Wise Blood
WNEP Theatre

Highly Recommended ~ New City, World Premier

"..an unconscious, visionary quality. With four-part gospel harmonies, subtly unreal touches (did that gorilla just curse? Is that guy slapping his ass for percussion?) and bubbling energy, it feels not like an adaptation of the novel so much as the dream you have just after reading it" - HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, NewCity Chicago


3/16/00 - 4/16/00


"...an unconscious, visionary quality. With four-part gospel harmonies, subtly unreal touches (did that gorilla just curse? Is that guy slapping his ass for percussion?) and bubbling energy, it feels not like an adaptation of the novel so much as the dream you have just after reading it...a show of remarkable aesthetic wholeness awash with detail, giving her very capable ensemble a fully realized universe in which to come alive...as smart as the novel it comes from, as fun and as beautiful" - HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, NewCity Chicago


"...Flannery O'Connor said Wise Blood was to be read with zest, and Jen Ellison's stage adaptation of the 1952 novel has captured that spiritual gusto...Brian McCaskill...is effectively brooding...Spirituals sung by the ensemble add depth to an already rich soundscape..." Chicago Reader


“Complex ironies and a sort of inverted moral shock form the basis of writer Flannery O'Connor's work. So when Jen Ellison, artistic director of WNEP Theater Foundation, set out to adapt O'Connor's highly symbolic Wise Blood, she faced several challenges. The book, which traces a World War II vet's doubts about Christianity, exists in the realm of metaphors and illusions.
WNEP's dramatization of Wise Blood, receiving its world premiere at the Chopin Theatre, turns out to be a confusing hodgepodge of half- realized ideas. Under Ellison's erratic direction, the play comes across as an extended rant by the hero, Hazel Motes, around whom a group of eccentrics aimlessly orbit. The staging is cluttered with homemade sound effects and overlong musical interludes. Ellison also favors an irritating freeze-frame technique, with the actors stopping and posing after each movement, adding to the convoluted tone.
"Wise Blood" centers on Motes, the grandson of a fundamentalist preacher, who returns to Tennessee eager to proselytize to all those smug souls who believe they have been redeemed. Motes preaches what he finds to be a truer gospel_"the Holy Church of Christ without Christ." With the fervor of a high-strung minister, he urges the masses to adopt the antithesis of their faith. In a cynical role- reversal finale, Motes becomes a martyr for the very faith he has rejected.
But these ideas are played out in a theatrical void. It's baffling how some of the city's finest actors got mixed up in this misguided effort. Brian McCaskill plays Hazel with brooding rage, to no avail. His extraordinary skills are wasted on a show that never gives us a solid reason for caring about his troubled character.
Hazel's encounters with a faux-blind preacher (a stilted Ken Roush) and the man's libidinous daughter (a high-strung Lisa Velten) appear gratuitously quirky. Sadly, the alienated character of Enoch Emery (a sympathetic Chris Thornton) wanders around the periphery of the drama. His run-in with a man in a gorilla suit proves to be the show's most unintentionally hilarious moment.”
Lucia Mauro, Chicago Sun-Times April 5, 2000

Author
F. O’Connors, adapted Jen Ellison

Director
Jen Ellison

Performers
Don Hall, John Mays, Brian McCaskill, Ken Roush, Kerry Smith, Kate Staiger, Dave Stinton, Chris Thornton, Karen Thornton, Jamie Vann, Lisa Velten, Jonathan Watkins, Bob Wilson

Production
Don Hall, Jeffrey L.Shivar, Jessica McCloud, Jacob Snodgrass, Joe Kaplan, Monica Rodriguez

Tags: Theater, American, 2000