Smokefall

Life, but not as we know it

Noah Haidle's quirk-filled drama of total family dysfunction returns to the Albert Goodman Theater for an encore production. Smokefall held its world premiere at the Chicago theater last year and was met with such rapturous acclaim that it's come back for a second round. The cast of last year, which includes local theater legend Mike Nussbaum (Men in Black, Field of Dreams) all return as well. The production will be directed once again by the Obie Award-winning Anne Kauffman.

A multi generational tale filled with oddity and foetuses quoting Tolstoy, Smokefall is yet another ambitious piece from Noah Haidle, whose works exist in a idiosyncratic world of magical realism tempered with kitchen sink drama. Termed 'The King of Quirk' by Chicago reader, Haidle's past works have included Mr. Marmalade and the heart-swapping drama Rag and Bone.

What is Smokefall About?

Set in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Smokefall opens at the breakfast table with pregnant housewife Violet. Also present is her teenage daughter Beauty, who survives on a diet of paint and dirt and hasn't spoken a word to anybody since she was thirteen. We are also introduced to Violet's father The Colonel, who is gradually losing his conscious to dementia and exists in a world of unreality, and her unloving husband Daniel. The bonds that hold this utterly dysfunctional family together are bending under the weight of everyday mundanity and tedium until at last they snap - Daniel runs away. Violet does her best to hold the rest of them together, as the twins inside her belly ready themselves for the outside world.