*** Recommended Steppenwolf’s production of Ngozi Anyanwu’s play, Leroy and Lucy, left me adrift. Since it’s billed as a play with music, I thought I’d hear way more Delta Blues than I did. I thought I knew where it was going – the ‘sell your soul to the devil’ trope – but then it took a strange turn and I wasn’t sure what to think. I liked the staging but I couldn’t bring myself to care about the characters. 2 ½ Spotlights
Leroy and Lucy is loosely based on the spooky legend that blues musician, Robert Johnson, met the devil at a Mississippi crossroads and sold his soul in return for musical success. Because people wondered how he did what he did in his short life – he died at age 27 – the legend grew. Actually, Johnson was an iterant musician who played his harmonica and guitar on street corners and juke joints along the Mississippi Delta. He did write a song called Crossroads, but his recording career lasted only seven months.
It seemed to me that Lucy (Brittany Bradford) had an agenda. There she was, sitting on a convenient bench, strumming a guitar, when Leroy (Jon Michael Hill) strolled up. Instead of engaging in the kind of neutral conversations strangers have, she started flirting with him. She obviously didn’t want to listen when he tried to tell her he’d lost his wife and child. I was sure she was a rep for the devil until he started to say he’d sell his soul and she cut him off.
When she started talking in reverb (and isn’t that how the devil speaks?) however he answered her right back in reverb (What!). So are they both possessed or are they supernatural beings? By the way, the floor changes color, adding jagged white lines around them - see above. Not much happened after that, which was disappointing.
Leroy and Lucy runs through December 15th in Steppenwolf’s Ensemble Theater in Honor of Helen Zell, 1646 N. Halsted Street, Chicago. Self-parking is available in the Steppenwolf Garage, accessible parking in the lot north of Front Bar. Valet parking is also available.
Running time is 90 minutes, no intermission. Performances are Tuesdays through Fridays at 7:30 pm, Saturdays at 3:00 & 7:30 pm, Sundays at 3:00 pm. There will not be 7:30 pm performances on Tuesday, November 19th, Wednesday, November 20th, Thursday, November 21st, Thursday, November 28th and Tuesday, December 10th. There will be an added 2:00 pm matinee on Wednesday, November 27th.
Accessible performances: Audio-described & touch tour, Sunday, November 24th, at 3:00 pm (1:30 pm touch tour); Open-captioned, Saturday, November 23rd at 3:00 pm and Thursday, December 5th at 7:30 pm; ASL-interpreted, Friday, December 6th at 7:30 pm.
Tickets range from $20-$92. FYI (312) 335-1650 or www.steppenwolf.org.