Aunt Dan and Lemon

Windy City Times

December 2, 2009
BY MARY SHEN BARNRIDGE

Our narrator is Leonora, nicknamed in childhood "Lemon"—a cheerfully neurasthenic invalid who freely admits to a past restricted by a likewise sickly youth, obliging her to entertain us with memoirs of her acquaintances. These include her blustery father, her submissive mother, and an eccentric family friend named Danielle—the "Aunt Dan" of the title—who fascinated a pre-adolescent Lemon as adults not one's own kin often do. Among Dan's adventures are a tale of her brief affair with a gold-digging gamine ( who cold-bloodedly murders the policeman harassing her protector ) , and later, an impassioned defense of Henry Kissinger—moments etched so indelibly in Leonora's memory that years later, her recollections will lead her to some rather disturbing assessments of her society.

Yes, we are right in the thick of Wallace Shawn territory now, replete with long monologues, stories-within-stories and a line of argument as convoluted as its conclusions are perverse. A realm where, if we are to follow the playwright's logic, we must not only listen carefully to every word, but devise our own rebuttals to his characters' outrageous assertions—for our play's agenda includes no comforting raisonneur to guide us toward dissenting views.

This BackStage Theatre production focuses our attention by casting us as, literally, flies on Leonora's parlor walls. We are seated on furniture not unlike that which she occupies ( flanked by an array of the fruit and vegetable juices that comprise her sole diet ) , arranged as if decorating the room in which she receives visitors—an illusion heightened by the absence of boundaries, physical or imagined, dividing lobby from auditorium in the Chopin's basement space. Also keeping Shawn's words—and there are a lot of them—progressing at a brisk pace are an assembly of actors whose elocutionary skills have been honed to razor sharpness, creating immediately engaging individuals of palpable originality. And when nothing but bodies-in-motion will do, Dan's account of naughty Mindy's erotically charged homicide is replicated with a vivid sensuality that set several opening-night playgoers to muttering in dismay.

Indeed, it's a brave audience who can allow itself to be gulled as our author demands—first seduced by a bevy of alluring personalities ( led by stars-in-rise Brenda Barrie and Rebekah Ward-Hays as the title personnel ) , then confronted by the monstrosity of their opinions. But if we are to circumvent the atrocities that beguile our introspective hostess, we should welcome Shawn's challenge to our complacency.