If you are anywhere need Theatre Wit in Chicago, if you live in a suburb, if you live hours away, you NEED to see this show. This beautifully done show Bright Half Life is so complex, but yet the simplest of storytelling about two women who are caught up in what comes to them. The simple stage forms the illusion of different levels of life as we watch these two women go through the beginning, the middle, and the end. We find out within minutes that the play brings us back and forth, up and down, backwards and forwards on how time makes this Lesbian couple fly through their life. They go in reverse and forward observing what happens to them when they share their life goals, to jumping on beds, to learning about a father dying, to falling in love, fighting about their children, to going back to when they first met. This 1 1/2 hour running time doesn't need an intermission. These women take over the full stage with such gusto, yet they feel like they are floating in the air dangling their feet down watching their lives like they are riding the Peter Pan ride at Disneyworld.
With the brilliant direction of Keira Fromm, these glorious women glide through the stage, changing in seconds to another scene, and then changing back to the scene they were in 3 minutes ago with the same dynamics as it was 3 minutes ago. Elizabeth Ledo (Erica) travels around with go with the flow, and wants to do things spontaneously, while Patrese McClain (Vicky) is much more of a planner and very straight forward. Both actresses magnificently battle this story to make the tangled web even worse. But you follow them throughout the whole show hoping and wishing it will end jumping out of a plane.
Conveniently placed in Pride Month for Chicago, you need to go and see what two very, very talented actresses can do to a beautiful story while we coast with them into the unknown. And make all your friends go, make it a weekend trip if you do not reside in Chicago.
There is no break for breath what so ever which makes this production so fascinating on how a story about love could be told so backwards and forwards and yet just letting go to fly into the sky.
