THE STORY: Magical realism collides with manic vaudeville in a family drama unlike any you’ve ever seen. Fetuses swap philosophy while awaiting their birth, a daughter eats dirt and doesn’t speak, a father is about to drive away and never return, and there’s an apple tree growing through the walls of the house. Whipping from astonishing tenderness to profound humor and back again, SMOKEFALL explores the lives of a family in a lyrical treatise on the fragility of life and the power of love.
“…quixotic, gorgeous…[a] deeply moving family drama…[SMOKEFALL is] a very fine new American play…plays like this are rare and precious to an actor. [Noah Haidle] demonstrably has skin in the game instead of just stitching together a really clever ball, because there is compassion for ordinary people in the audience.” —Chicago Tribune.
“[Noah Haidle’s writing] is rich and nuanced…Haidle implies in SMOKEFALL that whatever individual family members do, and however our loved ones err, fail, and injure those closest to them, the notion of family, and a family’s history and love, will persist.” —The Daily Beast.
“SMOKEFALL is a glorious play…with a unique blend of sophistication and open-heartedness. It is a work that leaves you thinking about every human connection you have, whether on an intimate scale (with your family [and] romantic relationships), or the cosmic one (the whole grand cycle of life, love, loss, hope against hope, guilt, experience, inheritance and death). Haidle’s genius is that along with the pain and wistfulness come great bursts of true comic brilliance, so you leave the theater in a strange state of tearful exuberance.” —Chicago Sun-Times.
