Playwright for the Trump Era? It’s Politics and Money in Brecht’s Round Heads & Pointed Heads at Red Tape
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed Everybody knows the war is over Everybody knows the good guys lost Everybody knows the fight was fixed The poor stay poor, the rich get rich That's how it goes Everybody knowsRed Tape gives its audience a special welcome. Just before the play opens, the audience enters the theater as a group, to be greeted with applause and cheers from the whole cast, assembled in costume on stage. Act two begins with a kazoo parade. Director Truax is masterful in keeping track of the madness. Mayes stands out in style and voice as Iberin, as does Chapman as the privy councilor and Cappuccio as the attorney (wearing a fedora over his round rubber headpiece). Sonneville and King are also strong performers. Nicholas Schwartz’s set design makes good use of the warehouse-like space in Red Tape’s storefront, The Ready (shared with Theatre Y). Furniture is mostly stools and the aforementioned stepladder plus a red rocking horse. Lighting by Taylor Ovca is also utilitarian. At one point, two performers sit on the floor and point spotlights at actors. Credit goes to Rachel Sypniewski for costumes, mostly in a beige color palette, with a few splashes of orange/red. Bertolt Brecht is best known for plays such as Mother Courage and Her Children, The Caucasian Chalk Circle and Threepenny Opera. But Brecht is having a moment in Chicago theater. Recent productions of his plays have included The Last Days of the Commune at Prop Thtr and Fear and Misery in the Third Reich by Haven Theatre. Two recent strong productions of his work were The Life of Galileo at Remy Bumppo and The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui at Trap Door. Brecht is always political, usually outrageous, and pulls no punches in brawling with the right wing. Perhaps we should designate Brecht the playwright for the Trump era. And in case you were wondering why Brecht named his country Yahoo, he borrowed it from Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. Round Heads and Pointed Heads continues at Red Tape Theatre, 4546 N. Western, through April 21. The performance runs 2 hours, 15 minutes plus an intermission. Red Tape is part of the free-theater movement; you can reserve free tickets here for performances Friday-Monday.
Nancy S Bishop
Nancy S. Bishop is publisher and Stages editor of Third Coast Review. She’s a member of the American Theatre Critics Association and a 2014 Fellow of the National Critics Institute at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. You can read her personal writing on pop culture at nancybishopsjournal.com, and follow her on Twitter @nsbishop. She also writes about film, books, art, architecture and design.