Around midday on March 16, two men in their 50s sat at the far end of a featureless gray table on the third floor of the Gene Siskel Film Center. The man on the left, Oscar-nominated actor Michael Shannon, was showing a photo of an invoice for Nirvana’s first record on his phone to the man on the right, screenwriter and professor Brett Neveu.
At first glance, Shannon, sporting painted nails of assorted colors and half of a shaved head, sat next to Neveu, a scholarly-looking man in a brown suit jacket, are a bit of an odd couple. Yet their shared worldview and history is what brought them together for their latest collaboration, “Eric LaRue.”
“Life is not strictly dramatic, even in very difficult situations,” Shannon said. “I think back on moments in my life that were traumatic or difficult to deal with, but they’re always enshrouded or surrounded with ‘humor,’ just the oddness and eccentricity of existence.”
The film, led by The Theatre School alumna Judy Greer and “Succession” star Alexander Skarsgård, follows two parents who must deal with an emotional and social fallout after their son commits a school shooting and goes to prison. Tonally, the work straddles the line between comedy and drama.
“It’s just the way I hear the world,” Neveu said. “I feel that all the time as an American. The absurdity of life and coping and the news and relationships — I ask myself how I express that through my characters, and it just comes out that way.”
“Eric LaRue” first debuted as a play at the Red Orchid Theatre in Chicago in 2002. The work formulated over multiple years, beginning with Neveu’s first published play “Drawing War.” The play drew from a real experience Neveu had growing up in Newton, Iowa, when a friend of his accidentally shot himself in junior high.
“There was discussion (in the community) around whether or not he did it himself, or his brother had done it while playing, or if he’d done it on purpose, or if it was an accident. I was like, ‘Well, this is a child we’re talking about here, and this is the conversation about the death of a child,’” Neveu said at a Q&A after a screening of the film on March 16. “The play was good, but I didn’t really feel like I hit the target. So I wrote (“Eric LaRue”) on a search for that target again.”
Shannon, a founding ensemble member of Red Orchid who continues to direct and act at the theatre, noticed Neveu’s work while directing his adaptation of Henry Ibsen’s “Enemy of the People.”
“I read (“Eric LaRue”) and it just struck me down,” Shannon said. “I’d seen it multiple times at Red Orchid, and when I read Neveu’s screenplay I knew I wanted to take care of it.”
Nation Sage Henrikson, who plays the titular Eric LaRue, spoke at the Q&A about the challenges in giving empathy to a character who committed a horrible act of violence.
“Eric is someone who’s never had any sort of sense of control of himself or any sort of guidance,” Henrikson said. “His dad is a bit of a boob. Despite being in prison, this is probably the first time he’s had anyone listen to him and teach him that you can control your surroundings by controlling yourself.”
The two artists come from incredibly different backgrounds, yet both have come in contact with DePaul. While Shannon’s father, Donald Shannon, taught at DePaul’s School of Accountancy for 25 years, Shannon started acting straight out of high school, never attending college.
By contrast, Neveu was brought up first through the university track, eventually obtaining a masters degree from Spalding University. He briefly taught at The Theatre School in 2006 and currently serves as an assistant professor in Northwestern University’s School of Communication.
The two had differing perspectives on the efficacy of art school.
“I’m a professor, but that is because I love teaching,” Neveu said. “I got a liberal arts degree at the University of Iowa with an emphasis in acting. I moved (to Chicago) and started doing shows in the same way Mike did: in basements, coffee shops, back of bars, little, tiny theater spaces for four or five people. I’m happy to be (at Northwestern), but I wouldn’t say ‘Oh, this is the way to go.’ I’m very interested in coming up through work.”
Shannon felt grateful for his quick ascendancy to an acting career.
“I don’t want to denigrate the university experience. My dad really wanted me to go to DePaul because he was a tenured professor, I would have gotten a free ride, but I was already doing shows down in the city. In order to go to school, I’d would’ve had to stop,” Shannon said. “One of my best friends is Dexter Bullard, who has been running a legendary MFA program there for a long time. It’s just kind of dumb luck that I skipped that part of it. It’s all in the stars, I don’t know.”
“Eric LaRue” is currently playing at the Gene Siskel Film Center through April 10. It released on video-on-demand services on April 4.
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