The Dramatist Revolutionary Army was looking forward to playing the Lincoln Park West Care Center. The theater group’s latest project, War-Dice–an interactive piece designed to mimic the unpredictability of life during wartime–had been suffering from poor attendance. On August 4 a hoped-for audience of teenagers had failed to appear at the Albany Park Community Center. So the cast of eight performed for the family of Catherine Hanna, one of the actors.
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The troupe, which was founded in 1998 by four Columbia College students, set up last weekend at the home, at 1901 N. Lincoln Park West. Their venue: the fourth-floor solarium–a library with an Encyclopaedia Britannica, a set of Reader’s Digest Condensed Books, and a nice view of the park. At two o’clock, staff members wheeled in a dozen elderly women.
Wise strolled to the front of the room. “After the events of September 11,” he told the staring women, “we all really needed a way to respond to living in a world at war, since this was all new to us, so this is what we’ve done to respond. This answered the question ‘What next?,’ since it’s a random game. If you can accept anything can happen, then you’re at peace.”
“I have a bus leaving at a quarter to four,” she responded.
“OK, jock.”
This was not a character type Gallo had rehearsed. She panted through her remaining scenes, as Sergeant persuaded her to preach to a crowd he thought might contain an assassin, hoping to spare his character the task. Gallo held the Kleenex over her heart, to stop an anticipated bullet, then ended by asking the audience to join her in singing “Alleluia.”
