PrideArts Presents WHEN THERE ARE NINE Review — Less Notorious, More Sentimental

Even before her hand firmly grasps the walker cane always at her bedside, we know that the Ruth Bader Ginsburg whom actress Talia Langman now inhabits is the older one near her end date.  A hunch of her shoulders, a slight crumple of spine, a neck seeming to be short one vertebra--- Langman IS RBG in her twilight.

In a mere blink, the RBG on stage becomes her earlier person—still actress Talia Langman—with a spry gait that telegraphs the RBG playwright Sally Deering seems to want us to know.  Deering’s RBG is all about ambition, fueled in large part by her empathy.  From feisty Jewish Brooklyn girl, to top-of-her-class at college and law school, to the circuit court with a pitstop before as an academic, and then to the Supreme Court --though this latter gig that put her on the US map gets a relatively fleeting focus—Langman’s RBG is an indomitable force of nature.

Fellow cast members rotate through multiple roles to help tell the story of her dream recollections.  Gabriel Estrada plays RBG’s devoted husband—so unflinchingly adoring in fact that one can imagine his ear worm on continuous re-wind crooning the Nat King Cole rendition of Unforgettable from his time. Zoe Nemetz is RBG’s Tiger Mom of yiddisha flavor who exhorts her daughter to never give up and to never think she will get anywhere unless she is heads above the (male) pack.  Ashlynn Seehafer is firebrand Betty Friedan rallying her sisters to action.  Shannon Bachelder is the woman inmate on death row writing RBG as a last hope.  Ginger DeLeon is the gay bride disowned by her family whom RBG has kind words for as she officiates her wedding.  All of these minor players convey the microcosm of RBG’s world, not as full-blown characters but almost as moving story props.  In a larger role Nicholia Q. Aguirre as her hospice nurse, is the stand in for all of us who shed tears to feel this lion of the court’s passing.

Again and again though, it is Talia Langman as RBG who is charged to be centerstage.  There is not a second, in this reviewer’s opinion, when she fails to compel our rapt attention, even though faced with the choppy script’s relative steeplechase course moving back and forth in time to reveal the RBG of Deering’s imagination. This is a memorable tour de force performance that will likely make any regular Chicago theater-goer want to short list seeing any play Langman is in.

PrideArts Chooses Script Depicting RBG More Girl-Next-Door

For theater lovers who love plays that rattle their cage, present a teaching moment, or stir their soul, you might find Deering’s script a no-news-here 90 minutes, in this writer’s view.  Fellow feminists of a certain age—viz. the ones who are startled to learn that identifying as a feminist somehow came to be seen by younger women as radical--- might be disappointed by the scarcity of this script poking into RBG’s prowess as an intellectual warrior doing battle on the court.  This writer—no stranger to feisty Jewish Brooklyn girls and where their drive can take them—asks--  Why is it that a Chicago pre-pandemic play about Scalia challenges us to try on his ideas and wrestle with his intellect, while When There Are Nine … just doesn’t?

How gratifying for this reviewer to have the rare experience of seeing the last performance in a run—vicariously sharing the tears of cast members during their final final bows. Lovers of great acting will find much to admire in Langman’s future performances, is this reviewer’s expectation.

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Editor’s Note:  This play’s run has ended but PrideArts has ongoing programming of both film and theater events that you can learn more about by visiting the PrideArts website.