Tracy Letts's "Superior Donuts' at the Arden (1st review)

(Editor's note: This is a review of a preview performance.)

First impressions notwithstanding, Tracy Letts's Superior Donuts is not about race; it's about human chemistry. After vandals wreck a down-and-out donut shop in Chicago's gritty Uptown neighborhood, a local black youth enters the disheveled shop to apply for a job as a counterman. Arthur, the white owner (Craig Spidle), is taken aback, partly perhaps by the youth's skin color (reflected in Arthur's marvelously subtle move backward), partly by the 21-year-old's ebullience.

The kid, Franco Wicks (James Ijames), is so lively and in-Arthur's-face (even challenging him on the healthiness of donuts) that both of them agree that the job interview isn't going well. But even in the midst of their conversation Franco has already started straightening the chairs and picking up napkins from the floor. His energy is infectious, and Arthur hires him.

It's the beginning of a personal transformation for Arthur, who to his point seems disconnected from nearly everything and everyone. Why, for example, did Kiril Ivakin, the next-door neighbor (Ian Bedford), arrive at the crime scene even before the shop owner? Why does Arthur totally miss the romantic overtures cast his way by Officer Randy Osteen (Jennifer Barnhart)? Although he's exceptionally devoted to baking the best donuts ever, and oddly generous— giving away more donuts than he sells— Arthur is a shell of a self: absent-minded, slovenly dressed and lonely.

Paths of least resistance

Arthur's demons, we gradually learn, are his family history and the futile arc of his own life, which led from his past as a Vietnam War-era draft "evader" (pointedly not a "resister") to his spending his life in the donut shop his parents opened. He hasn't done much else, and as the years passed he has done less and less.

The shop attracts few customers, but each one, seeing life through his or her personal lens, manages to tease a little more out of Arthur until he finally experiences the confrontation that will determine whether the remainder of his life will amount to something more meaningful than a mere struggle for survival.

Franco is key to Arthur's renewal. Despite his youth and apparent lack of grounding, he has a novel in manuscript that Arthur reads and appreciates. Suddenly the older man feels great respect for the prospects of his budding young charge. But Franco brings baggage that could just as easily snuff out his life and cause Arthur trouble as well. If these two misfits are to overcome their past mistakes and weaknesses, they'll have to work together to find their individual voices.

Surprising the audience

Arden Theatre's cast is strong and convincing, even down to the secondary roles, where Peter Pryor, winner of three Barrymore awards, plays the part of Luther Flynn, a neighborhood gambler and thug.

In Tracy Letts's plays, you can never be sure who'll win, and ugly can arise just when the glove seems most velvet-like. The "ohhs" expressed by the audience at the performance I attended reflected the play's surprising twists.

At the same time, Letts's characters feel real. He writes dialogue that deepens their nature, charges the scene, elevates the tension, and has the audience roaring with laughter, sometimes all at once. Superior, indeed.♦


To read another review by Steve Cohen, click here.
To read another review by Jackie Atkins, click here.
To read another review by Jane Biberman, click here.
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