Feb. 18--For anyone with a modicum of self-awareness -- and that only describes a subset of parents applying to private or highly selective public schools -- the act of filling out a school application for a kindergartner involves a plethora of dilemmas.
If you try something like, "little Emma's sweet play is always based on classic texts," you risk sounding like every other pushy parent with an undiscovered genius at hand. But if you disclose even a hint of the negative in a conditional clause (say, "Although he has yet to fully master compound adjectives, 4-year-old Bob already is an enthusiastic bibliophile"), you worry that the harried admissions office is combing treacly applications for potential red flags.
Workplaces are full of people ready to pounce on our weaknesses. Why raise such a possibility for the child you love? But wait, wait! If you're not credible, is not that worse?
If any of this sounds familiar, or has driven you down to the bottom of a bottle of red, I'll wager you'll be most compelled by "A Kid Like Jake," the shrewd, rich and very compassionate new play from Daniel Pearle, now its first, excellent and unpretentious Chicago production from About Face Theatre and director Keira Fromm, after a 2013 premiere at Lincoln Center in New York.
You could argue -- I'd argue -- that New Yorkers who think of leaving Manhattan as death are at least 51 shades more neurotic than Chicagoans on these matters of elementary schooling, but, still, not far from the Greenhouse Theater Center, lights in many a Lincoln Park townhouse have burned late with such dilemmas.
Pearle's well-cast play, starring Katherine Keberlein and Michael Aaron Lindner as the parents, with Cindy Gold as their admissions guru, is, on its face, concerned with a boy exhibiting signs of feeling constrained by his gender. You might think such a play would deal with parents wondering how to reflect that, or disguise that, on the kid's application. And so it does, but here's the rub. Gold's Judy, who knows the admissions game, points out that all Manhattan private schools think of themselves as progressive and that to specifically refer to a gender-questioning kid and his gender-variant play may just be the calling card the kid needs to stand out from the pile.
In other words, it could make him a little brand, a diversity case, a recipient of a fat envelope.
So is that good for the kid? For the transgender cause? And, more to the point for these parents, is it really true of the schools? Or is it just one woman's agenda?
"A Kid Like Jake" is about all these thorny issues. But it's also about the stress that Type A parents exude when their beloved kiddos are under the microscope, especially when their own precious urban lifestyle is under threat.
Most private-school types are used to having big-time control at the office, and the educational admissions game is often a terrifying reminder of their own vulnerability and dependency.
Thanks to Gold's shrewd performance, you never know if this counselor is showing all of her cards.
Keberlein's animated but empathetic performance as Alex is suffused with all of those neuroses. Furthermore, Pearle is clearly interested in what such pressures can do to any marriage, and, with the help of the wholly credible Lindner, this writer charts all of the usual fights that parents have in these scenarios: You should chill out. I'm the one doing the work. You get to be the good parent. You don't fight for him like me. All are recognizable.
I think Peale is a bit hard on the mother, Alex, but Keberlein and Fromm both correct for that. Alex is simultaneously dealing with other life-changing issues, and you'd have to be stone-hearted not to feel for her amid her collision of pressures. Sometimes, seemingly easygoing men actually are anything but, and Lindner catches that enigma too. Even the small role of a nurse is played with heart by Jessica Dean Turner.
Often, realistic, contemporary plays like this one feel artificially amped or otherwise lacking in truth. But that never happens with "A Kid Like Jake," a drama (benefiting greatly here from an intimate but rich setting from Dan Stratton) that takes a parenting dilemma and looks at it from all sides and also is suffused with compassion for questioning kids.
All children are, of course, vulnerable to those who want to define them, or market them, even with all the loving intentions in the world. Especially when 500 applicants fight for 34 spots.
cjones5@tribpub.com
3.5 STARS
When: Through March 15
Where: Greenhouse Theater Center, 2257 N. Lincoln Ave.
Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes
Tickets: $35 at 773-404-7336 or
aboutfacetheatre.org
