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Tesla’s Letters
By Jeffrey Stanley
Directed by Nick Bowling
At Timeline Theatre
615 W. Wellington
Chicago, IL
Call 773-281-8463, tickets $25 -$30
Wednesdays & Thursdays at 7:30 pm
Fridays at 8 pm
Saturdays at 4 & 8 pm
Sundays at 2 pm
Running time is 1 hour, 50 minutes with intermission
Through December 23, 2007
War & peace, science and humanity come together in a suspenseful drama
Timeline Theatre’s slogan: “Yesterday’s stories, today’s topics,” is amply present in Jeffrey Stanley’s semi-autobiographical drama, Tesla’s Letters. This is a suspenseful and well written drama that combines recent history of the 1990’s breakup of Yugoslavia with a profile of Nikola Tesla (1856-1943), a Croatian born Serbian inventor.
“What first drew me to Tesla's Letters was the insight it gave into both the life of Nikola Tesla and the violent division of Yugoslavia in the mid ‘90s,” said director Nick Bowling. “I remember never fully understanding the details of that conflict. It seemed like such a complicated and ugly battle and it was far away. Tesla’s Letters challenges this kind of American complacency. It is a play about the search for heroes in a world where there are no heroes — just real people, trying to survive. It is this aspect of the play that ultimately captured me and what makes it so important for modern audiences.”
This show nicely combine history with a suspenseful story that finds an American PhD student, Daisy (Tien Doman in full Southern accent) traveling to 1990’s war torn Belgrade to study Nikola Tesla, the Yugoslavian born inventor. It is 1997 during the wars that spelled the end of Yugoslavia and ethnic cleansing is in full throttle. Dragan (Joel Stanley Huff), the administrator of the Tesla Museum in Belgrade, tricks Daisy to visit Tesla’s birthplace in Croatia where she experiences, first hand, the horrors of ethnic violence. She becomes torn between her obsession with Tesla, the unappreciated genius inventor of radio, AC electricity and a host of inventions and the brutality of ethnic cleansing. As she learns more about the Yugoslavian conflict, she realizes that there are no clear cut villains or victims and that heroes are not perfect by flawed humans. She must decide to be the neutral American academic or the crusading American doing her part to make the world realize just what is happening in the Balkans.
This is an intelligent play that sprinkles info about Tesla with a compelling modern story. Tien Doman and Joel Stanley Huffm are excellent. Seeing Tesla’s Letters will educate us about an unknown yet important inventor, Nikola Tesla as well as present the complexity of the Balkans atrocities. The suspenseful story draws us into the puzzle of the Yugoslavia and the amazing life of Tesla.
Recommended
Tom Williams
Tom99@chicagocritic.com for comments
Talk Theatre in Chicago podcast
Date Reviewed: November 10, 2007
Jeff Recommended
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