Shattered Globe does Dickens right

The MIdwest premiere of Brendan Pelsue’s  A Tale of Two Cities now on view at Theatre Wit is a dynamic, entertaining, thought provoking experience of theatre.  If you want to understand what is happening right now in America, I have been exhorting folks to look at the French Revolution (especially The Rest is History podcast) As good as the podcast historians Dominic Sandbrook and  Tom Holland are at unpacking the facts and remaining entertaining, no one in the English language has done better at relating the randomness of fate and the uncontrollable chaos and violence of the the mob than consummate story teller Charles Dickens, and Pelsue’s script boils it down for us in a wide ranging self aware script that enlists us, the audience, to stand in for the mob. This show stays true to Dickens and true to the story and is a sweeping commentary on right now. 

Director Mikael Burke has assembled a strong ensemble of only 8 actors, each numbered and not character named, on the simple and striking candlelit set by Eleanor Kahn and Milo Bue to represent throngs and all of London and Paris (with a bit of French countryside thrown in for good measure).  It is a testament and masterful adherent to the concept of less is more. Penelope Walker often plays Dr Manette with sympathy and dramatic range. Daria Harper as the sometime narrator, judge and various other characters, shows a weight and depth and scurries us along in the narrative. Jeff Rogriguez plays doomed King Louis with a special kind of humorous cluelessness, then morphs into other main characters. Diego Vazquez Gomez mostly plays Charles Darnay with handsome earnestness. Jazzma Pryor’s version of Madame DeFarge is terrifying. 

You probably need a passing familiarity with the original book because this 2.5 hour epic goes by very fast and small costume changes may not be enough to help the viewer sort out who the characters are in a particular scene. The plot spans the lead up to the French Revolution, from the fall of the Bastille, the overthrow of the government and how the courts and law become moot in the face of a desire for revenge– and how the mobs executed 17,000 people in the Reign of Terror. This play shows how violence begets violence, and but it also tries to show how honor and virtue try to triumph above human’s uglier instincts.

I left the theatre a bit depressed: one senses a breaking apart in our own time and this play addresses how quickly things can go terribly wrong, but I also felt a tiny seed of optimism because there are, in every challenging time, good people. There is so much to be learned and contemplated by revisiting this story especially in this wonderfully spare and still rich adaptation.

It is a time for all  to review this essential story.  You can catch the Shattered Globe Theatre rendition of A Tale of Two Cities at Theatre Wit, 1229 W Belmont in Chicago, Thursdays through Sundays until May 31, 2025.  For tickets and information go to https://www.sgtheatre.org/season34/totc 

Photo by Michael Brosilow

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