“Victory of the people” is the rallying cry of Cole Theatre, a new company from Chicago-based actors Boyd Harris and Layne Manzer. So it’s a bit ironic that the group’s inaugural production is Mike Leigh’s Ecstasy, whose downtrodden working-class characters would seem anything but victorious.
Tormented yet enjoyable characters are a trademark for Leigh, who carves with precision heroin addicts, smoking asthmatics, and slowly drowning alcoholics. Kidwell’s Jean drags gin around her sad-looking bedsit like it’s a security blanket. In the show’s first half, the booze acts as a stifle, but in the second, it’s her liberator, loosening her tongue up for flirting and singing old Irish songs, which she and Dawn’s husband, Mick (Harris), dutifully belt.
Leigh has said Ecstasy is about life experiences—all that we’ve done and haven’t done at the end of the day. The play’s finish isn’t anything momentous, but rather carries the more subtle nuances of two lonely people reaching out to each other. Cole Theatre’s founders may aim big, but it’s in the finer points that Ecstasy succeeds.
8/28-9/28: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM A Red Orchid Theatre 1531 N. Wellscoletheatre.org $15-$25
