The Rembrandt (Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Chicago) by Jessica Dickey #steppenwolf #Rembrandt

The Rembrandt referenced in the play’s title is the painting Aristotle with a Bust of Homer (Rembrandt van Rijn, 1653) and is the point around which the spokes in the wheel of this story turn.  The story moves in time and space from a modern American museum in which said painting hangs; to the house of Rembrandt during the height of his fame; a Grecian temple c 800 BC and a deathbed, again in modern times.

Henry is a seasoned museum guard played by Francis Guinan with palpable warmth and gentleness.  A man so in love with the beauty which surrounds him that he can’t seem to help looking for that in others, though he fails to be very kind to himself.  A methodical and precise man who finds both solace and shame in ‘hiding’ at work while his partner of more than three decades lies dying at home.

When we meet Henry he is about to start training a new guard, Ty Olwin’s delightfully irreverent Dodger, as well as supervising Karen Rodriguez’s guarded and grieving Madeline, a visiting art student.  The interplay between these three, egged on by Dodger’s relentless insistence that somebody ‘touch the art’, ends with grief shared, romance ignited and Henry doing something outrageous enough to lose his job.

We jump to the home of Rembrandt, (portrayed with ego, sulkiness and charm by Mr. Guinan,) Henny, his warm, sexy and sensible wife, (the terrific Ms. Rodriguez), and his uptight but worshipful son, Titus.  These family interactions, like all family interactions, are fraught with tension, history and love.

Next we meet the subject of Rembrandt’s painting, Aristotle, a contemplative and yearning John Mahoney.  Aristotle, on his knees in a temple, is a man searching; for meaning, for answers, for something.

The play concludes in the home of Henry and his partner, Simon, a dying poet.  Mr. Mahoney’s Simon is wry, witty and resigned to his fate, though Henry can’t help but beg him not to go.  The interaction between these two is a love letter writ large over decades and is very, very moving.

The Rembrandt is about art and about life.  About what constitutes both, about the questions that both evoke and about how easily they meld, combine and reveal---kind of like really great theater.