Teatro Vista at Steppenwolf presents Family Drama BOTH

Paloma Nozicka’s new eerie psychological drama BOTH leads you on a journey through a maze and will make you doubt what is real. 

This story portrays a family deep in trauma. Main character Xochi,played in a tour de force performance by the playwright, is a successful writer with a lucrative book deal, who has lost her twin brother Sebastian (played by Yona Moises Olivares’) on her birthday.  It's over a year later, she’s pregnant with boyfriend Sam’s baby. Sam (played by caught in the middle Brian King) is helping her stage a baby shower where Xochi is trying to reconnect with her estranged family who, because a body was never found, believe Sebastian is still alive. In unimaginable grief, sides were chosen and now Juan (played by a pretty angry Eddie Martinez) the alcoholic brother, Angela the mother(played in perfect control by Charín Álvarez) who refuses to believe her son is dead, Cynthia,the fake psychic (played not so innocently by Ayssette Muñoz) that Angela brings along, all gather at the lake house where the tragedy occurred. There are multiple betrayals, no one is sure what is real, what is a dream and what is a nightmare, everyone is not telling a truth while adhering to their own version of a personal truth, and in the end, the plot makes you question what is and isn't real.  The smallest detail will have your carefully constructed assumptions sliding down a collapsing sand dune of your constructed reality.  When the story ends you will think long and hard about what you think you know. 

Scenic designer Sotirios Livaditis has created the perfectly detailedd upscale Lake House with precise objects that give us essential information and inferences so that we as audience can be detectives in assembling our own theories of what is true. 

A shout out to costume designer Johan H. Gallardo who exquisitely tells us so much about each character based on the clothing and shoes they wear.  Xochi’s transformation from crop top art shirt wearing writer to trad wife is very creepy. 

This co-presentation with Steppenwolf Theatre Company that marks and new partnership with 35 year old Teatro Vista Productions brings this well crafted new work to a fully realized experience that will keep you guessing.  It may be my state of constant vigilance that had me expecting a more horrifying ending (everything these days feels worse than I anticipated) but you will be riveted to this ensemble’s storytelling for the full 95 minutes. This is the kind of theatre that makes Chicago an epicenter of the art form. 

BOTH is playing Thursdays through Sundays through May 10, 2026 in Steppenwolf Theater Company’s 1700 Theatre at 1650 North Halsted in Chicago. For tickets and information go to https://www.steppenwolf.org/tickets--events/lookout/26-spring/both/

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