Steppenwolf's provoking 'Downstate' offers an unflinching look at predators

“Downstate” - ★ ★ ★ ★

“Downstate,” the new play by accomplished provocateur Bruce Norris in its premiere at Steppenwolf Theatre, is a talker. In hard news parlance, a talker is a story that generates conversation, which is something this audacious, highly charged play about paroled pedophiles living in a group home 280 miles south of Chicago will undoubtedly do.

Consummately acted under director Pam MacKinnon and produced in cooperation with London's National Theatre, this play is meant to provoke. And provoke it does.

Artistic director Anna D. Shapiro acknowledges its disturbing subject matter in her program notes, but puts her faith in the audience's ability to comprehend this smart, well-crafted and entirely unsettling play.

“Theatre audiences understand that plays are not about what happens in them,” she writes. “Plays are about what what happens means.”

That said, in the parlance of mental health professionals, “Downstate” is a trigger, something that sparks a survivor's memory of a past trauma. It begins with a gut-wrenching exchange, the first of several, in which middle-aged survivor Andy (Tim Hopper striking in his portrayal of long-held fury and profound despair) confronts former piano teacher Fred (the magnificently enigmatic Francis Guinan), the predator who sexually assaulted him decades earlier.

Fred lives in a nondescript, suburban home with three other offenders: fast-talking, bible-quoting Gio (Glenn Davis), who was convicted of sexually assaulting a 17-year-old girl; Felix (Eddie Torres), solitary, incestuous and consumed by guilt; and cultivated Dee (shrewd, complex work by the excellent K. Todd Freeman), a former actor. While touring with “Peter Pan,” Dee abused a 14-year-old male castmate who played one of the lost boys. Dee claims their “relationship” was consensual, using as proof letters he says the boy wrote to him while he was in prison.

We know better. Norris knows it, too.

He doesn't invite sympathy for these felons, despite their efforts to elicit it. Rather Norris attempts to humanize them by showing the post-incarceration consequences of their crimes and the accompanying physical and financial burden. As registered sex offenders, they face restrictions on where they can live and work, on businesses they can patronize. Their ankle monitors alert authorities when they venture beyond prescribed boundaries. They're prohibited from accessing the internet and social media. They're estranged from family and friends. And they are subjects of universal condemnation, reflected in repeated attacks by angry neighbors who express their displeasure by spray-painting the house and shooting out windows.

Keeping them in line is no-nonsense parole officer Ivy (Cecilia Noble), a world-weary veteran unmoved by her parolee's protests, justifications and lies. She knows better, too.

What I found most striking about MacKinnon's production is how benign these men appear. Guinan's quietly conciliatory Fred uses folksy phrases such as “oh, golly.” Davis' ambitious Gio is confident he'll expunge his conviction and restart his life. And Freeman's watchful Dee, a kind of specter (frequently out of sight but almost always within earshot), serves as caretaker to them all.

Of course that's the point. Predators know how to disguise themselves by adopting a genial demeanor is a way to ingratiate themselves to the vulnerable youngsters and troubled teens they target. They accomplish it through affection, attention and sometimes gifts. Prosecutors call it grooming, and it's a felony just like sexual abuse or sexual assault.

Norris shows us a glimpse in a chilling scene late in the play as Andy confronts Fred for the second time about the abuse that took place when he was a grief-stricken 12-year-old mourning the death of his father. As the anguished man recalls the trauma from which he will never recover, Fred extends his arm and pats his victim on the shoulder.

On the surface, his response suggests compassion, even contrition. But to me, that chilling scene recalled that terrible incident 40 years earlier that forever altered Andy's life: a predator pursuing his prey.

That's because pedophiles have a disease for which there is no cure. That's why offenders convicted in Illinois of sexually abusing children can be subject to lifetime registry. Some offenders who authorities determine are sexually violent can be incarcerated indefinitely.

And yet, 95 percent of incarcerated felons - including murderers, armed robbers and sex offenders - will eventually be released from custody, according to a spokeswoman from the Illinois Department of Corrections.

What happens then is also something worth talking about.

<b>Location:</b> Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted St., Chicago, (312) 335-1650 or steppenwolf.org

<b>Showtimes:</b> 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Friday; 3 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday through Nov. 11. Also 2 p.m. Oct. 17, 24 and 31; 1:30 p.m. Oct. 28. No 7:30 p.m. show Oct. 21, 28, Nov. 4 and 11

<b>Running time:</b> About two hours, 30 minutes with intermission

<b>Tickets:</b> $20-$99

<b>Parking:</b> $12-$14 in lot; limited street parking

<b>Rating:</b> For adults; mature themes and language, repeated references to child sexual abuse and graphic descriptions of the same