Before I tell you about today's condo news, I need to mention that on Tuesday night I saw an excellent play over at Steppenwolf Theater. I keep forgetting to write about it, and it was good enough that you should try to see it if you can. It's called "Superior Donuts" and it's written by Tracey Letts (who wrote "August: Osage County" which began at Steppenwolf and is now on Broadway.) It is a very Chicago play---based on a real donut shop in the Uptown neighborhood---and so it contains a multitude of Chicago-isms and circumstances which are highly recognizable if you have ever lived here and highly humorous even if you have not.
The play is darkly funny with caustic strains of social criticism and economic observances. One moment you are bent over with laughter and the next you have tears in your eyes. And the best part is, you have an opinion about and care about every single one of the characters by the end of the first act. The writing is addictive, and the dialogue sweeps you along so that you feel like an inner-tube on the Chicago river after a big rainstorm.
There are some outstanding performances, and even the couple of performances I didn't care for as much do not distract from the overall enjoyment. The whole play takes place on one set---the interior of a run-down, seedy looking donut shop which is broken into early and often by neighborhood thugs. The set and all the design elements do well to serve the characters and the story, and sometimes you find yourself fascinated or laughing at the smallest of details: a too-tight track suit, a huge manuscript tied together with shoelaces and bungee cords, or a chip in the counter-top laminate.
There are some excellent lines in the script, and I am sure the actors feel pure joy every time they get to speak them aloud. It's not worth repeating any of the ones I remember because the writing is so tied to character and emotion that it would not translate here. The words seem purely organic and pure to that moment when you are watching the scene---not one syllable feels contrived or planned out or even
thought before it's spoken. And
that my friends, is what I equate with great playwriting: it doesn't seem like writing at all. The play just seems to unfold before your eyes. And great acting makes it seem like it's happening for the very first time, every time. As I said, see this play if you can.
OK---now, on to Condo News. Because what kind of day in Susan's life would it be without the ongoing saga of housing hi-jinx? No day. No day at all.
After thinking about what I'd recently learned through a friend of a friend about the imminent foreclosure of the condo development and the dire straights I am in (along with five or six other condo lottery winners for the building that is seemingly doomed to never close), I decided this morning to make some calls to my contact at the housing department, the real estate program I did, the bank who gave me the loan, and the attorney who planned to handle my (fictional) closing. I figured all the folks I called would know what I know and more, and I hoped to get more detailed info to flesh out the situation so I could make an educated decision concerning my fate.
However, I quickly learned that nobody---
not one---of these people knew a damn thing. All of them seemed relieved to hear
some kind of news, and each of them thanked me for letting them know what was going on. It was as if I was some sort of hired Private Investigator calling in with my final report in hopes of reimbursement for my research and field work and perhaps a nice bonus for my expediency.
I heard it from them all: they had been suspicious for some time that something was going on with the developer. None of them could offer me a solution though, and the closest thing I got to advice was from the woman at the program where I took the free real estate classes. She told me to "sit tight" for another few days, and she would speak to the "powers that be" to see if there isn't some sort of contingency plan that can be put into effect for the handful of us that got screwed over (those are my words, not hers) by the developer and now held a contract for a condo we could neither close on nor move into. She said she should have some news by next week and would call me ASAP.
People, I ask you: if you remember me from another life, what did I do to deserve this? Did I kill a bunch of innocent children or old people in a tenement building? Was I a slum-lord who tortured and robbed residents? Was I an evil developer who paved over the last known prehistoric plant species in the rain forest? For the love of all things holy, there must be something. I must have done something horribly, terribly, fantastically evil in order to get to this place. This is not a road most people encounter. And baby, I am not just
on it, I am
paving it.
Well, at least I am not bored. And in my next life I will probably live in a mansion in the clouds and be teleported from room to room on a carpet of mist, because
man, am I working off some crap karma right now. And oh, I will certainly continue to browse apartments this weekend as well. In between a friend's birthday party, a theater workshop, and the "X-Files" movie, that is. We reincarnated slum-lords don't get a moment's damn rest.
