Review: In ‘Sanctuary City’ at Steppenwolf Theatre, the relationship between these young immigrants is the key
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Martyna Majok, a Polish émigré who graduated from the University of Chicago and is the author of the latest play at the Steppenwolf Theatre, has dedicated most of her writing career to plays about those who come to America from someplace else and are not made to feel like they belong here.
In “Sanctuary City,” a richly poetic piece of writing set in the first decade of the 21st century, Majok (pronounced like “my oak”), homes in on two high school seniors living in Newark, New Jersey, and forced mostly to look after themselves. Both are from immigrant families, existing in the shadows, although Majok never specifies their country of origin so as to better universalize their condition. The characters don’t even have names, which would imbue a specificity this writer prefers to avoid.
All we know is that B and G find refuge in each other right from the moment when G climbs the fire escape to visit B in 2001. Both characters first arrived here with their families — Dreamers in sometimes parlance, but a situation that presents an especially challenging set of circumstances. B’s mother has returned to her home country, leaving him alone and without the documents he needs. G has had to deal with a succession of her mother’s sexual partners, most of whom have left scars on both mother and daughter.
For the first several minutes, B (Grant Kennedy Lewis) and G (Jocelyn Zamudio) circle each other in a rapid-fire series of sparing scenes, staged by director Steph Paul in varying pools of light, as they and the audience try to figure out the parameters of a relationship that appears to exist on the edge of Eros, without crossing the border. Or has it? Or will it?
Such a relationship, a heterosexual marriage, comes with potential benefits: G is a U.S. citizen. B is not. If B marries G, he could be one too, although the couple likely would face a series of invasive personal questions designed to root out if their relationship were fake.
The central question of the first part of the play, really, is how you define, let alone build, a potential relationship under that kind of pressure. And indeed, they buckle.
At Steppenwolf, this first half of the 95-minute is great. I felt for the first time that the theater had staged a show in the round in an organic way that could only be done this well in the round. Both of these performers feel present and alive and the show is so well-paced as to be deeply involving. It’s really something.
Then there’s a shift. It comes in the writing; the dramatic action shifts forward in time. Explaining precisely what has changed would spoil the experience for you. Suffice to say that there now is a third character, played by Brandon Rivera, and the already tough situation in which B and G found themselves now has become inestimably more difficult.
I should note that at the show I saw, there was a performance-halting technical malfunction involving the mechanism that brings up a not-so-necessary table from below. Such things happen in the theater, are part of the live experience and I rarely mention them in reviews. But I hope Steppenwolf gives this lift, and its operation, some permanent attention as now I’ve seen something go awry with it in three separate productions in this still-new theater and, in all cases, it took a moment or two for the actors to recover their intensity and bring the audience back into the play.
At that same moment, “Sanctuary City” also shifts into a more conventional kind of drama. I found myself very much missing the sparse style of the first half, which is so beautifully written and directed in such an uncluttered and honest way. But if some of that power drops away as the conflict becomes triangular, you still feel the stress of compounding change.
“Sanctuary City,” which is serving double duty here as both a mainstage show and a part of the Steppenwolf for Young Audiences series, is an openhearted piece of writing from one of the bright new stars of American playwriting (Majok won the Pulitzer Prize for her fabulous play “Cost of Living”) and it is sincerely performed by this cast.
Zamudio is a powerful standout, her eyes constantly shifting, as, it feels, does her nameless character’s confused mind and throbbing heart.
But Rivera and Lewis in many ways have the harder, more reactive assignments and, while Lewis could let loose a little more when the opportunity arises in the second part, both make you feel for their youthful characters.
This play is set in the past and you certainly find yourself noting how far this country has come in its areas of interest: we are watching ordinary people in the not-so-distant past, doing their best but stuck in a limbo caused by political policy decisions, or indecisions, that they can in no way control. As anyone who reads the news knows, these issues remain. Especially for young people.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
Review: “Sanctuary City” (3 stars)
When: Through Nov. 18
Where: Ensemble Theater at the Steppenwolf Theatre, 1646 N. Halsted St.
Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes
Tickets: $20-$114 at 312-335-1650 and steppenwolf.org
