Frank Brichetto

Chicago Correspondent

GO SEE THIS PLAY. Especially if you don’t go to plays, don’t think you’ll enjoy this one, or somehow think it’s not for you, this is the play for you.

Steppenwolf has a new production. “Familiar” is storytelling at its very finest: a beautiful presentation of a family sorting out the conflicts and details surrounding a wedding.

This is amazing theater. It’s written by Danai Gurira, an accomplished and award-winning playwright, who is also an accomplished actor; you will recognize her as “Michonne” in The Walking Dead, and as “General Okoye” of Black Panther fame. Yeah. Her.

The story is immediately captivating, the characters are ALL very believable, and by the very end you will want each one to be a close, personal friend.

It’s a compressed snapshot of a family that finds itself in the midst of a couple of unforeseen crises, unfolding simultaneously, on the eve of the eldest daughter’s wedding. The parents are naturalized Americans, immigrants from Zimbabwe, who have distanced themselves from their African heritage, yet find themselves drawn, in different ways and to different degrees, to honor and recognize that heritage and its customs. In the process, a number of deep secrets are laid bare, intense emotional wounds are opened, and how they each find the strength to accept and heal is touching, revealing, intimate.

No matter who you are, this will, in some or many ways, remind you of your family, it’s history, bonds and traditions. It reminds us that we need to strengthen and pass on family histories and traditions, but not be stifled by them. This family gets through their crises, embraces their rich history, embraces their heritage and resolves to move forward. How it all unfolds is very, very “Familiar”.