Currently playing in the first return to the stage since its celebrated Chicago premiere in 2010, Steppenwolf For Young Adults presents The Brothers Size. The play attempts to answer the question: “How do you navigate family history while trying to write your own?”
Ogun Size is hardworking and heartbroken. Oshoosi Size has recently returned home from prison and is trying to be anywhere but. In this fierce and honest look at the complex bonds of brotherhood, the Steppenwolf ensemble member Tarell Alvin McCraney (Academy Award Moonlight, co-creator of MS. BLAKK FOR PRESIDENT) weaves together poetry, music and Yoruba mythology to magnify the tug-of-war between freedom and the need to belong somewhere, to something, to someone.
Directed by the acclaimed Chicago director Monty Cole, this Steppenwolf For Young Adults production of The Brothers Size is now playing through October 19th. Says the director: “The Brothers Size has always been one of my favorite plays. I’m in love with its vulnerable language about one’s duty to their family, culture, nation — and their own freedom. When I was in high school, I remember being so excited to go to Strppenwolf For Young Adults productions. It’s an honor to bring this play back to the Steppenwolf stage for young people to see themselves reflected.”
Tarell Alvin McCraney is an acclaimed playwright and screenwriter. His script In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue is the basis for the Oscar-winning film Moonlight directed by Barry Jenkins, for which McCraney and Jenkins won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. Says McCraney: “The prison industrial complex as we know it…destroys families—and changes lives forever.” McCraney shares in a poetic way the emotional costs of incarceration and its lasting effects on the brothers Size. The play shows the viewer how incarceration can last forever, even after one is released from prison. It is a sobering reality that real freedom is just an illusion bestowed by those in power.
In addition to The Brothers Size’s ten public performances, Steppenwolf for Young Adults is thrilled to bring this acclaimed work to the stage for young adults across Chicago.
The Brothers Size is now playing at Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 North Halsted Street. For tickets click here.
The Local Tourist tickets for two to the press performance compliments of Steppenwolf Theatre.
Photos: Michael Brosilow
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