Theater & Broadway

Steep Theatre makes a moving ‘Case for the Existence of God’

There is something about the way the set is wedged into the Edgewater space known as the Edge Off-Broadway that bespeaks of the intensity to follow. It’s pushed forward toward the audience as if the designer, Sotirios Livaditis, wanted to spill the characters’ guts.

In “A Case for the Existence of God,” and yes it makes one, we are in the cramped office of a mortgage broker, Keith (Debo Balogun), in small-town Idaho, the state where all of Samuel D. Hunter’s plays are set. This is a drama of quiet despair but also, maybe, of resilience and hope.

The broker’s client, Ryan (Nate Faust) is trying to buy a piece of property once was owned by his family but sold off long ago. Ryan does not know his way around an APR and he cannot afford the loan in the first place. But this is not some kind of cold financial transaction, it’s an attempt by a divorced, long-troubled man to find some kind of homestead for himself and his daughter, caught in a custody battle.

The broker himself has issues. He’s trying to adopt a child he is fostering as a single gay man in Idaho. He worries that the birth mother will change her mind or her family will intervene or something else will occur that will leave him alone. He knows a lot more than his client and is far better educated. But no happier.

Hunter, who also wrote the superb “Little Bear Ridge Road” currently at the Steppenwolf Theatre with Laurie Metcalf, specializes in confined spaces. He also understands towns filled with people who rarely leave. Before long, we discover that these two men, as different as they appear to be, have a past. It’s not a shocking revelation. It’s just a small town. “Case” was a big hit in New York in 2022, where it was directed by David Cromer. In a bigger theater.

The level of intimacy here, frankly, makes this a difficult work to stage but the accomplished director Robin Witt, whose summer excursions into Chicago theater have invariably been rewarding, keeps the staging deftly toned and profoundly honest.  The work never feels overplayed and, crucially, you both fear and pull for these two men, struggling as they are with early middle age, battling back their loneliness, loving their children, fighting off their past mistakes. This is Hunter’s sweet spot in the American theater: he does not, like so many, dramatize angsty elites with first-world problems. He writes of mostly good people doing their best in difficult economic and personal circumstances.

Faust and Balogun (an actor who has worked often at Chicago Shakespeare Theater) are individually superb and, together, even better. They exude interdependence and the fear thereof. That is the point of the play.

One note to anyone who saw that fine production of the newest Hunter at Steppenwolf: this experience is the perfect companion. If you liked the one, I cannot imagine you won’t like the other.

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On Sunday afternoon, Steep (which is still building out its own new space) had packed the place with its longtime fans, many of whom are retirees. At one point I won’t quickly forget, one character asked the other a question: “Will we be OK?”

It’s both a micro and a macro inquiry, a question about next week in Idaho and the ultimate fate of human race.

Before the other character (and I don’t want to say more) had chance to answer, I saw directly in my sightline a smiling, gray-haired lady energetically nodding, wanting to impart the wisdom and surety that comes from age. It was profoundly moving and I think the actors caught it, swallowed and then carried on, newly confident of how much they were making their audience believe.

Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.

cjones5@chicagotribune.com

Review: “A Case for the Existence of God” (4 stars)

When: Through Aug. 25

Where: Steep Theatre Co. at Edge Off Broadway, 1133 W. Catalpa Ave.

Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes

Tickets: $30 at 773-649-3186 and steeptheatre.com

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