THEATER REVIEW: "Being Harold Pinter" runs through Jan. 29 at the Goodman's Owen Theatre; 312-443-3800 or www.goodmantheatre.org. Then Feb. 4-13 at Northwestern University’s Struble Theatre in Evanston; 847-491-7282 or www.tic.northwestern.edu. And then Feb. 18-20 at Chicago Shakespeare Theater on Navy Pier; 312-595-5600 or www.chicagoshakes.com. It's presented in Belarusian and Russian with English supertitles. Tickets are $20; contact the box office of each venue. (Photos by Chris Salata for the Tribune)
• Belarus Free Theatre finds safe refuge in Chicago, to the applause of theater world (posted Jan. 20)
If Chicago were in the hands of a notorious dictator, intent on suppressing any theater he deemed too critical and oppressing and imprisoning its artists, and you were a member of that theater company and your colleagues were being interrogated, disappeared or packed off to jail, what would you do?
You'd surely be faced with tough choices. You could sermonize and proselytize from the stage — screaming in full-throated anguish for your right to free speech. But then your voice would get lost in the melee of protestors outside the theater's doors. And you wouldn't have much of a play. Or you could write something stark, subtle and full of metaphors and existential angst. Then you'd have a play that critics and academics would probably admire. But the horrors of the world outside would continue. And you'd be saying nothing to stop it.
The members of the Belarus Free Theatre had their debut in Chicago Thursday night at the start of what has become a month-long attempt by the Goodman Theatre, Northwestern University, the League of Chicago Theatres and Chicago Shakespeare Theater to support an oppressed Eastern European theater company that fell afoul of the Belarus authorities and faces arrest if it goes home to Minsk. They are caught in that very position.
And, at its core, “Being Harold Pinter,” the gut-wrenching show from Belarus that made a huge impact earlier this month in New York, is an attempt to wrestle with that very problem.
To put it as starkly as possible: What does an artist do when people's heads are being broken for speaking out against those in charge?