Theatre News Wire

Polarity Ensemble Theatre opens its 2010/2011 season with Eugene O'Neill's great American drama Long Day's Journey into Night, Oct. 26th through Dec. 5th at Wicker Park's Josephinum Academy,1500 N. Bell Street, where the company is in residence. According to Polarity Ensemble Artistic Director Richard Engling, O'Neill's play could not be more timely. "We are living in a period of intense consequences. We look at our economy, our society, our two wars, the ecology, and it knocks us back on our heels. We want to unravel the sources of our fate. How did we get to this point? We have plenty of candidates for blame, but little satisfaction. That's the deep beauty of a masterpiece like Long Day's Journey into Night. It leads us through a deep introspection about fate, choices and consequences in a way that only a genius like O'Neill can do. It's a deeply satisfying play for our time." Tickets are on sale now online at Brown Paper Tickets or by phone at 1-800-838-3006. For more information visit http://petheatre.com.

The Long Day's Journey into Night production team is led by guest director Susan Padveen and features Bryan Breau, Kevin Kenneally, Caroline Latta, Anne Sears and Eric Damon Smith. "This is a strong cast of veteran actors with a wonderfully sensitive director," Engling says. "It's also a rare opportunity to see an ensemble cast in an intimate 54-seat space performing what many consider to be the best American play of the 20th century. We wanted to continue the dialogue that the Goodman Theatre started with its recent wonderful O'Neill festival, and also to follow up Polarity's highly popular 2009 production of another great American classic, A Streetcar Named Desire."

"When someone offers you one of the greatest American plays of the 20th century, you say, 'Yes!'" chimes Ms. Padveen of her second collaboration with Polarity. Her first partnership was The White Airplane, a mind-bending original work by Chicago playwright Darren Callahan that had a successful run in the 2008/2009 season. Never having directed O'Neill, Ms. Padveen, as a coordinator of the directing department of Columbia College of Chicago's theatre program, wanted to be newly challenged by this classic play. "I was really excited to do a classic again - I've been doing new or devised pieces for a while now and relish the chance to do the opposite."

With so many famous prior productions of Long Day's Journey into Night, including the 1962 film starring Katherine Hepburn, Ralph Richardson, Jason Robards, and Dean Stockwell, Polarity has been challenged with making this version unique while staying true to O'Neill's intent. As part of Polarity's mission, the company "breathes new life" into classics - such as in Polarity's 2008 revival of Hamlet in which the Dane was immersed in a world of rock n' roll - a production which prompted the Chicago Reader to dub Polarity "Best Emerging Theatre Company" of the year. According to Director Padveen, audiences can expect a faithful interpretation of the play, with fresh and surprising multimedia design elements.

Polarity Ensemble Theatre's 2010/11 Season continues its exploration of fate with the world premiere of Bryce Wissel's Ephemera, a zany existential comedy set in outer space, March 22 - May 1, 2011. "It's odd to think that there could be a common theme between Long Day's Journey and a play that features a talking monkey on a space station," says Engling, "but comedy tackles interesting topics, as well." Ephemera is the next in a series of scripts first developed through Polarity's Dionysos Cup Festival of New Plays and later produced by the company. The festival, which began in 2006, is gaining its own reputation as one of the best designed new play development processes in the city and has reached record numbers of submissions from local playwrights this year. "We work exclusively with Chicago-area playwrights," Engling says. "It's a five month process with the playwrights in the room. It's all about creating ensemble around each script and doing the best possible work." The Annual Dionysos Cup Festival of New Plays runs May 13 - 22, 2011.