Tiffany Villarin, left, and Lisa Tejero star in 'Ghostwritten,' Naomi Iizuka’s exploration of fairy tales, at Chicago’s Goodman Theater.
A Goodman Theater presentation in two acts of a play by Naomi Iizuka. Directed by Lisa Portes. Set, Linda Buchanan.
Woman From Vietnam - Lisa Tejero
Linh - Arthur Acuna
Susan - Kim Martin-Cotton
Bea - Tiffany Villarin
Chad, Not Chad - Dieterich Gray
Martin - Dan Waller
Playwright Naomi Iizuka ("36 Views," "Strike-Slip") may not exactly be weaving gold in the first act of her "Rumplestiltskin"-inspired "Ghostwritten," but she does lead us into a world of convincing lyricism, filled with relatable characters and intriguing narrative interconnections. Alas, the second half becomes an act of alchemy, transforming her nuggets of possibility into hyper-self-conscious commentary on fairy tales themselves, leaving storytelling focus far behind.
Iizuka is hardly a writer interested in conventional believability. Right from the start, we're in a fantasy world, where Susan (Kim Martin-Cotton), an American woman exploring Vietnam, encounters a mysterious stranger (Lisa Tejero). The woman cooks a concoction so tasty and enchanting that Susan begs for the secret. Certain she'll never give birth anyway, she barters away her first-born child.
Two decades later, Susan is a successful chef in the Midwest. And yes, she's single. And no, she never gave birth. But she did adopt a Vietnamese girl named Bea (Tiffany Villarin), now grown and secretly pregnant. The mysterious woman returns to seek her payment.
Susan's emotionally troubled brother Martin (Dan Waller), Bea's all-American fiance Chad (Dieterich Gray) and the mysterious woman's emissary Linh (Arthur Acuna) all play roles here too, and for the first half of the play one sequence after another seems to deepen an intricate tale, not so much bound by Rumplestiltskin as inspired by it to tell a story of family inheritance.
During that first act, director Lisa Portes never lets the funny moments -- Linh is as enchanted by McDonald's fries as Susan was by Vietnamese cooking -- overwhelm the narrative's strange but coherent logic. And her use of the Goodman's second space, split into two with a long stage down the middle, provides plenty of movement and an effective intimacy with the audience.
But "Ghostwritten" peaks just before intermission and collapses almost immediately afterwards. It's not easy to explain why the logic suddenly becomes untenable, but it's very easy to say when.
The show jumps the shark when Bea becomes a princess -- not a real one; dressed in a bad blue princess costume and tiara, she claims to be playing one in a community theater production. However, she doesn't know the lines for her scene with Chad, who is now no longer Chad but a fairy-tale woodsman she meets on her way to rehearsal who claims to be her theatrical counterpart.
Whatever. The point is that "Ghostwritten" stops weaving a story and starts becoming a caricature of itself. The tone becomes so jokey, the sensibility so self-conscious, that any effort to pull us back into caring about the characters or their fates is futile.
In this age of "Shrek" and "Enchanted" and a host of other snarky contemporary takes on fairy tales, Iizuka's efforts don't just seem contrived, they seem stale. And that's all the more frustrating because we wonder what happened to that play -- still worth reclaiming -- being so carefully nurtured a long, long time ago... in act one.
Costumes, Rachel Anne Healy; lighting, Keith Parham; original music and sound, Andre J. Pluess; production stage manager, Kimberly Osgood. Opened, reviewed April 13, 2009. Runs through May 3. Running time: 2 HOURS, 25 MIN.
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Date in print: Wed., Apr. 15, 2009