A Six Hour Shakespeare Play Is As Interminable As It Sounds

Let’s get one thing straight: It’s not the long sit I mind. One of my favorite sitting experiences ever was the English Shakespeare Company’s Wars of the Roses heptalogy, which played the International Theatre Festival of Chicago (what an idea, huh?) and literally took days to watch. By comparison, the six-hour running time of Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s Tug of War: Foreign Fire should be an easy stretch to handle.

I can understand why Gaines might be attracted to Edward III, aside from the coolness factor of its obscurity: The tale of an English king’s 1346 campaign to assert his sovereignty over France, it takes us back to the beginnings of the grotesque slog known as the Hundred Years War.

Interestingly, Gaines is able to use these elements to good advantage now and then, turning the finales of each section, for instance, into sometimes stirring, sometimes haunting moments that make you feel like there’s still hope. But when you come back from intermission, the same reductive template kicks in again. Gaines is so intent on putting over the message of Tug of War that she makes a dull chore of sitting through it. v

Through 6/12: Wed 5 PM, Fri 5 PM, Sat 4 PM, Sun 1 PM Chicago Shakespeare Theater 800 E. Grand 312-595-5600chicagoshakes.com $100