Review: 'A Wonder in My Soul' is a warm tribute to South Side beauty shops

ENTERTAINMENT
19 February 2017 Sunday 22:53

Gwendolyn Brooks. Carol Moseley Braun. Mavis Staples. Michelle Obama. All, we are told, have been gussied up at the oldest black-owned beauty shop in Chicago, the life's work of two women from Mississippi who, like most of us, did not end up doing what they first set out to do with their time on this stale promontory and who did not always find their journey to be easy.

But they made a contribution. They built something that mattered. They empowered. They comforted. They stayed.

That's pretty much the point of Marcus Gardley's "A Wonder in My Soul," a new play with a comedic heart that beats far more powerfully and poignantly than you might expect.

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Gardley is, to my mind, doing something unusual, accessible and important at the Victory Gardens Theater. Here's why.

"A Wonder in My Soul" is by no means the first show to celebrate the fun to be had when your hair is being done. "Shear Madness" exploited that premise for many years in Chicago. And back in the 1990s, there was a famous show called "Beauty Shop," produced by Shelly Garrett and part of what then was known as the Chitlin Circuit, a name given to touring shows aimed at African-American audiences. When I first caught "Beauty Shop" in 1998, it had already grossed $33 million and played to 21 million people.

But both "Beauty Shop" and "Shear Madness" achieved their popular appeal by trafficking in stereotypes (flamboyant stylists, sexually aggressive customers, overweight folks and so on). Gardley, who is a serious playwright known for his artful language and interest in historicism, had something different in mind. He clearly wanted to write a sentimental tribute to the African-American beauty shops of Chicago, much as Regina Taylor wanted to celebrate the hats of African-American women in her hugely popular "Crowns." I suspect Gardley also wanted to write something that people who do not normally go to the theater would enjoy. And that is the Lord's work.

He really does that here. The salon owned by Aberdeen Calumet (Greta Oglesby) and Bell Grand Lake (Jacqueline Williams) is open to all. Moreover, this is very much a Chicago play, a local work full of references to our city that those of a certain age will remember and understand, especially if they grew up on the South Side. These days, when Chicago playwrights take on the neighborhood where Aberdeen and Bell have owned their business, they generally are there to rail against gun violence or other problems endemic to the community. This play is about the good people of the South Side and two women who provided a place for them to stay awhile. It's as simple — and as complicated — as that.

Williams and Oglesby, who imbue this work with much of its moral authority, paint the picture of two women who were, in most practical senses of the word, immigrants to Chicago, lifelong friends who rode the rails north for opportunity and retained their love of their old Mississippi home. We see their younger selves (they're played with vibrancy by Donica Lynn and Camille Robinson)and thus the tough history of our city unfolding in their experience. We see the struggles of Bell's ambitious son (Jeffrey Owen Freelon Jr.) and her daughter, a police officer named Paulina (Lynn again). We watch the customers, which include a black Republican who likes to be known as First Lady (Linda Bright Clay).

For sure, there's nothing new about a playwright putting a beloved community gathering place or business under threat. If you moved the salon north to Uptown and installed coffee pots, you'd pretty much have the plot for Tracy Letts' "Superior Donuts." And there is no denying the play's sentimental gloss, nor the stutter at its drawn-out conclusion.

But what makes "A Wonder in My Soul" special is that the piece really is so beautifully, so richly written — and all of the heart in the writing overflows into director Chay Yew's production, this being the warmest show I've ever seen from the Victory Gardens artistic director.

Gardley is closer to August Wilson or Spike Lee than Shelly Garrett, and he appropriates the great ones' moral lessons about how we all stand on the shoulders of others, and how doing the right thing for a community can mean eschewing self-interest or maybe even breaking an unjust law.

But you also figure he knew women like the ones he describes here; you intuit he hung out in their sanctuaries abutting the mean streets of the city; you reckon he wanted to write a play that would pay them tribute as he actually recalls them to be. "A Wonder in My Soul" is the distinguished result; may the buses start to pull up outside the Biograph Theatre.

Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.

cjones5@chicagotribune.com

Twitter@ChrisJonesTrib

REVIEW: A Wonder in My Soul (3.5 stars)

When: Through March 12

Where: Victory Gardens Biograph Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln Ave.

Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes

Tickets: $15-$60 at 773-871-3000 or victorygardens.org

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