Eclipse’s Natural Affection Solid Through and Through

Opening its new season with William Inge’s Natural Affection, Eclipse Theatre reintroduces us to the bold brilliance of one of the country’s most intrepid playwrights.  Writing in the 50’s and 60’s, his stories never shy away from the pain in life and are willing to expose those deep hurts that shape lives for better or worse.  There’s considerable beauty in that type of honesty as well as a slew of life lessons.  Natural Affections, playing currently at the Athenaeum, spills over with both.

Sue Baker (Diana Coates) is a marvel. As a head buyer for a major department store, she’s a woman who’s succeeding in a man’s world long before the rise of Oprah or Hillary.  Living in small apartment in a fashionable neighborhood and with a constant composed cool, she radiates stability and resolve.

But that’s the surface picture.  She’s been living with her boyfriend Bernie (Luke Daigle) long enough to think seriously about third finger, left hand.   A very sore subject for Bernie.  All she wants is “something she can keep”.   And all he wants is to be a bona fide success.  A bartender whose current gig as Cadillac salesman is proving less than marvelous, he’s still optimistic about his future.   Announcing that a man doesn’t hit his stride until 36, she knows he’s just fanning the flames of a fantasy.   Deep down he knows it too.  And that knowledge causes an irritating resentment to chafe him.   And there’s the scratchy issue of her being “older” that persistently floats in the air.

Anticipating the arrival of a potentially divisive visitor, the rising tension even at this point could fuel a small jet.  But Inge knows we don’t choose the outer limits of our challenges.  Because it’s Christmas, Sue’s son Donnie (Terry Bell) has been allowed to visit for the holidays. Too poor to keep him when she had him in her teens, she gave him up.  But she kept contact and didn’t completely abandon him.  She’d already prepared her “home from prep school” story  to placate the curious.  But prep school was really a home for delinquent boys.  He’d stolen a car and had been violent with a woman.

Terry Bell poured a lot of empathy into his role of Donnie.  The rage he portrayed as a confined and victimized youth appeared a little awkward. But Bell made up for it with an engendering reticence and a palpable desire to please his mother.   That meant getting along with her boyfriend.  Kids see through facades as easily as anyone else and when he innocently asks “why Bernie never pays for anything?”, we know their relationship will likely never have the respect needed to make it succeed.

One way to look at dysfunction is to read it as desperate people struggling to attain normalcy.  Natural Affection is replete with such people.  The world of Sue, Bernie and Donnie include neighbors who prove even when you have it all, you can still have nothing.  That doesn’t stop Bernie from envying them.  For him the money and trappings they flaunt are enough.  And Vince and Claire Brinkman (Joe McCauley and Cassidy Slaughter-Mason) are a fascinating couple.   Beautiful young wife and perpetually drunk hunter-of-parties husband who’s, according to Bernie, “a fag at heart”.

Under Rachel Lambert’s commendable direction, what this exceedingly strong cast does so well is make us want all of these characters to outlive their despair and make it.  With his ability to be go from wickedly funny to viciously caustic with the blinding speed of a true alcoholic, McCauley’s Vince makes a magnificent drunk.  Maybe it’s his repressed homosexuality that makes him say “life is miserable” with such arresting earnest.  Maybe it’s the misery he brings to his marriage that makes his wife so willing with other men, including Bernie.  As uncomfortable as that all sounds, Inge is able to draw these characters so skillfully and these actors are able to embody them so completely that their humanness is always in plain sight.

And to the end, Inge relentlessly stirs the pot and dredges up ugly truths that can only lead to calamity once those truths leave the heart and become words.

When dealing with a work this intense, this unforgiving in its honesty; you are guaranteed to be affected.  Some may recoil at how graphically the human heart is revealed.  As Natural Affection shows, the search for love can drive people to do things they may forever regret. What Inge has done is allow us to understand them a little better.  And if we are either moral or magnanimous, even extend a little compassion as well.

With her willed dignity and that hypnotically compelling voice, Diana Coates’ Sue was captivating. Her interpretation made us see and feel how much it takes for iron to melt. Luke Daigle’s beautifully rendered take on Bernie complemented her role well.

If this is what Eclipse’s season of Inge has in store for theater goers, it’s going to be wonderful.

Natural Affections

Eclipse Theatre Company

April 12 – May 20, 2018

Athenaeum Theatre

2936 N. Southport Ave.

Chicago, IL

www.eclipsetheatre.com