Gem of the Season
There were probably more black people on stage than in the audience (but then, that was also true of OSF’s The Tempest ) — still, the play connected and there were irrepressible bursts of applause and sounds of approval during the show, as well as the obligatory — but in this case, fully deserved — standing ovation.
That’s fitting, because Wilson’s plays connect all over the world. At his funeral service in Pittsburgh, director Marion McClinton (who directed Greta Oglesby in this play in Chicago) said, “August Wilson changed the lives of young men and women, of old men and women, of men and women in between, black, white, red, yellow. If they came from Mars, he changed them.”
Distracted is a contemporary play by Lisa Loomer about a family dealing with a child who may or may not have Attention Deficit Disorder. Loomer creates the properly capacious context, and uses the incisiveness of visual as well as verbal humor without neglecting the pathos and complexity inherent in the subject. The OSF production fully supports and expresses the play. With its ability to surprise that energizes its honesty and involves the audience moment by moment, I felt this was a more effective treatment of a family issue than was Rabbit Hole earlier this season (but that play won the Pulitzer Prize, so what do I know). The OSF’s New Theatre was a perfect venue for this smaller, more focusing, in-the-round kind of theatre, as evidenced by the fact that absolutely everyone was talking about their experiences with ADD as they left the show. Distracted runs until Oct. 28.
For more on Gem of the Ocean and August Wilson — including the story of how I rode with the August Wilson gang — tune in to stagematters.blogspot.com.
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