Joshua Allen’s “The Grand Boulevard Trilogy,” a series of three plays set on different floors of the same apartment building on Chicago’s South Side, has taken some three years to unspool at the Raven Theatre; too long, perhaps, for audiences to easily feel the connective tissue.
What should happen next is a further production of all three of these fine new plays about Black family life in 20th-century Chicago; they could also, I think, become three acts of the same highly substantial evening and, as such, would be a formidable addition to the legacy of Chicago-raised writers telling Chicago stories both universal and specific.
In the first two plays, “The Last Pair of Earlies” and “The October Storm,” there were vistas of life in 1921, 1939 and 1960. But the final installment, “The Prodigal Daughter,” reaches back to the so-called Red Summer of 1919, when the drowning death of a 17-year-old Black boy, Eugene Williams, who was stoned by white youth after he inadvertently crossed an invisible race line within the waters of Lake Michigan, caused riots in the Grand Crossing neighborhood and throughout the South Side.
But even as that conflict rages outside, the Bass family is trying to get on with their lives and save themselves from potential economic ruin.
The work, directed by Jerrell L. Henderson, centers on the unmarried Virginia Bass (Stephanie Mattos), who has secured a job for herself as a vacuum cleaner salesperson, partnering with a white guy, named George Oakley (Stefan Brundage) to the chagrin of her family, especially her father John Bass (Bradford Stevens), himself a struggling small businessman trying to hold off the bank and hang on to his home.
In essence, the play explores the choices a Black woman faces while trying to get ahead. George is perhaps benign, and even in love with her, but also patriarchal in that he has crafted an unusual arrangement that could be read as either craftily supportive, given the givens of the day, or profoundly exploitation. John sees it as the latter, of course, but then he’s facing those financial issues, an argument against principles, perhaps. Virginia, by contrast, is trying to figure out how much moral rectitude she can afford and where expedient choices might offer the best option in a Chicago overcome by riots based on racial animosity.
That’s a very interesting anchor for a play. There’s also the presence of the teenage Daisy (Sol Fuller), adding to the intensity of Virginia’s dilemma, given that a young person is watching her choices. Meanwhile, Rev. Eugene Maxwell (Bryant Hayes), offers an alternate path for Virginia and Lottie (RjW Mays) asserts her own humorous but potent moralism.
As in “The October Storm,” Allen hones in here on how family lives amidst American tumult always have to balance their own inter-generational power structures, which may or may not match what’s going on outside. It’s family drama but also sophisticated writing, matched here by a strong cast and an especially lovely performance from Mattos, who is entirely credible as a young Chicagoan who just wants to grab some of the promises offered by her growing but exclusionary American city.
I didn’t feel this final installment was staged with as much intensity and realism as the dynamic “October Storm,” with “Prodigal Daughter” sometimes veering into overly broad comedy and with some moments when the rules of theatrical engagement felt unclear. But none of that spoiled this rich drama nor Mattos’ formidable performance.
“The Grand Boulevard Trilogy” must not end here.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
cjones5@chicagotribune.com
Review: “The Prodigal Daughter” (3 stars)
When: Through June 22
Where: Raven Theatre, 6157 N. Clark St.
Running time: 1 hour, 30 mins.
Tickets: $45 at raventheatre.com
