February 3, 2004
BY MARTIN F. KOHN
FREE PRESS THEATER CRITIC
When you put on a play about long family car trips, you run the risk of some snarky reviewer writing "Are we there yet?" When you put on a play as colorful and funny as "Leaving Iowa" the dreaded question never arises.
'Leaving Iowa' |
FOUR STARS |
Audiences at the world premiere run at Purple Rose Theatre are guaranteed to recognize someone in the Browning family's station wagon: their parents, their children, themselves, or all of the above.
"Leaving Iowa," by Chicago playwrights Tim Clue and Spike Manton, is very much about recognizing what's important in oneself and in one's family. Such inward explorations are made intermittently, like a series of car trips as opposed to one long haul. Fortunately, neither the script, nor Anthony Caselli, the director who brings it to life, belabors the point. This is one discovery you'll make on your own while watching the Browning family -- Mom, Dad, Sis and brother Don, the narrator -- then and now.
Don, a Boston newspaperman, has returned to the family home in Iowa for a happy occasion, his nephew's baptism. While home he feels compelled to bury the ashes of his father, who died three years before but whose remains have remained in the basement. As he hits the road to find an appropriate place, Don recalls all those family vacation trips; the play takes place in the past and the present. Dad is a silent ghost in the backseat in the present but very much alive in the past.
Dad's concept of family fun never precisely jibed with the kids'. A teacher by profession, Dad was also an educator by temperament. He liked stopping and reading historical markers; his idea of an enjoyable vacation would be a log cabin tour of the Ozarks, whereas the kids were more interested in places with names like Ghost Caverns and motels with a swimming pool. Dad's favorite word was "fascinating." Don refers to it as "the F-word" of his family's travels.
Don is the driver of the play and John Lepard's gentle, inviting portrayal has us eager to ride with him. Grant Krause is the quintessential nerdy teacher of decades past, and always a loving father; he always (even as a ghost) wears a crisp white shirt and beltless brown slacks. Teri L. Clark's Sis so solidly convinces as a whiny brat that you suspect someone in a future audience may tell her to knock it off. Elizabeth Ann Townsend negotiates with finesse the underwritten role of Mom, and Jim Porterfield is delightfully all over the map as an assortment of folks past and present.
Speaking of all over the map, the set by Vincent Mountain is a road map depicting a large section of Iowa on the floor and back wall. It implies a wide open sense of space.
Theater founder Jeff Daniels often cites his desire to make Purple Rose a place where stories of his beloved Midwest have a chance to be told and Midwestern voices have a chance to speak. Daniels' own "Escanaba in da Moonlight," a raunchy comedy about hunting, is a prime example. "Leaving Iowa" should appeal to a broader audience, and may well face a long journey of its own after leaving Michigan.
Contact MARTIN F. KOHN at 313-222-6517 or kohn@freepress.com.
