Suzan-Lori Parks takes a piercing look at us/them divisions at America’s border.

On one hand, Suzan-Lori Parks’ “The Book of Grace” can be described as a family

drama in which an idealistic stepmother sets about trying to facilitate a rift between

family members. On the other hand, there is a more urgent idea hidden just below the

surface of the dialogue.

Set in a modest Texas home in view of the Mexican border wall, Steppenwolf’s

production makes good use of the heightened remove between players and audience in

it’s in the round Ensemble Theater. We watch the story unfold with enough distance to

question how to judge this trio of characters? And what to make of their actions and

fates?

The play is framed as Grace’s story – her book project of documenting daily stories and

observations from her modest life. Grace is optimistic and hardworking. She waits on

tables at a diner, is the second wife of a border patrol agent, and has dreams of

something good happening through her own efforts: to become a mother, or an author,

or a student of algebra. By most anyone’s standards, all are modest and potentially

achievable goals.

But not for Grace, whose ex-military husband Vet, controls her as zealously as he

guards the border from “aliens” threatening the American way of life. His rules for what

Grace can and cannot do are extensive. And a whisper of a threat hovers in the

background should she consider stepping out of compliance with his authority.

Into this tense domestic relationship comes Buddy, Vet’s grown son from his first

marriage. Buddy has completed his military service, and after sending letters bragging

about his important special ops assignments and glamorous high paying career in big

tech, he shows up on Grace and Vet’s porch ostensibly to attend a medal ceremony

honoring Vet’s heroism in preventing a truck of gun smugglers from entering the U.S.

But Buddy, is not all he says he is. And neither is Vet.

Playwright Parks deals out a hand of enticing cards in Act One: a mysterious package

is delivered, Buddy has a one-sided telephone call, and what’s with that hole in the

yard?

It’s a necessary technique for keeping the audiences leaning in for clues as to what

these things portend. Especially because Act One and the top of Act Two are slow to

build. But build this play does, to an explosive conclusion.

The play’s scenes are often broken into titled chapters into Grace’s book – and

sometimes include footnotes. Grace’s book is nonfiction. She jots down her

observations of contemporaneous events well as her hopes, always seeking out the

positive in the face of the most daunting and limiting of circumstances.

Grace keeps her book hidden from Vet, it being another pursuit he has forbidden. But

when Buddy comes to visit, she is compelled to try and connect with him by exchanging

secrets, and so she lets him see the book. Unlike Vet who is threatened by her writing,

Buddy grasps the entries like a lifeline.

One of the chapters Grace has written is a story she heard about a badly behaved dog

named Trouble. And how the head of the family drove Trouble 100 miles from home and

dropped it there alone.

Grace, unwilling to leave the story end in tragedy, conceives of several alternative

histories for Trouble the dog, all with better outcomes than being dropped in the desert

alone.

By the middle of Act two it becomes clear that “The Book of Grace” is an allegorical play

with each character representing an aspect of American life today. Vet represents the

brand of authoritarian leadership that demands loyalty in the form of turning a blind eye

to acts of cruelty and corruption from on high. Grace and Buddy represent society’s

vulnerable, neglected children, abused women, the unemployed and working poor, and

immigrants.

Another aspect of the production I found interesting is that while I cannot imagine better

casting than Steppenwolf ensemble member Namir Smallwood (as the estranged son

Buddy), Brian Marable (as the imposing Vet) and Zinab Jah (as the radiant embodiment

of Grace), it occurred to me that the play would work equally well with all-Hispanic or an

all-white cast. Or any variation of assimilated American immigrants.

Which begs the question: why do we – given the fact we were all immigrants at one time

except for the original Indigenous inhabitants of this place -- insist on creating

impermeable borders between us and them?

Is it because as Vet says, we are like this, because they made us be this way? The

explanation holds true in the opposite direction too, as voiced by Grace who says, we

were good, but you treated us so bad that we became bad.

After a shocking climax, we are left to wonder how Grace’s book of contemporary

history will end. Parks offers no easy answers. For better or for worse, the next chapter

of American history is up to us.

The Book of Grace runs through May 18 at Steppenwolf Theatre. Tickets and more

information are available at steppenwolf.org.

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

Photo credit: (left to right) Zainab Jah and ensemble member Namir Smallwood in

Steppenwolf Theatre’s Chicago premiere of The Book of Grace. Photo by Michael Brosilow.