Bug

I don't spend a lot of time at what I think of as Chicago's "Big theaters", your Good Men, your Stepen Wolves, I am a humble man of the streets and I mostly patronize the storefronts. (Exception: Chicago Shakespeare because of the great parties) However, a friend had a ticket to Stepenwolf's production of Tracy Letts' Bug that she wasn't using and I decided to check it out.

Letts' drama, originally written in 1996, is pretty well known, was the basis for a 2006 feature film starring famous Chicagoan Michael Shannon but this was my first time seeing it.

Our heroine is the very relatable Agnes. (a lovable and charming performance by the playwright's real life wife Carrie Coon)

Agnes is a down on her luck service worker living in a motel room in Oklahoma, very well rendered by scenic designer Takeshi Kata. Paradoxically, this is a pretty common situation for working class folks unable to scrape together a security deposit. Being poor is expensive.

Agnes lost a child years earlier and lives in fear of her abusive ex-husband Jerry, (Steve Key) recently released from prison and dulls the pain of her lonely existence with drugs and alcohol. Her life changes when she meets Peter. (Namir Smallwood) Like Agnes, Peter is a lonely and sensitive soul. He's intelligent, quirky and kind. Shortly after they become lovers we learn that Peter is also not well.

He is obsessed with the idea that there are bloodsucking bugs everywhere, on the bed, in the room, under his skin and in his blood. This is only the beginning of a long series of delusional notions, centering on his belief that he was experimented on while serving in the military and is now the target of a vast global conspiracy. Rather than dismiss any of this, Agnes trusts in it and follows Peter down the proverbial rabbit hole as both of them become united in mutual fantasy.

In the current political climate, advocates have questioned the tendency of storytellers to portray the mentally ill in a stigmatizing fashion, for example, as excessively violent, which Peter does eventually become.

Bug is less about individual mental illness however than it is about social pathology, as demonstrated by Agnes, a perfectly intelligent and rational person, quickly accepting Peter's outlandish conception of reality. Conspiracy theories can spread from person to person like a virus, the play suggests.

Conspiracy theories aren't left wing or right wing, they're about the human need to make a chaotic world make sense, to establish logical patterns and connections even when there aren't any. What Peter and Agnes need, and what they find, is a human connection to each other, unfortunately their mutual grief and pain overwhelms that connection.

In these times when extreme and irrational beliefs are more mainstream than ever, the play serves as a worthwhile reminder that such things take root in the soil of sadness and social isolation.

My personal prejudices say this play is probably best performed in the intimacy of a small house but I must acknowledge a larger theater like Steppenwolf is able to attract some truly powerhouse talent to bring this riveting play to life.

Steppenwolf Theater
1650 N. Halsted
Tues-Fri 7:30pm Sat/Sun 3pm and 7:30pm through March 8th