Creating Possibilities at the Goodman

It’s a play I never expected to see on the Goodman stage.  And maybe if it weren’t so well written, it would not be there.  Ultimately a story about personal fulfillment, How to Catch Creation chooses to tell its story the way real life works with characters who usually aren’t seen on such august stages.

From the opening line, when Griffin (Keith Randolph Smith) declares to his best friend Tami (Karen Aldridge) that he wants a baby, that he wants to be a father, you’re smitten by the genuineness of his desire and way the statement adds such quick luster to the play.  Listening to their back and forth, you get the sense this going to be a special ride.

He knows he doesn’t fit many peoples likely profile of an adoptive parent.  He’s not married and he’s not particularly young.  Released from years of incarceration for a crime he didn’t do, it’s still clear from his demeanor that he would make a great dad.  And he’s mustered the resolve to push himself forward and prosper as a public speaker and teacher.

But it’s the flow of the conversation with his friend that’s so disarming.  There’s a sharpness to the candor that reeks of fine intelligence and sturdy maturity.  An accomplished artist and sitting in a rarified position of leadership of a highly-regarded art school, Tami it all together from just about every angle.  Her lesbianism is just one more aspect of a confident and successful woman.  She even rolls with a tart sense of humor.

These are the things that make what might have been a surprising choice a perfect choice for the Goodman.  How to Catch Creation follows the journeys of four black women; two gay, the others sexually fluid whose lives are both very ordinary and extremely fascinating. 

Stokes (Bernard Gilbert), another character who adds a male perspective to the script, uses rejection from art schools to redefine himself and uses as his inspiration a black feminist author from the 70’s.  His story, and those of the women, makes Griffin’s quest for a child just one more tributary rushing to the river of self-actualization.   One after the other, the play introduces us to people who are looking for their own completeness.  With its skilled intertwining of the past and the present, we even get insights into that 70’s era author who finds her voice and her rhythm of expression while trying to be attentive and responsive to Natalie (Ayanna Bria Bakari), her lover.

But it’s Stokes and his girlfriend, Riley (Maya Vinice Prentiss) who bring us smack dab into today and show us how lines defining relationships can virtually disappear.  He’s may be much more static in his partner choices but her last relationship was with another woman.  Full disclosure from the get go.  But they’re young enough to still be discovering things about themselves that will have ramifications on their relationship downstream.  Because Riley’s emotional and sexual leanings haven’t completely gelled, she relinquishes all to easily to her instincts when Tami opens the door of opportunity. 

If it’s OK to view close friendships as “relationships”, we’re left with four couples trying to find gratification in what they choose as their life’s work and achieve their own definition of emotional fulfillment.   As everyday as that sounds, to pull it off constitutes a Herculean triumph.  Without an iota of racial angst, these characters and this story exemplify some of the most elemental internal conflicts of our species.  While we wait to see if Griffin will ever get his baby, we’re shown how revitalizing the powers of determination, honesty and personal courage can be.

It’s also hard to overstate how critical Todd Rosenthal’s set was to the cohesive continuity of the performance.   Elaborate, beautiful, complex and mobile, it became everything it needed to be scene by scene.  Four separate homes and three different work places with the occasional park bench thrown in, the set was a marvel of ingenuity and added rich visual context to the story’s palette.  

Like praise can be extended to director Niegel Smith who made the play glide as smoothly as the Queen Mary and with the cleverness of Trevor Noah.

How to Catch Creation

Goodman Theater

Closes February 24

170 N. Dearborn St.

Chicago, IL  60601

www.goodmantheatre.org