
Backstage Theatre Company
"BackStage’s production features some nice touches... Hutchinson’s staging in the round mirrors the unstable negotiations of the two couples... Bozzuto plays betrayed husband Brad with a tensile energy, suggesting he’s been waiting to snap for most of the 15 years of his marriage....Kettering and Huysman capture the raw unpredictability of a marriage on the rocks, careening from sex to tearful isolation" - John Beer, TimeOut Chicago 3/4-10/2010
Tix: $20/18
| buy tickets |
![]() |

02/26/10 - 03/27/10
Thu-Sat 730p; Sun 3p
John Beer, TimeOut Chicago 3/4-10/2010 - "Wright’s 2002 study of marital infidelity focuses on a quartet of ordinary Minnesotans as their stable family lives break down. Marked by plainspoken dialogue and classical symmetry, it demands a precise, delicate approach to bring out the nuances in its characters without making them either banal or histrionic. BackStage’s production features some nice touches. Hutchinson’s staging in the round, centering on a bed that rotates from scene to scene, mirrors the unstable negotiations of the two couples. Bozzuto plays betrayed husband Brad with a tensile energy, suggesting he’s been waiting to snap for most of the 15 years of his marriage to Beth (Nixon). In one beautifully played scene, Kettering and Huysman capture the raw unpredictability of a marriage on the rocks, careening from sex to tearful isolation.
But as the adulterous pair who catalyze the drama, Huysman and Nixon never really strike sparks. Their scenes together have a tentative quality that belies the passion supposedly driving their affair. It’s a crucial absence; the failure to communicate exactly what draws them together renders somewhat hollow the ensuing exchanges of analysis and recrimination between the couples. In this relatively mild production, some of the tics in the former divinity student’s script become insistently visible: When characters raise questions about human connection or Beth and her pharmacist lover David debate religion, the themes seem forced. Wright’s characters might benefit from more reflection, but this production is at its best when their visceral impulses take center stage"
Zac Thompson, Chicago Reader 3/4/10 - "This middling 2002 drama by Craig Wright tackles adultery among the minivan set. Unhappily married to other people, David and Beth want to start a new life together. But putting their dream into action involves hurting their spouses and children, which makes David and Beth feel just awful. Wright's insights on this predicament are of the no-duh variety ("You think things can happen without happening, but in the end, they always have to actually happen"), and the play's series of fraught two-person scenes seems tailor-made for acting students. Fittingly, then, it's the performances that distinguish Jessica Hutchinson's production for BackStage Theatre Company--particularly the work of Shelley Nixon, who gives Beth a profound sadness born of disenchantment".

