Playwrights: Eric J. Coleman. At: Irish American Heritage Center, 4626 N. Knox Ave. Tickets: BrownPaperTickets.com; $20. Runs through: May 28 ( Saturdays only )
When intermission was declared, I saw that Act I had run about 70 minutes, a reasonable length for a play. But it had felt like forever, so ponderous was the production.
Knowing that Act II was not likely to be faster or better, and aware of my Chicago history so I knew what was coming, and having been awake since 4:15 a.m., I left. Condemn me if you must, but please don't ask me to detail the problems with Bloody Haymarket. Suffice it to say that I cannot, in all good faith, recommend this show to knowledgeable Chicago theater-goers.
And yet I can admire the motives of this effort. May 4 was the 130th anniversary of the Haymarket Riot and bombing, which occurred near Randolph and Halsted streets in the West Loop. This iconic event in this country's labor movement history produced several martyrs to the bloody struggle for the eight-hour day, unions and a minimum wage; martyrs whose graves in Chicago's vast Waldheim Cemetery still are visited ( along with that of "Red Emma" Goldman, who is buried with them ). The martyrs did not die in the bombing of the labor rally taking place that day. They were leaders of the movement railroaded into convictions for murderaccused of being the bombersand hung.
History has shown that just about everything surrounding the bombing, let alone the kangaroo court trial, was phony. The conservative oligarchs of that daywith names such as Pullman, Armour, Palmer, Swift and Fieldand the political leaders they controlled certainly were anti-labor, but they were even more anti-immigrant, and many labor organizers ( not to mention agitators, provocateurs and anarchists allied to labor ) were immigrants in that era when the Melting Pot was rampant.
The co-authors of Bloody Haymarket wish to celebrate and honor the martyrs and their movement, and to remind us of how easily justice can be distorted, co-opted and denied. Their slow-moving history pageant does this. It also clearly illuminates the anti-immigration views of conservatives in an era when Chicago still was a Republican city. Both of these themesinjustice and immigrationmake Bloody Haymarket as timely as today in light of current presidential politics.
But even so, there have been many, many plays written about the Haymarket events and the Haymarket Martyrs, and most of them are better than this one. If you are not a professional playwrightand the authors are not professional playwrightswhy reinvent the wheel? With its cast of 21some of whom very obviously are not actorswith its numerous long scene changes as well as its plodding yet rambling structure, Bloody Haymarket is nothing so much as a community-theater history pageant, no matter how well-intentioned.