secrets. An affair and resulting pregnancy, family business embezzlement, racism, and a political scandal all are exposed over the course of the evening.
Audience members gather in the lobby and pre show bar. The instructions provided are simple: stay to the perimeter of the rooms, you won’t be able to hear all the conversations and that’s ok, and feel free to eat any food that is placed out on the tables. Vintage radio commercials and music play offstage as a fully realized first floor bungalow house, designed by Scott Davis, greets the tentative audience of 28 people. The show begins with a young married couple visible through the glassless windows preparing for the evening’s events. After a few moments the audience begins to migrate through the front and side doors into the living room, dining room and kitchen. All rooms feature seating around the perimeter of the room and an open floorplan allow the audience to remain seated in a room while still watching the interactions of the actors in a completely different area of the house or the surrounding yard.
The framework is such that the audience is truly a fly on the wall. Audience members are free to wander from room to room as they feel motivated to do so. The actors do not interact with the audience at all. One of the most remarkable parts was how I never saw a single actor even look at myself or another audience member, we truly did not exist in their world. Two stage managers help maintain the clear pathways and redirect audience members as necessary throughout the evening. The stage managers also serve a series of in-show drinks to the audience.
Playwright Leslie Liautaud has constructed the script with a extensive detail and depth for all of the 8 characters. Like we were warned, we did not hear every detail, but it was ok. Because of my personal choices of which rooms to observe and which characters to follow, a storyline about the alcoholic past of one character and the family embezzlement were largely left vague in my overall grasp of the story. What was very satisfying though, was that the overall story arc took the pieces you missed throughout the show and neatly merged them with the rest of the story. This culminated into a well executed final scene. The evening’s carnage included a jello mold which had seen better days, an uneaten birthday cake, a couple passed out in the corner and the life of characters who will be forever changed after this single birthday party.
It was a very enjoyable evening and unlike any immersive show I’ve seen yet. Windy City Playhouse lists the show on their website as “Mad Men meets Desperate Housewives in this one-of-kind, voyeuristic theater.” The evening goes by quickly, thanks largely to the captivating characters, a compelling story arc and the best acting I’ve seen in an immersive theater production. Much like the characters and a setting out of a Tennessee Williams drama, the show transports you to a time gone by, deep into the heart of the south. What set this particular production apart for me was the naturalism of the show. Unlike many immersive shows that have a heightened sense of realism or poetry to them, this did not have that pretense. Only the actors volume that allowed most conversations to be heard from the adjacent rooms separated this from what could have been an actual birthday party.
Sarah Grant Photo Credit: Michael Brosilow
Southern Gothic is directed by David H. Bell and features and ensemble of actors made up of Sarah Grant, Michael McKeough, Brianna Borger, Paul Fagen, Christine Mayland Perkins, Brian McCaskill, Ariel Richardson, and Peter Ash. Tickets are currently on sale through the end of May with many dates sold out. Pricing varies by date and show time ranging from $65-$100.
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