Darkly Moving I Am the Wind at Theatre Y

Theatre Y is celebrating 20 years of challenging expectations about what theatre can and should be. They make not so easy and artful works in an appealing and funky repurposed space at 3611 West Cermak and they don’t charge for tickets.  They sit with you after the show to talk to you about what you saw. And right now they are doing a beautiful existential work on the fragility of life, the brevity of mortality, the complexity of communication and the soulfulness of relating to other human beings all in only 70 minutes. 

The play is by the Nobel Prize-winning Norwegian playwright Jon Fosse as translated by May-Brit Akerholt. Evan Hill directs in keeping with the dark, sea soaked Scandinavian ethos.  Melissa Lorraine and Hank Hilbert are the unnamed companions who navigate a poetic and risky existence atop two swinging creaking boards that represent a boat, our precarious existence, a bridge, a bench, a bed, a cliff. The actors ability to portray a host of unspoken thoughts is astounding and slowly, quietly beautiful. They are able to represent lovers, parent and child, companions all in the span of this sparse universe.  This drama exists as much in what is unsaid as what is said.  The plot is life and death.  There is more than a slight resemblance to Samuel Beckett’s oeuvre here, but it is a kinder universe and these two are more intimately connected and compassionate than Beckett characters. They listen carefully to one another and share feelings. They say yes in the face of the world’s no. 

Hill, assisted by Kimberly Sutton, has created a sound score of music and ocean that makes the silence, when it happens,  more pronounced.  Their score is punctuated occasionally by sounds from outside the theatre’s womb-like space. It is effective in reaching the non verbal spaces of our understanding. 

As we enter the darkening time of the year and the days grow shorter I urge and implore you to experience this piece. It is a rare and eloquent rumination on living and dying, and an exquisite statement on existence. I can explain it all day long but it is nothing compared to physically being in this profound moment in person. It runs Thursdays through Sundays through November 1, 2026 at Theatre Y, 3611 W. Cermak, Chicago.  For information and to RSVP go to https://www.theatre-y.com/i-am-the-wind

For  reviews go to https://www.theatreinchicago.com/