For more than 30 years, Edgewater’s Rivendell Theatre Ensemble has occupied a unique niche in Chicago’s theatrosphere. Since its founding, the company has focused on dramas about, or authored by, women. And in an industry where roles for older women are becoming increasingly sparse, Rivendell is a welcome outlier.
“No Such Thing,” the new drama by Lisa Dillman running through April 27 in Rivendell’s intimate space, sometimes follows and sometimes fails that mission.
Directed by Malkia Stampley, “No Such Thing” opens with a woman of a certain age in full-throttle carnal embrace behind a gauzy scrim. Ren (Susan Gosdick) is a once-successful writer, the mother of 27-year-old Olivia (Jessica Ervin) and wife of more than 30 years to Ted (Matt De Caro). Her tryst is with a man whose name we don’t learn until the final moments before intermission, sending audiences out with a cliffhanger at once incongruously farcical and shocking.
It’s difficult to describe more of the plot without spoilers. Suffice to say, as much as Ren and her lover try to keep their relationship in a vacuum, it lands in her living room with the force of a landmine.
In her program notes, Dillman describes the play as one that addresses the increasing sense of invisibility that so many older women experience and endure. But other than a monologue about Ren’s never-seen aunt, Dillman never really gets into that with any kind of depth.
The drama is overstuffed with other issues, too: Mental illness, addiction, career/marital slumps, infidelity and dysfunctional family dynamics are packed into a plot with a lot that isn’t really tackled in a meaningful or dramatically satisfying way.
To a great extent, “No Such Thing” feels unfinished. As Ren says of her plays, she likes to “let ‘em wonder.” That’s fine to a point, but in the end the work just feels incomplete rather than intentional.
Most troubling of all: Ren is seen primarily in terms of her relationship to men and as a mother to Olivia. Yes, she’s also a writer. But what we hear of her latest manuscript is based on an event in her lover’s life, not her own.
When Ren and her lover exchange fake names, their monikers are telling: He’s Valmont, the name of the villainous predator in “Dangerous Liaisons.” She’s Masha, the name of one of the grimly unhappy siblings in Chekhov’s “Three Sisters.”
The performances, however, are solid. As Ren, Gosdick brings understated ferocity whether in the bedroom or dealing with her exasperated agent and troubled daughter. When she briskly informs Olivia that life isn’t “just something to get through,” it’s truth delivered with a sharp edge of rue.
As Olivia, Ervin credibly depicts the dual demons of inertia and rage that inevitably accompany major depression: In flashback, we see Olivia slumped under a blanket, the floor around her scattered with empty bags of chips, flattened boxes of Girl Scout cookies and tubs of ice cream. When the play moves back to the present, Olivia seems to have overcome her harrowing history — maybe. Ervin makes her hard-won stability feel like a true triumph.
As Olivia’s new boyfriend Fallon (we learn little about him other than he burned a house down as an 11-year-old and has two PhDs from the college Olivia attends), Josh Odor is initially sympathetic but ultimately revealed as just another dude who casually devastates women and then takes off.
It’s Ren’s hard-drinking, easy-going husband Ted (Matt De Caro) who turns out to be the most sympathetic character on stage. Long an invaluable player in Chicago and beyond, De Caro can turn from amiable to wrathful with the lift of an eyebrow. For a character who spends much of the drama lounging in his favorite chair and knocking back booze, Ted is one of the most interesting people on stage.
Also engaging: Ren’s literary agent Marilyn (Cheryl Hamada), who fizzes with frustration over the manuscripts she’s been receiving, insisting Ren’s scripts need to be louder, faster, funnier and dumber if they’re to be commercially viable.
Set designer Lauren Nichols uses screens to efficiently move the action from hotel room to living room while sound designer Ethan Korvne’s original music and repeated use of eerie knocking sounds enriches the whole endeavor.
“No Such Thing” is fairly compelling throughout. But as an exploration of women aging into invisibility, it misses the mark.