Review: IT'S BEEN TEN YEARS SINCE EVERYBODY DIED at Open Space Arts

I’m admittedly a longtime fan of horror movies. So much so that I’ve longed dreamed of one day teaching a class on how these movies explore deep-seated psychological and social anxieties. From the daunting responsibilities of motherhood in Rosemary’s Baby to the insidious color-blindness of white liberals in Get Out, the horror genre invites us into the darkness parts of humanity to shine a bright light on what drives us to survive or holds us back from progress. Examples of horror theatre are much rarer but typically just as rewarding—if done correctly. The newest example of this trend, IT’S BEEN TEN YEARS SINCE EVERYBODY DIED, misses the mark on both scares and astute social commentary, but through no fault of its talented and refreshingly diverse cast. The production runs through April 6 at Open Space Arts in Uptown.

Receiving its world premiere, Cesario Tirado-Ortiz’s IT’S BEEN TEN YEARS follows the efforts of three longtime friends as they attempt to heal from the horrific traumas they all coincidentally suffered in the same week a decade earlier. Maude (Julia Toney) lives with the shame of watching their brother dress up as a clown and murder their entire family. Betsy (Alexis Queen) is haunted by visions of seeing her cheer squad cannibalized before her very eyes. And Allison (Noah Hinton) just barely escaped a chainsaw-wielding madman in the forest. When the estranged friends unexpectedly reconnect at a remote therapeutic center, they find that their violent pasts may have finally caught up to them.

The play’s central premise bears a striking resemblance to Grady Hendrix’s 2021 novel The Final Girl Support Group, in which a band of young women who survived horrific attacks come together session after session to heal from their trauma. Tirado-Ortiz’s welcome twist on the theme is that, here, all the final “girls” are queer either in their sexuality or gender expression. Given the horror genre’s problematic history of trans- and homo-phobia (e.g. the shocking ending to the 1983 film Sleepaway Camp), there’s much to explore here in terms of how queer communities fear for their lives even as they are feared by others. But while Tirado-Ortiz’s play has representational breadth, it lacks thematic depth.

One of the few exceptions to this rule, though, comes during a therapeutic roundtable in which Allison, a trans woman, soliloquizes on and mourns the girlhood she missed out on. Hinton skillfully balances the pathos and humor of the moment and of the role more generally; in fact, it’s in this scene when audiences realize that Allison’s characteristic humor masks some very deep pain. And it’s this emotional complexity that Hinton brings to the role that makes Allison the most truthful character on stage and, subsequently, the one final girl worth really rooting for.

It helps that Hinton’s character also has the most developed dramatic arc of the play. Other roles aren’t quite as lucky. Tirado-Ortiz’s script has twists and turns aplenty, some of which are well-plotted while others are as jarring as a hatchet to the face. On the one hand, Queen is particularly skilled at giving subtle line readings that hint at Betsy’s darker secrets, often with a wry smile or a barely registered wink. While Betsy is, on the page, the archetypal “mean girl” cheerleader, Queen’s warmth and charisma prevent the role from falling cleanly on the good/bad binary, and her performance often pleasantly reminded me of Megan Fox in Jennifer’s Body.

On the other hand, the play’s climactic twist is handled neither with delicacy nor care, relying on cough-and-you’ll-miss-it line drops and empathy for a tertiary character whose importance to the plot is never adequately emphasized. It’s hard to say if this is because of a playwright trying to stay within the confines of a one-act format or a well-intentioned director who wants the audience’s gasps to be authentic and earned. I’m more sympathetic in the latter case.

Toney seems, more often than not, to be the performer most responsible for carrying the dramaturgical weight of the play. Their troubled psychoanalytic session acts as the opening scene, and it’s their emotional baggage that gives the trio of friends its palpable tension. But, despite Toney’s best efforts, Maude as a character never rises much above the superficial. As opposed to Allison and Betsy, Maude seems to be exclusively defined by their traumatic past, with nearly every line of dialogue bordering on an anguished wail. Finishing out the cast is Alex Marusich, playing literally every remaining scripted part and doing an admirable job of maintaining distinct characterizations between them all despite the characters being little more than mouthpieces for exposition.

I very much want to see more, newer horror theatre across Chicago’s many stages, and I can see a version of IT’S BEEN TEN YEARS that is as richly textured as the blood that spatters the actors by the end of the show. But for this to happen, it may have to go back to the cutting room floor.

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