Catch as Catch Can at Steppenwolf through July 12th

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“Catch as Catch Can Delivers a Must-See Masterclass in Performance” - By: Paul Lisnek

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“Catch as Catch Can Delivers a Must-See Masterclass in Performance”

Steppenwolf Theatre’s Catch as Catch Can is a masterclass in what I can best describe as controlled emotional detonation—it is an unsettling, rigorously performed examination of family, power, and the sometimes loose nature of truth. Under Amy Morton’s unflinching direction, Mia Chung’s bifurcated play is less a narrative than it is a psychological consistently building pressure chamber. The challenge is not just to the incredible three actors who take the stage in a multitude of roles, often simultaneously, but also to the audience requiring it to constantly question not just what they’re watching, but also how they’re watching it. From the opening moments, I thought I knew who the characters were only to realize after several minutes that I was completely wrong. These three actors cross gender, age, and relationship and can do so a multitude of times over the course of seconds much less minutes! And I loved every moment of catching on. Candidly, there are times you expect a dozen invited guests to take the stage and add to the comedy or the drama, but the task goes no further than the 3 skilled actors.

The production’s structural framework—three actors playing six family roles could come off as a theatrical parlor trick if left in lesser hands. But here, the challenge is given to some of the best and most capable actors and director in the biz. 

Director Amy Morton (most recently seen performing in Steppenwolf’s “You Will Get Sick,” not to mention her lead role as Sergeant Trudy Platt in Chicago PD) is an actor’s director. She leans into the play’s ambiguity without ever over- signaling, or ever allowing emotional logic to be obvious but placing full trust in her cast. But Morton’s challenge is not just handling the actors; she must have the audience come to recognize and understand the uneasy parallels between the on-stage characters and their relationship to and with each other. The result is an almost unnerving sense that identity, memory, and yes, morality are far more fluid and complex than we’d like to believe.

Gary Cole (a member of Steppenwolf’s original ensemble and very well known for his roles including Office Space, Talladega Nights, and as Mike Brady in the Brady Bunch movies) delivers a performance of remarkable precision, playing characters who could not be more different from each other and yet he does so with incredible ease. In one moment he radiates a kind of paternal steadiness; in another, that same steadiness morphs into something brittle and controlling. Cole resists the urge to differentiate too broadly; instead he lets small shifts in tone and bodily posture do the work—making the character’s dual incarnations feel like distorted reflections of the same person, rather than entirely separate creations. And he’s right to do so given the relationship between the dual personas. 

Audrey Francis (co-artistic director of Steppenwolf Theatre along with her acting cred in Noises Off, The Doppelganger and the Thanksgiving Play among others), meanwhile, is the production’s emotional anchor arguably with the sharpest differentiations required between her characters along with the demands placed on her younger Daniela. Her work is both fiercely grounded and distinctively devastating. She is a master of playing moments where language fails and silence or deeply emotional screams take over. Francis clearly has a gift for letting contradiction live in her body: tenderness skinned with resentment, and strength undercut by palpable vulnerability. Watching her navigate the play’s mirroring realities is like watching someone attempting to hold two incompatible truths at once, but without letting either go astray. In one incredible to watch break down scene, she crosses a range of emotions that at once have us wondering what guilt, responsibility, and alternatives she is addressing simultaneously both internally and externally and stressfully wondering whether it will resolve before our eyes.

Steppenwolf veteran Tim Hopper completes the trio with equal rigor, ensuring that the ensemble operates as a true triangle of tension rather than a hierarchy. He switches roles so often and almost from word to word that it’s a dexterity rarely seen by any actor on stage. 

These three actors create a dynamic ecosystem where alliances shift and sometimes break in real time, each scene pulsing with the possibility of emotional and realistically physical confrontation. 

Morton’s direction proves to be incisive and unsentimental. She trusts both the text and clearly trusts her actors. Morton resists any temptation to make performance easy even when on paper, it may appear nearly impossible to pull off the multi levels of interaction required in the moment. Truthfully, it is challenging for the audience to grasp every interaction, character shift and you will leave feeling like you need to see this play one more time to get what you may have missed. That said, it seems clear that Morton understands that the play’s power rests not in being completely, clear, but rather in an accumulation of slow, unsettling realizations that certainty is likely out of reach. I expect that the performances and nature of character relationships will likely change over the coming weeks of performance. They almost have to as the actors continue to embody the combination of characters they play and with whom they interact on stage.

The staging is deliberately spare keeping the focus squarely on the performers and the volatile nature of their relationships. Catch as Catch Can is an actor’s dream to perform and these three actors literally get to chew the scenery as the saying goes, enjoying every second of the challenge. 

Catch as Catch Can is not an easy evening of theater, nor is it meant to be. But it IS a great one! It’s funny, engaging, captivating but it also lingers, provokes, and resists any attempt to find an easy or tidy interpretation. I was struck by the number of people who walked out of the auditorium talking about strongly their own family paralleled what they had just witnessed. Many walked out with a lot to think about in the coming days. 

This Steppenwolf production is what the theater company is known for and actually seems to take things to a new level with challenges not tackled in the history of this crown jewel of Chicago theater. It’s as though the play was written for the vast skill range for these specific actors in mind. It is an intelligent, challenging to both actors and audience, and emotionally precise experience for all. That said, it is anchored by three formidable performances and a director who knows exactly how to let a story haunt you in a very personal way long after the lights come back up.

Catch as Catch Can plays thru July 12th; tickets can be purchased at: www.Steppenwolf.org