'Madagascar' at Next Theatre: Puzzling through a young man's disappearance
THEATER REVIEW: "Madagascar" ★★★ Through Feb. 20 at Next Theatre in the Noyes Cultural Arts Center, 927 Noyes St., Evanston; Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes; Tickets: $25-$40 at 847-475-1875 and nexttheatre.org. With Mick Webber, Carmen Roman and Cora Vander Broek.
There is, we're told in “Madagascar,” a difference between a secret and a mystery. With the former, the answer exists and must merely be uncovered. But with the latter, finality can be eternally elusive.
If such linguistic contemplation — with an international flavor — floats your boat, then the production at the Next Theatre, directed in disciplined and clear fashion by Kimberly Senior, is your kind of heady play. Set in a hotel room in Rome at different points in time, this J.T. Rogers drama has a puzzlelike structure, except that puzzles have secrets, not mysteries.
But I digress.
Up in Evanston, we meet three different American characters: A young tour guide in a nightdress (Cora Vander Broek), her affluent and widowed mother (Carmen Roman) and a prominent economics professor (Mick Webber), who becomes intermingled with both of them. All three of these chatty folks, occupying their own time if not their own space, talk directly to the audience, leaving us to search for the objective truth amid a triptych of monologic emotional subjectivity. You certainly don't get ahead of the play, which beats out some of the other shows in town.
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