Gloria – Bald Ambition Goes on Trial

Live long enough and there’s no telling what you might see.  Watching the Goodman’s wonderful production of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins Gloria, you’d never guess the playwright would be so unexpected.   As much as we may want to think we are past assumptions about who writes what and how, we still

connect dots in very specific ways.  Engrossing not only for its fast, very smart plot; drenched as it was in the look and language of the young, you’d think it the sole province of an astute wasp.   Only very small hints revealed this play was written by a brilliant young MacArthur award recipient who happens to be black.

Set in a New York magazine publishing office and peopled by characters who are disgruntled, anxious, angry, loquacious and most importantly, ambitious; the audience gets to see the underbelly of what’s considered a glamorous career.   It’s work that deifies literacy and the last place you’d expect to find carnage.

That’s where insight, understanding and creativity step in.  Combined in a particular way, where timing, dialogue and creativity gel into an alternate reality thriving with life on a stage, it becomes a kind of genius, too.

What would you do if you were young, bright, well educated, confident, in a prestigious work space and stuck.  Get out?  Chill because you were still under 25 and had wiggle room?  Scheme in order to advance?  What if you were approaching 30 or past 30 in a place that looked at anything over 27 as nearly mummified?

These are the questions Gloria explores and slides around like a serpent.  And remember, this is all happening in a very special place.  New York; a place that “runs on ambition”.

Broken up into 3 parts, you see the most visceral answer to those questions first.  Then you see what people plan to do post trauma.  In New York or Chicago or even Podunk Idaho for that matter, if you’re driven to succeed by any means necessary, ambition will vanquish morality every time.  The art here is to show how it’s done.  To hear how that ambition is rationalized and later crafted for profit.

There’s a whiff of a golden age on the Chicago stage these days.  The young are throwing down some awesome work.  Not only is the already much acclaimed playwright just creeping into his 30’s, the cherry cheeked cast who look as precious as cupids with their sleek skin and chicly outrageous banter happen to be killer actors.  Jennifer Kim as Kendra will stalk you in your nightmares. It’s dangerous to be that smart and that mean.  Kyle Beltran goes from privileged ingratiating intern on any fast track he chooses to homeboy barista in Starbucks as easily you dot an i.  Ryan Spahn’s Dean gives nobility to the doomed Everyman in the critical opening act and in Act 2 is the jerk tech guy anybody who’s ever worked in an office hates without a second thought. It’s a dream cast with some of them are following their parts from New York.  They are a delight to watch ply their craft.  Michael Crane deserves a special shout out for his splendid interpretation of Lorin, the fact checker guy.  Jacobs-Jenkins uses him as one of the higher profile threads that connects beginning to end.  One of the few voices, or perhaps he is actually the only voice of empathetic reason in the entire play, his understanding and analysis of the final outcome is of interest to no one on the stage.  You don’t keep it any more real than that.

Goodman Theater

170 N. Dearborn

1/14/17 – 2/19/17