Returning to the Scene of the Crime

Keith Huff’s A STEADY RAIN

Chicago Commercial Collective at Chicago Dramatists

Directed by Russ Tutterow

Scenic design by yours truly

Costume Design by Samantha Jones

Lighting Design by Jeff Pines

Sound Design by Mike Tutaj

THE STORY

Denny and Joey are lifelong friends. They grew up together on Chicago’s near-northside, Denny often beating up the more tag-along Joey. They went into the Chicago police force together, and have been partners ever since. Denny’s got a wife, kids, -- the American dream, -- while Joey has had a rougher personal stretch, playing out a lot of life inside a bottle. They are typical beat-cops who never seem to be able to make it to “detective” rank, and are steamed about it, but whatcha-gonna-do, eh?

Denny, as befits his personality, steps a little astride the law sometimes, and doesn’t necessarily follow “the rulebook”, but you still like the guy… more or less.  One day he smacks around a local druggie, who retaliates by firing a gun thru the front window of Denny’s house, severely injuring Denny’s youngest son. This sends Denny on a downward spiral of retribution and payback that bring Joey -- and Denny’s family -- along with him. He obsesses about getting the druggie back, to the exclusion of everything around him… his severely injured son, his grieving wife, his partner who is trying to pull him back from the brink.  He’s so focused on revenge, that one day… out on the beat, his actions cause them to misunderstand a domestic disturbance, and inadvertently turn a victim over to his (eventual) serial killer. This mucked call brings down the weight of the Chicago Police and media down onto them in the worst way, at the worst possible time, and they are both forced off the Force.  It seems the only way for one of them to escape is for one of them to take the fall. Joey offers to to do that since Denny has a family, but Denny’s pride make that plan impossible to bear. This seeming injustice, breaks Denny further away from reality, and Denny heads out after the druggie only to accidentally kill the druggie’s little brother, and in the moment when he’s about to be arrested, turns the gun on the druggie, in sight of other officers and kills him, point blank. Joey, now the more mentally stable, is trying to hold it all together for Denny and Denny’s family, but Denny’s wife is pulling away because she knows that Denny is in the midst of something bad, and she falls into Joey’s arms seeking safety. Denny bursts into their home, knowing that the Force is on the hunt for him, and begs Joey to take care of his family when he’s gone, and to get them out of the house.

Denny then commits suicide, and the epilogue speaks of how Joey and Denny’s now-widow begin to build a life for themselves, and how Joey realizes how and why Denny would do anything… anything for his family.

The play is structured as interlocking monologues with just 2 actors on a (mostly bare) set.  Denny and Joey each tell their sides of the story… presumably in an interrogation room at their regular precinct… interrupting each other, and occasionally moving into dialogue scenes between them… it’s VERY fluid as a piece of writing, and the challenge in staging it, is letting the story flow cleanly, but keeping the point of view clear to the audience. It’s 90 minutes long, and has to move briskly.

OUR PRODUCTION

Wow! What a show to close out my tenure as a Chicago-based designer! For so many reasons…. First it’s a quintessential CHICAGO story and writer…but even moreso… it’s a show I’ve already designed! Thought he play had a previous workshop production, I designed the original Chicago production of the show back in 2007 for Chicago Dramatists.. the very venue where THIS production is being mounted. Chicago Commercial Collective reassembled the original team (everyone save the stage manager and the costume designer), including the two actors who started it all.

The 2007 production was a run-away success. Breaking all records for Chicago Dramatists (and its’ small 60 seat theatre), and garnering TONS of good press. SO much so that commercial producers in New York heard about it, and came to town to scout it out.  They were so enthralled with it that they then took the show, wholesale, and moved it to a small commercial run at the Royal George (a presenting house here in Chicago) in a theatre space that doubled it’s occupancy. That run lasted for nearly 6 months. There was talk of taking our production to New York, but in the meantime, one of the New York producers leant the script to a big name Hollywood star, who became enamored of it as a personal vehicle, that thus was the end of the Chicago production moving to NYC. It was mounted in 2009 on Broadway starring Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig (that’s right… Wolverine and the current James Bond), two non-Chicago, and in fact- non-American actors. It broke all pre-sale box-office records on Broadway for a straight play, but the play itself was critically dismissed as yet another cop procedural in the vein of Law and Order. The reviews focused on the two actors more than the play, and the visual sleight-of-hand that the Broadway production became. C’est la vie! There are many around Chicago, who think that had our production moved, the play itself would have received better notices. The other major outcome of all of this was that the writer, Keith Huff, became a big-time writer/commodity, spending a season or two writing for the TV show MAD MEN (I believe he even won, or was nominated for an Emmy). The play, A STEADY RAIN has go on to more than 30 productions world-wide, and is currently running in 7 different countries. Keith is now living a much higher-profile career than the mild-mannered gentlemen I met in 2007. Deservedly so. While I can’t say that the play is my absolute favorite. I have to give him credit for creating beautifully written characters who really FEEL like Chicago.

As to the set…. This production was desired to be pretty much a recreation of our original, which I based on research from an actual Chicago precinct interrogation room. It could be done simply on a blank stage with a table and two chairs, but we put in a little more effort than that. On the set there is a backwall with double-bolted windows covered in expanded steel, and a door presumably off to the rest of the precinct house. The floor is a real linoleum tile, in the basic colors of those in the interrogation room I went to.. The table is at center and there are chairs for Denny and Joey and hanging low overhead are two “warehouse” lights to help frame the vertical space of the room. These are high enough o be out of the way, but low enough to be intrusive into the space… packing the two men into the room in a way that (I hope) makes them feel even more hemmed in.

It’s a simple design, but man, has it paid off in spades…. Not only did I get paid for the original production, but I got paid again for the commercial remount(in 2008), and a weekly fee for each week that that commercial run ran. As this production now is another COMMERCIAL run, I’m drawing a base contract and a weekly fee for every week that it runs… it’s supposed to close in early September, but the hope is to take the whole thing out on tour… the longer it runs, the more money I make… I’m not going to argue that point.

From my perspective, it’s a nice-looking set, and given that the PLAY (and it’s success both with and without me) is a source of pride, I’m rather happy that it’s my  swansong here.