“Windfall” is daring, intense and incredibly relevant!

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“Windfall” by Tarell Alvin McCraney at Steppenwolf Theatre  - Review By: Paul Lisnek   

****/4

“Windfall” is daring, intense and incredibly relevant! At Steppenwolf thru May 31st

Windfall is the sort of play that reminds you why Academy Award Winner and Windfall playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney is one of the American theater’s most vital writers: he does not just dramatize grief, he gives it shape, rhythm and impact. We read regularly of young men of color killed by cops and the main consequence is a check written by the city to put that matter to rest. But as a city council votes time after time to approve such measures, have we ever considered the pain and anguish that a family goes thru in deciding whether to let a child’s death be compensated for with the acceptance of money? And McCraney takes that consequential moment for a family even further. He offers a look at a city that in the end, seeks to profit from Black suffering….Windfall is, in the end, a civic reckoning for us all.

The setup: A father, emotionally shattered by the killing of his son (not the first child he has lost either), is approached with a settlement check in exchange for silence, relocation and, most grotesquely, the promise of emotionally (if not just physically) “moving on”, as tho that could ever be possible. The metaphor resounds loudly. This offer of a financial transaction is the heart or moral center of the play which is indeed set in Chicago a not inappropriate venue for such a moment. And for this city, it’s rightly set here and it hits home hard. And by the way, the audience does not just observe the action. Its voice is heard at the encouragement of the characters and this brings the audience into the reality in an unexpected and impactful way. I’m not sure you would call this an immersive play, but it certainly demands more than watching from the sidelines. This is not a simple protest play; it’s a search, an inquiry into whether justice can ever be reduced to compensation.

Michael Potts (playing Henri “Mr. Mano” Tamano) gives the production its emotional and parental anchor, performed both with power and a careful and even remarkable restraint. His performance is a contained pressure at first, perhaps better described as a compressed pain, something nearly unendurable, but ultimately released into a full moment of reckoning. Potts never asks for sympathy; but he earns it with a powerful portrayal of a father’s anguish.

Around him, Glenn Davis (Marcus), Alana Arenas (scene stealing as First Lady, Miss Second and the Last One) and Esco Jouley (Eli) create a world that is realistic, yet haunting. Davis, in particular, brings an intelligence to the stage which helps sharpen and focus the play’s debate without diminishing it into simple argument. The entire ensemble forces the production to control its power like taking a deep and difficult series of breaths.

Director Awoye Timpo directs the play to maintain a consistent level of control so that when its moments of explosion occur, the moment is emphasized to its dramatic fullest. She directs this play like it’s a storm, gathering until it unleashes on this family and on society. Her confidence serves the material well.

Windfall does not offer a comforting or soothing message. It does not ask you to like it. Why should it? Instead it requires you to reckon with it. Indeed, McCraney is too intelligent a writer to offer consolation where there can be none, to pretend money can heal what racism has broken. By the way, the play’s title is itself a bitter irony because what is presented here is not a windfall at all; rather, it’s a fraudulent means of covering guilt with money, as if such a thing could ever offer resolution. By the end, the production resolves its ultimate conflict, nevertheless leaving us both uneasy and uncomfortable.

This is moving theater. Windfall stands out for the force of its writing, its intelligence and the gravity of its performances.

Windfall runs thru May 31st and tickets can be purchased at: www.Steppenwolf.org