This past weekend, in our summer of Windy City discovery, my husband and I took in a remarkable production at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, a gem of a space with nary a bad seat in the house. Alas, this was one of the final performances, so this review is more for my own posterity than anything else I suppose.
Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain is a beloved film in our home. For young gay men twenty (!) years ago, it was a revelation and an affirmation (tragic as the story was) to see Hollywood release a blockbuster film, starring au courant heartthrob actors, focused so incisively, so delicately on the gay (closeted) experience. The fact that it was a worldwide critical, cultural, financial success, nominated for numerous Oscars (criminally robbed of winning Best Picture) made for a very powerful moment in our community.
So when we learned Chicago Shakespeare would be bringing last year’s London stage production stateside we quickly added tickets to our digital wallets and to our 2026 summer itinerary, just in time for Pride month.
Fun fact: when my husband loves a piece of entertainment, he NEVER stops watching it. I saw Brokeback Mountain in the theatre with him, opening weekend (I think), but any chance he got afterward he went and saw the film again and again and again on the big screen. I’m guessing about half a dozen times. He’s done the same thing with High School Musical and Wicked … and 98 Degrees. (He’s gonna kill me for sharing this! Sorry – not sorry.)
The elegiac staged treatment draws from Annie Proulx’s source short story but retains all of the essential story beats of the film, coming in at a brisk 90+ minutes. The staging at Chicago Shakespeare was abstract and atmospheric, evoking sepia-toned memories unfolding before our eyes.
If anything, I wish the script by Ashley Robinson had been more of a tone poem to match the staging. The vignettes all rolled out as remembered, beautifully performed by a tight ensemble – Harrison Ball as a deep-feeling Ennis Del Mar, Jack Cameron Kay as a bounding Jack Twist, Cordelia Dewdney as a tortured Alma, Thomas Cox doing exceptionally differentiated character work as Joe Aguirre/Bill/Jack’s father, and Kat Eggleston and Alina Jenine Taber on double duty as angelic vocalists in the band and as Jack’s bereft mother and fractured wife Lureen respectively.
If only the workmanlike script had given these brilliant performers liberty to be even more dreamlike and ephemeral. The raked stage at Chicago Shakespeare with set pieces rising and falling from the floor, surrounded by dense brush evoking the Wyoming plains, made us feel as if we were peering into Ennis’ subconscious, but the more literal quality of the scenes themselves at times fought the ethereal setting.
The absolutely exquisite touch of a live bluegrass band, fronted by Eggleston and performing Emmylou Harris-style compositions by Dan Gillespie Sells, created an immersive and haunting atmosphere. As if the AM radio that kept these lonely cowboys company during their bleak work guarding an unruly herd of sheep had become a kind of Greek chorus, offering commentary on the heartbreak of a love in 1963 that was utterly forbidden, particularly in such rural environs.
The production was deftly, sensitively, efficiently directed by Jonathan Butterell. Special recognition to the lighting design by David Finn, sound design by Christopher Shutt, scenic and costume design by Tom Pye, fight and intimacy coordination by Zev Steinrock, and music direction by Jacob Yates, and their teams. Their stagecraft was exemplary, enveloping the actors and audience in a moment both oppressive and liberating as the text requires. Truly remarkable work.
Should this stage adaptation find its way into your neck of the woods, run, don’t walk to see it. We find ourselves in an era where lived truth is more important than ever. As Ennis observes, “If you can’t fix it, you gotta stand it.”
