The Dance of Death – Theater Review – Podcast

The highlight of The Dance of Death at Steppenwolf is the outstanding set design of Collette Pollard, that dominates the stage. Featuring an impressive, ancient, oppressive, dimly lit three story plaster and brick edifice, that apparently was a former jail, it is now the military home of a company commander and his wife located on an offshore island.

Set in Scandinavia sometime in the late 19^th or early 20^th Century, Alice (Kathryn Erbe) and Edgar (Jeff Perry) will soon be marking the 25^TH anniversary of their mostly unhappy marriage. The structure serves as a physical representation of the couple’s own feelings of entrapment and isolation.

The two are alienated from their community, their extended family, their teenaged children and most importantly from each other.

Edgar is an aging soldier who only feels alive when there is conflict in his life, while Alice a former actress requires constant drama.

The arrival of an old friend Kurt (Cliff Chamberlain) offers an opportunity for distraction as each try to engage him as an ally, but ultimately, they treat him more like a mouse that has wandered in and is unable to find his way out, becoming simultaneously an object of amusement, intrusion and torment.

Details: Dance of Death at Steppenwolf, 1650 N. Halsted Street, Chicago, through March 22, 2026. Runtime about 2 and a half hours with one intermission. For tickets visit Steppenwolf.org or call (312)335-1650.

Be sure to click through and listen to the entire podcast.

There are two more plays coming up this weekend so if you are a current subscriber there will be a flurry of activity in your inbox from us. But keep in mind we drop podcasts as things occur rather than on a regular schedule so it can be rather uneven in terms of frequency.

My goal is also to keep my podcasts short ( around 5 to 7 minutes or so) to provide informative, actionable, informative and hopefully at least occasionally entertaining advice and insight.

Reviewer: Reno Lovison