Outside the Turret the air is poisonous. Inside a jogger runs on a treadmill with sensors attached to his head. Is this a future world? Grant Sabin’s cold steel set surely suggests that possibility as do the vivid technical and projection design elements. What is inside, however, happens to be poisonous on another level entirely.
The young man’s name is Rabbit (Travis A. Knight) and he is partnered with Green (two time Oscar nominee Michael Shannon). The hierarchy is obvious. One is in charge, the other follows orders as trained. Whatever war has occurred leaving this dystopian world is unclear. They are trapped and always on the lookout. Excursions outside must be carefully timed and planned.
Two men confined in tight quarters leads to conversation. Green tests Rabbit’s memory. A whiskey bottle provides some relief. Are there others alive out there also hunkered down for survival? What exactly is going on? When an idea forms, the play abruptly toys with time and reality. It’s déjà vu all over again.
Levi Holloway wrote and directed this fascinating piece of theater. Layers will be peeled back and reveal themselves. Those reveals are as murky as the world in which they live. What is actually going on? At intermission I was not sure. At the end I was not sure. The ride home sparked spirited conversations about the meaning of it all.
Mr. Holloway’s program note to theatergoers indicated that he started this play just after his father passed in 2020. He finished it four years later just after his son was born. There is a definite presence of generational pull in his dialogue. The younger following the instruction of the elder. Emerging independence and conflicts. Who exactly is taking care of whom? And how? And why?
A third character (Lawrence Grimm) emerges who seemingly resides in a different turret. Things appear to be worse there. Who is this person? He’s a brooding spirit who also has a taste for whiskey. The bizarrely fake stability of the duo’s world is shaken up as more events unfold.
Turret is a psychological thriller which contains a slow burn fuse that never goes out. I cannot be certain that the events were intended to be science fiction or self-empowering therapy. The set design, after all, could also be the inside of one’s mind with the cylindrical jogging chamber functioning as a symbolic cerebral cortex. Or maybe that’s totally wrong.
What I do know is that my mind felt challenged as I puzzled through the pleasant and unpleasantness of multi-generational testosterone fueled men taking stock of one another. I saw pride and pain. The whiskey never too far way for healing to commence. I have a definite opinion of what the three characters represent amidst the framework of a loosely constructed plot. I’ll leave that interpretation in my own turret. The joy of this journey is to experience its mysteries and come to your own conclusions.
If you have something to say, Green instructs Rabbit, it should be kind, necessary and true. All of the performances in this play were captivating (kind). This play is for those who can embrace non-linear storytelling (necessary). I thought about this one for days afterward (true).
Turret might morph into movie form. I hope its searing analytical terrors remain fully intact, confoundingly perplex and emotionally resonant. I believe I cracked the code (password!) but not being 100% positive makes me want to take it all in again, déjà vu style, as hypothetical subject number 3689.
Turret is running at the Chopin Theatre in Chicago through June 22, 2024.