Illinois Theatre Center stages ‘Greetings’
By Don Snider November 30, 2011 2:58PM
John LiBrizzi plays Phil Giorski, the father in Illinois Theatre Center's production of "Greetings."
‘GREETINGS’
♦ Dec. 2-18, with performances at
8 p.m. Wednesdays to Saturdays and 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sundays
♦ Illinois Theatre Center,
371 Artists Walk, Park Forest
♦ Tickets, $22 on Fridays and
Saturdays and $20 at all other times
♦ (708) 481-3510; ilthctr.org
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’Tis the season to be entertained. Holiday musicals and plays abound.
So many of these shows involve fantasies such as the jolly old man on 34th Street who insists he really is St. Nick.
But there are some that strike a chord for reality.
The Illinois Theatre Center in Park Forest will present a holiday play to which perhaps at least 25 percent of America can heavily relate.
That’s how many people in America belong to a family of mixed faith, with parents who are of different religions.
“Greetings,” which opens for a three-week run on Dec. 2, will offer the issues of differing faiths and beliefs in a humorous but realistic setting.
Some critics have likened “Greetings” to the old TV show “All in the Family.” The play also has been compared to the film “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.”
There are elements from both the TV and film scripts, but neither totally reflects the characterizations in “Greetings,” written by Tom Dudzick, the author of the highly acclaimed “Over the Tavern.”
That’s the consensus of the five-person cast of “Greetings,” which conducted a roundtable about the play with the SouthtownStar.
The cast playing the Giorski family includes Iris Lieberman as Emily, the family matriarch, and John LiBrizzi as Phil, the father.
The Giorskis have two sons — Andy, played by Robert McConnell, and Mickey, portrayed by Jeremy Keene.
“Greetings” is set on Christmas Eve in Pittsburgh, where Andy is bringing his fiancee, Randi Stein, home to meet the family. She is played by Lucy Zukaitis.
Four of the five cast members are Chicago residents, while Keene is from Wisconsin and making his Chicago-area debut and Zukaitis is a recent transplant from Omaha, Neb.
In the play, Andy’s parents are devout Catholics. Randi is Jewish.
Lieberman said she can particularly relate to that part of the characters. Her father is Jewish, her mother is Polish Catholic.
But as a veteran of 14 shows under ITC artistic director Etel Billig, Lieberman said she is used to playing a variety of roles all over the Chicago area.
For example, she was the conservative mayor’s wife in “The Music Man” during the 2010-11 season at the Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire.
“I think this is about a very sweet family that, yes, is a bit set in its ways,” Lieberman said.
The mother is the glue that holds the family together. It is the father who hasn’t quite kept up with the rapidly changing times.
“The play is set in 1990, and things have changed rapidly since then,” LiBrizzi said. “I don’t think it’s fair to call the father a bigot, but he is entrenched in his beliefs.”
The fireworks in “Greetings” begin with simple discussions of those beliefs. Then the family finds that Randi is not only Jewish, but she also is an atheist.
The younger son, Mickey, is mentally challenged and spends most of the play only uttering exclamations such as “Wow!” and “Oh, boy!” But he has a key insightful sequence near the end.
The ending, director Billig stressed, has a nice twist that will have the audience leaving the theater entertained and with a holiday spirit.
Don Snider is a local free-lance writer.
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