More Information About Iron

Website

http://www.appletreetheatre.com/shows/2006-07%20season/Iron/iron.htm

Description

<p>Set in a Scottish woman's prison, Iron tells a complex tale about two women. One is a long-term prisoner, a “lifer,” Fay, and the other is her daughter, Josie, whom she has not seen for fifteen years.</p> <p>From Curtain Up:</p> Rona Munro's drama is set in a maximum security prison. Crime and punishment is a theme but essentially this is a mother and daughter story--the mother a forty-five-year-old who is serving a life sentence for murdering her husband; the daughter a twenty-five-year old career woman who hasn't been in touch with her in the fifteen years of her imprisonment.

The play is bathed in an aura that's gloomy and foreboding: its set is a stark steel gray and black prison visiting room with an upstage glimpse of Fay's (the mother) claustrophobic cell...the dominating sounds are of doors clanging shut repeatedly and with unyielding finality...the mother and daughter's meetings are overhung, not just with the undisclosed elements of their history but the smothering presence of two prison guards who are there to prevent infractions of the "no touching" rule.

Yet for all its grimness and the tendency to come off as too talky, this is not just a live version of numerous television movies and docu-dramas with similar settings. With just four actors on stage, viewers must use the sound effects to conjure up the other prisoners and guards that would be seen in a movie crime story. In lieu of the typical crime story's string of unusual revelations and a neat windup, Munro explores the complexities of her characters sufficiently to make us know and care about them, but leaves us to ponder the motivations that remain interestingly vague to the end. The picture the playwright paints of prison life -- especially for someone without hope for freedom -- is absolutely devastating though her descriptions tend to be more poetic than polemical.

To further nudge the audience's interpretive skills Iron is studded with symbolism. This applies even to the title which evokes the iron-like vise of a prison on its inmates' psyche, even though they are no longer kept in iron chains. Josie's fruit baskets, their healthy contents eaten by the prison guards but ignored by Fay who prefers chocolate and cigarettes, symbolically foretell the results of Josie's efforts to help Fay recall the past in order to have a chance for a future. The prison doors which we hear closing repeatedly don't just shut in the body but the life spirit.

Ms. Munro is fortunate to have her play make its New York debut with a cast that simply couldn't be better. In fact, Lisa Emery, who is usually seen in more sleek, sophisticated and funny plays (Present Laughter, Dinner With Friends, Rumors, etc.) is a revelation as the volatile, needy "lifer." She's all twitchy discomfort. Dressed in wrinkled baggy pants and loosely fitting sweater she's like a bird with its feathers no longer sleek, ever ready to drop a quickly gathered crumb and take flight if anyone comes too close.

About the Ticket Supplier: Apple Tree Theatre

Apple Tree Theatre is committed to producing a diverse and challenging selection of both dramas and musicals, from new works to classics, all of which illuminate the human condition, celebrate the tenacity of the human spirit, and expand the vision of artists and audiences alike—culturally, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually as they connect with one another.

Apple Tree Theatre in Highland Park, Illinois (near Lake Michigan in the Northshore suburbs of Chicago), has been producing award-winning plays and musicals since its inception in 1983. Now nationally known and highly respected, Apple Tree has remained an artistic and cultural force in Chicago theater for 22 years. Apple Tree provides a professional five show mainstage season.