‘Superior Donuts’ comes home in Mary-Arrchie production

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Tracy Letts’ play “Superior Donuts” is set in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood, not far from Mary-Arrchie Theatre. So it’s a nice bit of serendipity that the first non-Equity staging of the drama will be at this 50-seat theater, one of the mainstays of the storefront scene.

It’s also fitting because artistic director Richard Cotovsky has a long history with the play. He took part in the original development workshops at Steppenwolf Theatre, understudied Michael McKean in the 2008 Steppenwolf production and later went on to play the role at the Studio Theatre in Washington, D.C.

“I think our production will be a lot more intimate,” Cotovsky says. “It will put the audience right in the middle of a donut shop, and the dialogue will hit a lot harder.”

In the Mary-Arrchie production, Cotovsky steps into the role he knows so well — Arthur Przybyszewski, an anti-war activist (circa Vietnam) and the proprietor of a rundown donut shop in Uptown. When he hires Franco Wicks (Preston Tate Jr.), a fast-talking African-American kid with big dreams and bigger troubles, Arthur’s world quickly changes — quite possibly for the better.

Cotovsky, who is a pharmacist in his day job, says the character fits him well. He’s the right age (58), and he grew up in Chicago and knows the city and the Uptown neighborhood well. And besides all that, he likes Arthur.

“He opens up and finds a reason to live,” Cotovsky explains. “This young kid breaks through to him, and he doesn’t back down. It’s the difference between life and death and really wakes him up.”

Director Matt Miller, who helmed a stellar production of Conor McPherson’s “The Weir” at Seanachai Theatre last season, was drawn to the project simply because Cotovsky was attached to it.

“Rich has made many interesting choices on stage over the years,” Miller said. “He’s a singular actor; there aren’t many like him.”

When first produced at Steppenwolf, “Superior Donuts” followed in the phenomenal success of “August: Osage County” for which Letts won a Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award. It was Letts’ first Chicago-based play.

“I’ve been living in Chicago for more than 20 years now and haven’t dealt with my adopted home,” Letts told the Sun-Times in 2008. “Of course, I have a love-hate relationship with this place, as you do with any big city you might live in. On the plus side, there is a real spirit of industriousness here, and not a lot of pretension. Things that might fly on either coast would not fly here, and I love that hardscrabble spirit of the place. But Chicago also can be a tough town with a sharp dividing line between the haves and have-nots — a line that can be sharply drawn and oppressive.”

Cotovsky feels that in a way all the hoopla over “August” “cast a shadow on the original production. I don’t think it got much of a chance on its own. Our goal is to shed new light on a play that is a nod to Chicago.”

Cotovsky and Letts, who gave the greenlight to the Mary-Arrchie production, are longtime friends. They met in the early ’90s in what Cotovsky calls the “big social mecca of the theater community. It was a very fertile time and everyone was feeding off that energy.”

Founded in 1986, Mary-Arrchie can still be found in it’s longtime home on the second floor of a building near the intersection of Sheridan and Broadway. Cotovsky is the only remaining original member of the company. It’s been through his devoted guidance as artistic director that Mary-Arrchie still exists and has a long history of smart, visceral productions that are not easily forgotten. “The Hairy Ape,” “Buried Child” and “Cherrywood” come to mind.

As for “Superior Donuts,” Cotovsky wants everything to be perfect, including the set. More often than not in a theater with a small budget, sets are recycled from show to show (there’s a couch at Mary-Arrchie that could almost be an ensemble member).

“The stools you see in a donut shop are really hard to find,” Cotovsky says, laughing. “But we do have an old Coke machine, a cigarette machine and a nice old cash register. There’s a bit of extra pressure with this show to make everything just right.”

† “Superior Donuts” runs through March 25 at Mary-Arrchie Theatre, 735 W. Sheridan. For tickets ($18-$22), call (773) 871-0442; maryarrchie.com.

Mary Houlihan is a local free-lance writer.