A Parallelogram

Steppenwolf Theatre

Chicago

(312) 335-1650

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Contented yuppies don’t fare too well in Bruce Norris plays, said Chris Jones in the Chicago Tribune. A mainstay of the Steppenwolf Theatre and the author of last year’s acclaimed Clybourne Park, Norris has mastered the art of creating “knock-down, drag-out eviscerations” of seemingly happy families that subsequently fall apart. A Parallelogram adds a supernatural element to the mix. Bee, a 30-something living with her upwardly mobile lover, Jay, meets an older, time-traveling version of herself who tells her about her future. The news is not good, and present-day Bee is powerless to change it. By creating a character who knows her life “will do more harm than good,” Norris touches upon painful existential questions. Unlike in his previous works, though, he treats this character’s problem more as a tragedy than as a comeuppance, making A Parallelogram “one of his most compassionate plays.”

Surprisingly, it’s also one of his funniest, said Scott Morgan in the Chicago Daily Herald. Much of the humor comes thanks to the “masterfully timed” comic delivery of Marylouise Burke as the frumpy elder Bee, who “nonchalantly sits munching Oreo cookies” while cynically but cheerfully revealing how her relationship with Jay will end. Kate Arrington is “wholly on the mark” as the younger Bee, who becomes a neurotic modern-day Cassandra as she unsuccessfully tries to warn her lover of their fate. Led by director Anna Shapiro, the ensemble balances “wry commentary on the mundanity of American lives” with a more uncomfortable truth about the “fleeting nature of life” and happiness.