Playwright: Michael Allen Harris
At: The New Colony at The Den Theatre, 1333 N. Milwaukee Ave. Tickets: TheNewColony.org; $20. Runs through: Nov. 5
Prison dramas are known for grappling with conditional or forced same-sex relations among inmates. Yet Michael Allen Harris' world-premiere drama Punk for The New Colony slightly changes the dynamics since it is set in a GBTQ unit of a maximum security prison.
Harris penned Punk after seeing a documentary about a prison unit for gay, bisexual and trans prisoners to feel protected, if ghettoized, amongst themselves. Yet it's odd that Harris opted to focus so much of Punk's dramatic incidents around the self-identifying "straight" prisoner Travis ( Daniel Shtivelberg ) and his visiting "baby mama" Emily ( Keyanna Khatiblou ).
Travis was already serving a life sentence for murdering a gay man before his transfer away from the general prison population. So understandably GBTQ inmates like the self-confident and transitioning Sonya ( Evie Riojas ), the shy and artsy Glenn ( Kyle Encinas ) and sarcastic former drug user Georgia ( Aaron Sanchez ) are all unnerved by Travis' arrival.
Harris uses Travis as an interloping plot device to discover the inner workings of this prison unit and share it with audiences. Just how Travis ends up there is due to a budgetary bargaining deal forged by the unit's fiercely protective administrator, Olivia ( Monette McLin ), and the prison's unseen warden.
Travis seems to adjust a tad too quickly, given that he has white supremacist leanings. But as expected, Travis' presence does ultimately become a destructive force. He also serves as a reminder that private information can easily be weaponized.
As Sonya, Riojas gives such a strong and commanding performance that you wish that Punk was actually written more around her. It also would have been nice if Punk co-directors Diana Raiselis and Katrina Dion could have elevated Riojas' co-stars up to her performance level.
Design-wise, Punk benefits from Eleanor Kahn's stark and confining sets that delineate the script's locational shifts. Eric Watkins' lighting design also gives the right antiseptic feel thanks to his occasional use of deadening industrial fluorescents.
Aside from some clunky exposition and characters who sometimes come off as too self-aware and revealing, Punk largely fascinates. Punk opens up a dramatic window to people who are typically shunned or forgotten.
With Punk, The New Colony once again shows its vitality to Chicago's theater scene by giving new playwriting voices a chance to be heard. And since it was just announced that the company's founding co-artistic directors Andrew Hobgood and Evan Linder will be be stepping down in January 2018, let's hope that their replacements will continue to take chances and keep up all the great and creative new work.