Natural Affection, North Lakeside Players, at the North Lakeside Cultural Center. Director Sara Rosen deserves some sort of prize for mounting the least heartwarming Christmas play in the English language. William Inge’s overlooked drama–it tanked on Broadway in 1963 and has never before been produced locally–condenses two days in the hardscrabble life of resourceful Sue into an Arthur Miller-like stew of frustrated ambitions. Residing in a tiny Chicago apartment with her commitment-shy slacker boyfriend Bernie, she’s suddenly confronted by the son she gave up for adoption, now a teenage juvenile delinquent on Christmas holiday from reform school. His destabilizing presence causes all the submerged resentments among Sue, Bernie, and their neighbors to erupt in ever worsening verbal attacks. By the time Christmas is over, everyone’s life is in shambles.
