Tour de force Catch As Catch Can at Steppenwolf

Every once in a blue moon you see a spectacle of such talent made to look so easy that you feel overwhelming awe. This week I am not talking about the Knicks.  For one of its celebratory productions of 50 years as a company, three utterly skilled Steppenwolf ensemble members under the flawless direction of ensemble member Amy Morton create a work of such astounding adeptness that you want to go back and watch it again and learn how they do that.  I don’t know if Mia Chung’s script is the special sauce: this play sets up a kind of game where three actors play all the members of an awkward and dysfunctional family.  The game players are Gary Cole, Audrey Francis and Tim Hopper, each taking on two roles spanning genders, generations and world views. Cole and Hopper each play mother and son duo, Francis plays father and daughter, and they often switch their character mid line, at lightning speed, so as an audience member you have to keep up. Yuki Nakase Link’s lighting design helps delineate emotional shifts. Andrew Boyce’s scenic design gives this game a terrific playing board.

But this is first and foremost an actors play, as they use voice and physicality to flesh out the delightful characters with compassion and humor, as these humans struggle through their traumas and illnesses and relationships. There is an ending that is as inconclusive and hesitantly hopeful as modern life, with dreams unfulfilled and so much work still to be done. All this virtuosity is at the service of story.  Catch as Catch Can gives us the gift of a complicated family that is damaged and trying to keep going through holidays and accidents and in sickness and in health in an artful and adroit 105 minutes. I feel like those of us lucky enough to see this show will be talking about these actors for decades like we talk about having  seen a Michael Jordan game. If this is what 50 years of making good art gives us, I can't wait to see what the next 50 brings.

Catch as Catch Can is playing Tuesdays through Sundays through July 12th in the Downstairs Theatre at Steppenwolf, 1700 N Halsted Street in Chicago.  For tickets and information go to    https://www.steppenwolf.org/tickets--events/seasons-/2025-26/catch-as-catch-can/

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