Lottery Day, A New Play by Ike Holter

Or: Queen stays Queen

Mallory (J. Nichole Brooks) is the undisputed monarch of her little corner of the world. Having lost her family to violence she has opened her home to all sorts of worn and weary souls. But tonight, the 10 year anniversary of her loss, she is throwing a big party and some … inventive games for her adoptive kin.

Combining movements from Holter’s beloved Chicago plays: Exit Strategy, Prowess, Sender, and the Wolf at the End of the Block, Lottery Day, seems more like a anthology than a play; but while it is doubtless more enjoyable and satisfying to be acquainted with all the characters beforehand, it’s also well supported inventive, and gripping in its own right.

It’s almost a spoken opera. As about eight different plot lines and character arcs orbit Mallory’s backyard barbecue, much of the dialog is superposed on each other. Words fly a mile a minute, occasionally chiming in with some harmony and synchronized fragments of thought. Still, Holter, besides being an amazing detailer, knows how to hoik a plot along, and he treats us to some sharp edged revelations and realizations.

The play shifts around itself like it’s building to an Agatha Christie type murder with suspects: except that no one is mysterious or sinister in Mallory’s house. Broken souled? Sometimes. Proud? Often. But always touching, quite literally the heroes of their own stories. There’s Ezekiel (Tommy Rivera-Vega, who wears his heart on his sleeve) the easily distracted wanna-be rapper and Tori (Aurora Adachi-Winter, possessed of an sterling earnestness and comedic instinct) over-meta head of a local theater company. There’s Cassandra (McKenzie Chinn) rising lawyer, and Zora (Sydney Charles, steely-eyed and armed with razor wit), a street vigilante. Nunly (Bear Bellinger) failing business owner, Ricky (Pat Whalen, he of the fine motor mouth and taffy-like awkwardness), and Robinson (Robert Cornelius, grand dame of the proceedings). And there’s Avery (Anthony Irons) Mallory’s right hand, who’s had her eye for years now, and Vivien (Monica Orozco), the nervous naighbor and gentrifier one hates to hate.

Lottery day is a riotous ride, swinging right to and spilling us over the threshold of revelation. It is not for the faint of ear, nor the gun-shy, but even if you can’t quite follow what all’s up in the air, you get a good feel for the nexus of a marvelous playwrights wonderful world.