THEATRE REVIEW: "The Man Who Was Thursday" at the Lifeline Theatre (Chicago, IL)

      On February 15th, 2019, I saw the opening night performance of the Bilal Dardai play "The Man Who Was Thursday" at the Lifeline Theatre in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago, IL.  I lived just a few blocks north of the Lifeline Theatre at the time, but only saw two shows there while living in the vicinity from late 2017 to mid 2020.  If I remember correctly, tickets were slightly cheaper for the first few performances of "The Man Who Was Thursday," because they were considered preview performances.

     "The Man Who Was Thursday" was an adaptation of the novel by G.K. Chesterton.  This was a non-equity production, made up of a non-equity cast.  I thought the cast did a great job.  Even during the climactic / anticlimactic scenes where nihilism was being explained in layman's terms.  The play was mostly about nihilism... that and a group of anarchists who turn out not to be anarchists at all (spoiler).  Parts of the play were funny... parts were chaotic... parts were both.  An example of a chaotic scene was when the actors incorporated the theatre aisle as part of the stage, and stood way up toward the back row to carry on an important conversation to the plot.  I was in the first row, and kept awkwardly looking over my shoulder to see what was going on.

          It was before the show began, I believe, that the audience was told that the doors to the lobby could only be used in the event of an emergency, as they would be utilized by the actors during the play.  Those very doors ended up being used during an "explosion" scene when a bomb goes off (not a real one).  The use of flickering stage lighting and the sound of crackling flames turned the set into a mock inferno that was quite impressive with what was limited space and obviously a limited budget.   This was the better of the two shows I saw at the Lifeline.  Yet I'm still not entirely sure what nihilism means.