MIDWEST PREMIERE
Meredith Lyons has a "brittle, scarred intensity"; AnJi White is "terrific"! - NewCity
"ITHAKA is a thought-provoking redemption play meets war movie"! - TheFourth Walsh.com
Breathtaking design enhances this raw, heartbreaking tale"! - Chicago Theater Beat
"(Video designer Liviu Pasare's) work is technically excellent and artistically thrilling"! - Chicago Stage Standard
"A powerful performance"! "The audience was riveted"! - Chicago Splash Magazine
Reg Run: 730p Thursday, Friday and Saturdays (except 3/13); Sunday 3p
Tix - $25/$15 (students/seniors). Industry $12.50 Thurs, Sun
More information - 773.525.8981 or info@InfusionTheatre.com
03/13/14 - 04/13/14
Previews 730p (Mon 3/10, Wed 3/12). Run~ 730p Thur-Sat; 3p Sun
Ithaka - Zac Thompson, Chicago Reader 3/20/14. "Lanie, a marine who’s recently returned from Afghanistan and has the PTSD to prove it, takes off in her car one day when civilian life becomes unbearable. On the road, she’s haunted by memories of a comrade who died under circumstances for which Lanie feels responsible. Playwright Andrea Stolowitz tosses in a prologue delivered by Odysseus (speaking of postwar travelers) and a couple of surreal encounters with ghosts, but the characters in this 85-minute drama remain flat and indistinct. The cast of Mitch Golob’s production for InFusion Theatre Company turn in heartfelt performances, but they’re upstaged by Liviu Pasare’s evocative video projections showing a desert highway, a roller coaster ride, and scenes of domestic confinement. Oftentimes Pasare’s work is the most compelling thing onstage"
Ithaka - Hugh Iglarsh, NewCity Chicago 3/20/14. "“Ithaka” begins with a walk-on appearance by Odysseus (Andrew Saenz), bemoaning the ten years it took him to get home from the smoking ruins of Troy, thanks to the ill will of the gods. This is the Odysseus who came up with the Trojan Horse business, sparking an orgy of slaughter, rape and destruction. The same guy who for years dallied with the winsome nymph Kalypso. The man whose first act upon returning home is to murder a roomful of house guests—thus proving himself not just a war criminal and philanderer, but a homicidal maniac to boot.
There are damned good reasons why the gods granted Odysseus stormy seas and all-around tsuris, and why centuries later Dante would place him in the eighth circle of hell. Odysseus’s torment isn’t a guilt complex—it’s karma for all the suffering inflicted by this Bronze Age sociopath.
Which brings us to InFusion Theatre Company’s Midwest premiere of Andrea Stolowitz’s well-intentioned, well-executed but misguided play about the travails of a soldier coming home from her tour of duty in Afghanistan. Ex-marine Lanie (played with brittle, scarred intensity by Meredith Rae Lyons) just cannot settle down as though nothing has happened. Accompanied by her battlefield comrade Evie (played by the terrific AnJi White), Lanie heads off on a spontaneous pilgrimage to bury her ghosts and maybe find some hint of forgiveness.
But forgiveness for what? Lanie is haunted by a wartime incident where she failed to pull the trigger during a confrontation with an Afghan boy—which is to say, she wasn’t murderous enough. The questions of why the youth did what he did, or why Lanie was in Afghanistan at all, are not touched upon. In the end, “Ithaka” is no more critical of war than is the Iliad, treating it more like a natural disaster than a political choice. The play’s refusal to contextualize Lanie’s PTSD ends up trivializing her spiritual injury.
Burdened with an ungainly, conceptually flawed script, Director Mitch Golob manages to keep things moving, and creates some fine theatrical moments of surprise and revelation. The performers—including Nick Freed as Lanie’s husband and Tinsey Rose as Evie’s mother—struggle nobly to give dimension to pancake characters. The hero of the project is video designer Liviu Pasare, whose series of ingenious back-projected panoramas turn the modest Chopin Theatre space into a boundless desert vista.
But when the background scrim is the star, something isn’t right. What’s potentially most relevant about “Ithaka” is its gender reversal, as the woman—historical embodiment of the home front—becomes the returning warrior, incapable of transitioning back to normalcy and domesticity. However, Lanie never comes fully alive, and her tale, which aspires to the epic and mythic, settles for conventional psychodrama"
Ithaka - Dan Jakes, TimeOut Chicago 3/19/14. - "A marine captain stands in the shadow of Odysseus, both literally and figuratively, in Andrea Stolowitz's new drama about the battle coming home. Dressed in full regalia, the Trojan warrior tacks on an early disclaimer in a prologue that otherwise borders on being a little on the nose: "How can I speak to those who've not been there?" To better answer this and lend credibility to her modern military parable, playwright Andrea Stolowitz spoke to those who were there—about fifty soldiers, mostly women Marines—in order to form a composite look at the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder.
In a recent interview with Nari Safavi on WBEZ's Worldview, Stolowitz touches on how there is no real reliable narrator for the experience of surviving war. One soldier's anecdote relating reality to The Hurt Locker, say, is another's go-to example for misguided depictions or hyperbole. ("It's nothing like it.") Those divergent experiences are easily the most compelling part of any drama tackling something with the scope and impact of battle, and there's a real sense of earnestness and caution in her portrayal. It's curious, then, how little of those different perspectives Ithaka includes.
Instead, we mostly focus on one soldier, Lanie (Meredith Rae Lyons), who is having trouble re-adjusting to the banalities of civilian life. Mitch Golob's production for InFusion sets Lanie's story against a digital, often mesmerizing backdrop with video designs by Liviu Pasare. Much more sober, though, are the scenes in front of it. Distant, tense, obsessed with finding her missing cat and straying emotionally from her husband (Nick Freed), Lanie withdraws herself deeper into a fugue state and the memories of a fellow soldier (AnJi White). Joyriding in the American desert, Lanie transforms from a PTSD diagnostic sketch to a full-bodied character. White's charisma when paired with Lyons helps both Lanie, and ultimately Stolowitz's play, come alive. The rest seems subject to Lanie's daze"
Ithaka - David Zak, ChicagoStageStandard.com 3/13/14 - "Most of my countrymen think America saved civilization as we know it by jumping into World War II to defeat Hitler. And most think that the morally questionable wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan illustrate a darker part of the American heart. And that darkness has now yielded many fine plays about wars destroying us as individuals, family, community, and country.
Andrea Stolowitz’s Ithaka will not join the rank of the finest plays about war’s aftermath. It has too many detours and not enough surprises as we meet Lanie, a Marine who returns to her home unanchored after military deployment. But director Mitch Golob’s solid production for InFusion Theater still delivers a punch that – though we know what is coming – still has an impact.
Much of the power of the evening should be credited to video designer Liviu Pasare. His work is technically excellent and artistically thrilling, and the still photographs taken of the principal actors set in Iraq are gorgeous and believable. The play has two long sequences of actors talking in a car, and Pasare’s work makes them dramatic. And, yes indeed, there is an actual roller coaster ride. Christopher Kriz’s sound design is also top notch.
Unfortunately. technical elements overwhelm the script and performers. Anji White successfully realizes the role of the joyous sidekick Evie who cannot be quieted even by death. (She only gets defeated when she needs to play a talking feline – in a not very good costume – when the play goes off the rails in its second half.) Andrew L. Saenz does nice work as Jacob, a foreign doctor stuck in a podunk town in Nevada. His superfluous prologue as Odysseus is not as successful (but in this case his Grecian costume is top notch.) Nick Freed does what he can with the thankless role of Bill, and TinseyRose lives truthfully and authentically as Evie’s mother.
In the center is Meredith Rae Lyons as Lanie, and it is here that Golob’s production misses the mark. Her journey should consume our hearts and souls, but in Golob’s staging she seems shunted to the side of the thrust stage in crucial scenes. Lyons does fine emotional work, but she can’t land a joke (which is crucial in a drug induced dream sequence) and in some ways is the least interesting character, throwing the play off-kilter.
Nick Carroll’s lights, Rachel Sypniewski’s costumes, and Angela Campos props are all neat. And Dave Ferguson’s hand crafted set pieces are cool, but took a lot of time getting on stage again and again.
InFusion has been doing solid work since 2006, but does not seem to have climbed onto the Jeff Award list. Perhaps Liviu Pasare’s great projections for Ithaka will get them there this time"
Ithaka - Katy Walsh, TheFourthWalsh.com 3/13/14 - "Playwright Andrea Stolowitz pens a tale of Marine Captain Elaine Edwards (played by Meredith Rae Lyons). Edwards returns home from a tour in Afghanistan. Her reentry to civilization isn’t going smooth. She can’t sleep. Her cat has run away. And her helpless husband offers no solace. The sudden appearance of Evie (played by Anji White) lures her on a road trip to find answers.
Stolowitz’s play is drawn from her interviews with veterans and their families. She gives us flashback scenes to piece together this war aftermath. Her banter, especially between Lyons and White, is genuine. It has the familiar comfortableness of a shared past. In one scene, Lyons and White playfully debate breakfast cereals. In a flashback, they cower during a shelling. Later, they drive through the desert exuding an untroubled Thelma and Louise-style relationship.
Throughout the play, Lyons is overwrought. Her guardedness keeps her husband and the audience from connecting to her pain. Her angst makes her almost unlikable. White counters Lyons’ cold detachment with a warmth. Whether playing a cat or a soldier, White skillfully handles the drama with humor and honesty. White’s feistiness helps Lyons release some tension and confront the truth. As her shell cracks, Lyons gives us a glimmer of humanity.
Director Mitch Golob masterfully uses minimal scenery and maximum film footage to illustrate ITHAKA. Scenic Designer Dave Ferguson created a metal structure that serves as a bed, a car, a counter and a rollercoaster car. The efficiency in transformation is aided by Projections Designer Liviu Pasare’s impressive imagery. Using a screen stretched across the stage, Pasare turns this play partially into a movie. His vivid cinematography is transfixing... almost distracting. His animation of a car trip and a roller coaster ride is practically motion-sickness inducing. Later, the sun rising off a mountain is subtle and enchanting. I wasn’t aware of how primary the projections had become in storytelling until I’m staring at a picket fence and nothing happens"
Author
Andrea Stolowitz
Director
Mitch Golob
Performers
Meredith Rae Lyons; Nick Freed; Anji White; Andrew Saenz; TinseyRose Torres
Production
Scenic Design - Dave Ferguson; Lighting Design - Nicholas J. Carroll; Video Design - Liviu Pasare; Sound Design - Christopher Kriz; Props Design - Angela Campos; Costume Design - rachel Spniewski; Stage Manager - Tara Malpass Brabant; Production Manager - Aaron Shapiro; Casting Direcor - Blair Robertson