Detroit

Steppenwolf Theater

We saw this Saturday night through their 20 for $20 tickets on the day of the show. After living in New York, I can't believe that they allow you to buy rush tickets over the phone. How amazing is that?

Detroit was 90 minutes, no intermission and apparently commissioned by Steppenwolf. It had a 30 minute discussion after the play.

A few years ago we saw August: Osage County in New York. After seeing the stage space it was easy to understand the sets for that show. They were built with this theater in mind. I hadn't been to Steppenwolf before and you can't ask for more than a huge stage and not too many seats. I bring up Osage County because the sets were similar, very real looking houses that go up and up and up. The stage is just dominated by them.

Detroit is about a lot of things, mostly about what it means to live in the suburbs. I expected more of an attack on the American Dream (so common in today's theater) but instead got a full look at what we expect from our neighborhoods and our neighbors. I also expected it to be snide and bitter about suburb living, especially after reading the program, but it really wasn't.

The play is about two couples. The first couple has lived there for years. They have bought in, literally and figuratively. The husband is unemployed, the wife works - savings in the bank and severance checks are set to run out soon. There is impending financial jeopardy. The other couple has quietly moved in next door. They don't own the house, they are just living there with no furniture, rehabbing from a drug life, trying to get it together, but friendly and fairly honest.

The play centers around the encounters between the two couples climaxing with the first couple's house burning down and the second couple disappearing. And, in some ways both couples have been set free.

We work so hard to pay these mortgages and maintain these houses and part of the question is: what do we get in return? And, moreover, if we were to really set down and think about the dream of home ownership - is this what we want? The house becomes the life. Is this the life we want? Is this how we want to spend our time? Is this where we want to put our treasure? And, how do we let others into it? Is it a fortress or a welcome center? Oddly, we never make it into the houses. We are on the patios/decks.

The Steppenwolf season has a theme of public/private this year. This captured the theme perfectly. When you have a house in the suburbs, you can hide in it. There is something fortress-like about it. You don't have to talk to others. Neighborhoods are supposedly built for community and connectedness. But, it doesn't work out that way. If it weren't for joggers and dog walkers, you might never see anyone. It's nearly ironic because there is a built-in isolation in something that is supposedly about community.

At the end, given the choice between having their house back or the second couple back I think the first couple would have chosen the companionship. What are we buying when we buy the dream? What do we expect? How does reality live up to our expectations? And, freed from the dream/societal expectation - what would we do next?

This was a play that got better with thought. Initially I thought it a bit vapid. But, by the next morning I found it to be rather good theater, actually. Certainly, a great conversation piece.

I think the only downside I saw was that the timing of the actors seemed a bit off, almost like it was under-rehearsed even though this was closing weekend.