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October 26, 2008

‘Screwtape’ succeeds in entertaining and provoking

If you go

  • What: “Screwtape Letters”
  • Where: Mercury Theater, 3745 N. Southport Ave.
  • When: Wednesday through Sunday until further notice
  • Tickets: $29 to $48.50, call the box office at (773) 325- 1700 or TicketMaster at (312) 902-1500. Discounted tickets for students and groups of 10 or more are also available.

Max McLean’s Screwtape is one guy you don’t want looking at you with affection.

McLean, who adapted Christian author C.S. Lewis’ “The Screwtape Letters” for the stage with Jeffrey Fiske, starred in well-received productions in New York and Washington before bringing his vision of hell to the Mercury Theater in Chicago.

Screwtape, an apparently highlevel functionary in the Infernal Kingdom, has created a comfortable spot for himself and his amanuensis, a feline-type creature named Toadpipe, who takes dictation as Screwtape corresponds with his nephew Wormwood, a “junior tempter” assigned to keep a young man from turning his sights to God — “the enemy” in this case. The tempter’s job is to secure the man’s soul as food for the denizens of darkness.

Screwtape uses the letters to catalogue the many ways humans can be turned from God — first and foremost, Screwtape reminds his listeners, by simple distraction and laziness.

He diagnoses the weakness of the human mind and will, the tendency to take pride — among the first sins — in being humble, the need for approval from companions who are not worthy of approval themselves, the way the creeping complaints of middle age can block the perception of the divine origin of life.

McLean declaims it all in larger- than-life voice, with sentences that play with the ears of their hearers, masking the evil that lurks inside his smoking jacket. He keeps the pace up for the full 90 minutes of the performance, never leaving the stage.

Diverting the Christian

The spotlight leaves Screwtape only occasionally, to follow the antics of Toadpipe (Yvonne Gougelet), as she alternately posts and receives letters, seals Toadpipe’s missives with a sizzling pawprint or mimes the female types that Wormwood can use to turn his subject’s attention away from the sacred.

There are the usual sirens, yes, but also the young man’s prim mother, who practices a “glutton of delicacy,” turning up her nose at anything that isn’t exactly to her liking — and nothing is exactly to her liking. And, Screwtape notes, any two humans who live together are bound to each have tones of voice and looks that drive the other to distraction, and distraction is the devil’s friend.

But, he makes clear, distraction and wasting time are not the same as real, honest pleasures, which were created by God, for no reason that Screwtape can fathom, unless it is because God loves his people, an option Screwtape is forbidden to consider.

So eating and sleeping and sex and work and play — under the right circumstances — all point creatures toward their Creator, who created those pleasures for us. Of course, all of them can be twisted and turned for evil, which Screwtape heartily advises Wormwood to try to do.

The audience watches with a sort of fascination, alternately amused and squirming in its seats, as some of Screwtape’s zingers hit their targets. But it is never bored, and never doubts the sincerity of Screwtape’s efforts.

“The Screwtape Letters” is presented by the Fellowship for the Performing Arts.