Compelling Kowalski at Lookingglass

In beginning acting class they tell you: figure out what your character WANTS from the other characters and try to get it. When your characters are some of the geniuses of American theatre in their early career, they want an awful lot from each other.  And thus great acting happens.

Wanting very much from one another is the premise of Lookingglass Theatre's current production of Kowalski which purports to tell of the night a very young Marlon Brando showed up at the Provincetown cottage of Tennessee Williams three days late to audition for his new play A Streetcar Named Desire.  In an alcohol fueled battle of wills and skills, surrounded by other characters with great wants, these two fiction makers arch towards the truth that hurt people hurt people, and people make art and still try to push a way through.  As you watch Johnny Galecki as Williams and Jacob Moskovitz as Brando, the actors with only a faint resemblance to the real men fall away and you tumble into the tempestuous and realistic set by David Gallo and you are there.  This is a truly fine night of theatre, and one that may send you, as it did me, home to watch the movie Streetcar. 

Greg Ostrin’s 90 minute script is tight and bitingly funny while still feeling human. Colin Hanlon’s direction keeps it moving and spare so you can concentrate on the interactions of the characters.

The show is aiming at a Broadway run after an off Broadway stint last year, so once again Chicagoans can preview the future of the NYC theatre scene.  I only hope we see more Chicago actors headed to the great white way: this show seems to be adhering to the current business practice of importing big and small screen actors to draw ticket sales. This plot underlines the early pipeline of stage to screen and back, where stage actors could only hope to get to do the screen version. They were often not offered a chance to do the roles they created when it went to celluloid. Of course, Brando was every bit as good on screen as on stage. 

I think its important to revisit some of the historic moments that led to the theatre as we know it, and Kowalski is a wonderful wallow in an illustrious if complicated past. Don’t dawdle if you want to see it though:Kowalski isonly playing Tuesdays through Sundays until October 25th, 2026 at the Lookingglass Theatre, 163 Pearson Street at Michigan Avenue. For tickets and information go to https://lookingglasstheatre.org/plays/kowalski/

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