Sunday, November 11, 2018

Downstate (Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago)

Convicted paedophiles who've served their sentences but can never again lead normal lives due to their social pariah-dom and the restrictions on their movement and access to online communication, victims claiming absolute authority in relation to their experiences and factual recollections, the extent and limits of responsibility for one's actions and for one's recovery from trauma - tricky stuff, which Downstate takes on head-first in staging these as issues in messy tension with each other, without particularly playing to conventional social outrage at such acts. I found it thought provoking and well-performed, but a bit dramatically unsatisfying, although I wonder whether that last is because the play is a bit unfocused, or rather just that it doesn't present clear answers.