Since Audrey Francis was named as one of two co-artistic directors of Steppenwolf Theatre Company in 2021, we’ve been seeing the famed ensemble take on more outright comedy: The farce “Noises Off;” the satire “The Thanksgiving Play,” which Francis acted in; and the satirical farce “POTUS,” which Francis directed.
This continues with playwright Noah Diaz’s “You Will Get Sick,” with Francis again at the helm. But this piece is neither satire nor farce, styles that can be somewhat aggressive in their comic sensibilities. Instead, this is a delicate, whimsical, evocatively elusive and semi-successful work of imagination about illness and death. And money. And acting, sort of. And “The Wizard of Oz.”
An unnamed man in his 30s, played by Namir Smallwood, has been diagnosed with an incurable, degenerative disease. He hasn’t told anyone and doesn’t want to speak the words, at least not to anyone who would care. So he posts a flyer on a telephone pole (the play is set “before cellphones”) in his anonymous but very New York-like city promising $40 if someone calls him and listens to his secret. But maybe $40 is too much, so he scratches that out and offers $20.
A much older woman does indeed call. And listens. And wants the full $40.
Amy Morton plays this character — who does get a name, Callan — and she captures an appealingly bizarre mixture of urban practicality (everything she does has a price) and a believable sense of ridiculous self-delusion. She’s an actor, or at least an auditioner. But she only seems to audition for one part: that of Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz.” Not only is she many decades too old, she also can’t sing. Or act, really, although she does borrow her new employer’s confession about his illness as a killer monologue.
It’s not just the characters who are a bit bizarre — the entire world here is skewed. In this dream-like environment, birds caw fiercely and, we’re told, swoop down to pick up whole human beings. In a lovely bit of theatrical illusion designed by Skylar Fox, flyers advertising bird-kidnapping insurance defy gravity. Limbs that become non-operative leak hay.
And a narrator (Jordan Arredondo) speaks over a microphone to narrate what’s happening, filling in many thoughts that Smallwood’s emotionally repressed character won’t say: “You’re suddenly very lonely,” the voice announces at one point. “You want to tell her this.”
He doesn’t.
Other characters, all played with verve by Cliff Chamberlain and Sadieh Rifai, provide exaggerations of recognizable realities: a waiter who sobs, a self-involved sister who pities herself as much as her ailing brother, a co-worker who wonders aloud why Smallwood’s character hasn’t been in the office for so long even as she watches him shop for a wheelchair, a community college student embracing animal play in a class about, meaningfully, living in your body.
Diaz wrote this play as a grad student at Yale, and it does come across as a youthful experiment in form from a promising and poetic playwright. There’s a clear interplay between life and theater, and a core belief that theater can unlock existential revelations that go beyond the logical. You can feel influences — Sarah Ruhl comes clearly to mind, as does Christopher Durang. The play also made me think of David Lindsay-Abaire’s “Kimberly Akimbo,” which has elements in common with this work about how people can’t deal with mortality , and how our physical bodies can be so frustratingly opposed to our needs.
For the first half of its 85-minute running time, these wonderful-to-watch actors help us believe in the fanciful world we’re in. As Francis catches us off guard with quick flashes of onstage magic, “You Will Get Sick” carries a promise of profundity and power. But toward the end, the production deflates.
This is a show where a choice needed to be made to go big in spectacle or find a different way — through movement, for example — to continually activate our imaginations. Steppenwolf’s production gets caught in between. Neither the visuals nor other physical elements — such as the depiction of Smallwood’s loss of mobility — build effectively, which means there’s a lot that feels like falling action in a work that shouldn’t really have any.
That said, “You Will Get Sick” is an unquestionably thoughtful piece, gently poking at our complacency about sickness, playfully toying with the necessity of paying others to “care” for us, and ultimately making us consider what it means to come “home.”