Steadstyle Chicago
	January 2010 Theatre Review by Joe Stead
	Harper Regan I am not sure what is worse about "Harper Regan," the 2008 play by British playwright Simon Stephen that is making its U.S. Premiere at the lovely little Steep Theatre.  Could it be the flat writing that thoroughly fails to engage the audience, the boring and unsympathetic characters, the rude and offensive put-downs to Jews, Poles, Israel and Auschwitz?  Maybe it's that "Harper Regan" is an incredibly bad play all around that would have been better had it never crossed the pond from England, and it's not helped by Robin Witt's static direction.  The play doesn't know where it wants to go and I'm left feeling amazed and appalled that such a talented company as Steep would want to produce it.  I often maintain that we should occasionally see really bad plays to help appreciate the good ones.  If I am right then nearly everything I see for the remainder of the month should benefit from this atrocity. The play begins with the title character requesting time off from her job to visit her deathly ill father, which her employer good naturedly refuses to grant.  We find that the 41-year-old Harper is married to a stuffy college professor and has a 17-year-old semi-Goth daughter who is a walking encyclopedia about glacial formations.  Harper strikes up a conversation with a 17-year-old stranger who she thinks looks like someone she knows but on closer examination has no resemblance at all.  Why does she continue the conversation, which gets progressively stranger and stranger?  Loneliness, perhaps?  A middle-aged woman on the make? Harper wonders if she's an embarrassment to her teenage daughter, who politely replies "Not too much," even if she's a bit odd and decidedly out of touch with the younger generation.  By the time she finally makes it to her father's bedside it is too late.  When she realizes her father died alone, she is inconsolable, although she manages to inquire whether the attending nurse has ever had sex with a stranger.  Her grief apparently carries her to a pub where a younger man tries to pick her up.  Mickey's a pretty detestable creep and even though the idea of an affair has its appeal, Harper feels he stinks and rebukes his attention. It's not hard to see where this play could have gone.  Who among us of a certain age hasn't felt out of touch with the new generation?  That's relevant in every generation.  Harper's boss talks about living on the Internet, and isn't that true!  As a society, we have come to depend more and more on technology, and less on personal relationship.  Families suffer as parents are forced to spend more time at work and less at home.  Is it any wonder the middle-class suburbanite would want to simply walk away from it all? I wish the playwright had been interested in exploring some of these ideas in meaningful ways, or at least in writing a play that could engage our interest.  The biggest crime committed here is that the play is boring, shatteringly and profoundly boring.  I will give credit to Dialect Coach Eva Brenneman for creating consistently believable accents that keep the play firmly rooted in 21st Century London and its suburban environs.  But ultimately we care too little to want to follow these dull characters and their lifeless adventures in despair. "Harper Regan" plays through April 25, 2010 at Steep Theatre located at 1115 West Berwyn in Chicago.  The play runs 2 hours 20 minutes with intermission.  Performances are Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights at 8:00 p.m.  Tickets are $18.  Call (312) 458-0722 or visit www.steeptheatre.com.          About Joe Stead Joe Stead has enjoyed a lifelong passion for the theatre, which has involved acting, directing, producing, designing and reviewing for the past twenty-five years.  He served as founder, producer and Artistic Director of Curtain Up Productions in Baltimore, Maryland and Four Star Players in Tampa, Florida.  Favorite productions have included "Life With Father," "Deathtrap," "The Odd Couple," "The Miracle Worker," "Brighton Beach Memoirs," "You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown" and "Godspell".  He has also performed leading roles in "Fiddler on the Roof," "Pippin," "The Phantom of the Opera," "The Front Page," and most recently as Hucklebee in "The Fantasticks" for Waukegan Community Players.  Joe holds a degree in Commercial Art from Tampa Technical Institute.  As a critic, he has reviewed everything from Broadway to community theatre and major regional theatres throughout the United States including the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey, Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut, and the Asolo Theatre in Sarasota, Florida.  Since 1998, he has been a proud resident of Chicago, the greatest theatre city in America.  He served for two years as Theatre Editor for College News and Central Newspapers.  He created the website Steadstyle Chicago in 2000 to showcase the city's outstanding and diverse theatre scene.  Joe was proud to serve alongside a distinguished panel of theatre professionals as a judge for two seasons of Speaking Ring Theatre's "Vitality" Festival of original short plays.  His most fulfilling role, in addition to reviewer and all-around theatre fanatic, was as director of the 2007 production of Peter Shaffer's "Equus" at Actors Workshop (now Redtwist) Theatre, which was nominated for five Joseph Jefferson Award Citations and won for Best Actor (Peter Oyloe).