A Writer's Agony In Haven Theatre's 'Seminar'

By Melody Udell in Arts & Entertainment on Mar 11, 2014 7:20PM

“Writers, in their natural habitats, are as civilized as feral cats.”

If you relate at all to this sentiment, you might as well be teaching overpriced writing seminars to aspiring novelists hoping to use their talent, connections or sexuality—anything, really—to get their big publishing break. That’s what Leonard (Tom Hickey), a caustic, internationally known writer fading from the literary scene, thinks about his students and colleagues in the profession. The scruffy, pompous professor archetype is the crux of Seminar, Theresa Rebeck’s taut, 100-minute one-act play, now receiving its Chicago debut by the newly hatched Haven Theatre.

Rebeck (of Smash fame) is a prolific writer, touching everything from film to TV, books and, of course, the stage. She knows a thing or two about the thrill and suffering that's tethered to becoming a writer—and in Seminar, it shows. Her script is a stinging, wry look at a swinging-door profession crammed with as much potential as desperation. And that desperation is what Rebeck’s show, and Leonard in particular, feeds on.

It’s hard to tell whether Leonard’s 10-week, highly selective writing seminars—at $5,000 a pop—equate to much more than elective torture. His specialty seems to be eviscerating years-in-the-making manuscripts and advising students to defect to Hollywood. The current class is hosted by Kate (Mary Williamson), a flailing writer who graciously offers to host the seminar in her sprawling, rent-controlled apartment on the Upper East Side. Then there’s Douglas (Carl Lindberg), the obnoxiously well-connected writer being courted by The New Yorker. Rounding out the class is Kate’s high school friend Martin (Keith Neagle), the downtrodden novelist who prefers to keep his work to himself, and the sexy, ambitious Izzy (Atra Asdou). Week after week, the students sit through Leonard’s self-important stories and frank but clearly biased criticism toward their work. Everyone in the class, it seems, is vying for literary fame through Leonard. Allegiances and morals shift wildy as the students play the game any way they can. Each of them are looking for a leg up that they think only Leonard—misogynistic, self-inflated criticism aside—can provide.

Director Marti Lyons keeps the show running quickly, thanks in part to the dynamic casting. Williamson is especially powerful as Kate, who shrugs off her initial vulnerability and adopts a believably shrewd, anything-to-win mindset. Neagle (who was a highlight in The Pavement Group’s otherwise misguided production of Harry and the Thief last fall), is winning as the brilliant yet insecure Martin, who lacks the class status or social know-how to climb the ladder of the literary elite.

Joanne Iwanicka’s impressive, unexpected set transformation occurs just as we see a somewhat different side of Leonard, one that doesn’t exist solely for battering down impressionable young writers—. But he's not the only one whose methods are exposed. Writers, at least those in Seminar, aren’t quite the feral cats Leonard thinks they are—they’re calculating, surprising and, most of all, looking out for themselves.

The show runs through Sunday, April 13 at Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont, 773-975-8150 or online.