Theater Review: Reality is Analyzed in Passionate New Play ‘Loom’

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CHICAGO – Storefront theater is the lifeblood of new works in Chicago, and it is often where a performance of true fire can be found. The new play “Loom,” presented by the theater group “Nothing Without a Company,” is a prime case-in-point, advancing a passionate new voice for the stage.

Play Rating: 4.0/5.0

Written by Ike Holter, and directed with a present intensity by Brea Hayes, “Loom” is a fitting statement regarding how events can be perceived, dancing with the truth through the current haze of authority, paranoia, psychology and pharmaceuticals (including liquor). The small, spirited cast uses the claustrophobic set as a larger universe examining their own perceptions. The case of a missing girl, ten years after the incident, becomes less of a mystery and more of excuse for characters who perceive themselves to be best friends, but can’t seem to connect on any level when it comes to sharing reality. This is a pure theater experience that illuminates perspective and emotions.

Susaan Jamshidi (Becky), Pat Whalen (Rian), Brian Rad (Anderson) and David Seeber (Joss) in ‘Loom’ Photo credit: NothingWithoutACompany.org

The play opens with Joss (David Seeber) talking into a tape recorder. He is sending a cassette letter to Sarah, who is thought to be a girlfriend. He is interrupted by a visitor named Becky (Susaan Jamshidi), who is a caseworker of some kind, asking Joss a series of questions and making sure he is ingesting a daily regiment of pills. He passes the “test” and is allowed the freedom to receive visitors.

Those visitors turn out to be old friends Anderson (Brian Rad) and Rian (Pat Whalen), who were high school buddies of Joss. They were with him ten years earlier when Sarah – the girl that Joss has been sending taped messages to – had disappeared. They are there to console their friend, and not to bring up the incident from the past. In a boozy night of reconciliation, they dodge the truth, question Joss’s sanity and relive that mysterious moment in their lives.

Ike Holter, the playwright of “Loom,” delivers a multi-layered expression of perceptions and realities in the short but powerful piece, impressive because it questions of the nature of who makes decisions for our truth, and why they do it. The characters seem more symbolic than flesh-and-blood, convincing a skeptical Joss that what he believes is not what it seems, even though it could be. The events that happen on stage could also be a mass illusion by Joss, a drug induced checklist of fears regarding a past he cannot reconcile.

Nothing Without a Company Presents ‘Loom’ thru December 1st Photo credit: NothingWithoutACompany.org

The cast is appropriately earnest and fervent in their communication of the story. David Seeber’s Joss is low keyed and tampered with, a lost soul desperately trying to regain his life. Brian Rad particularly makes an impact as Anderson, strutting his authority as a “police officer,” and directing Joss’s thought process towards letting the incident go. Pat Whalen as Rian captures the alternate fear in the room, and Susaan Jamshidi represents the case worker as the force that embellishes black helicopter conspiracies.

The “Foxhole” (where the play takes place) is a theater experience, as a deceptively small space is transformed into a cold apartment in Minnesota. The action takes place within the audience, and they share in the intense feelings portrayed in the room. The direction by Brea Hayes is effective craft, using all the arena as potential for telling the story, including opening a door to the outside, where the truth is hiding. Also effective is Tim Frank’s sound design, creating radio signals, exterior bumps-in-the-night and a soundtrack that is both warm and eerie.

Nothing Without a Company is a theater group to watch, with passion and energy to go after something different in stage interpretation. “Loom” is a amazing example of what they can produce, using a simple space to enrich an awareness of what waits for us in our ever-expanding lives.

By PATRICK McDONALD Senior Staff Writer HollywoodChicago.com pat@hollywoodchicago.com