For a playwright who has received the highest praise from critics, Ike Holter is disarmingly modest. 鈥淚鈥檓 pretty dumb,鈥� the 30-year-old Chicagoan says, struggling to explain how he writes his riveting dialogue. 鈥淚 have no way of saying how it comes out.鈥�
Dumb? Really? That鈥檚 just about the last thing you鈥檇 say after watching one of Holter鈥檚 plays. He first grabbed attention in 2012, when The Inconvenience collective performed Hit the Wall, Holter鈥檚 stirring story about the 1969 police raid on New York鈥檚 Stonewall Inn, a milestone in the fight for gay rights. The Chicago Reader called it 鈥渁 full-out triumph.鈥� Then came Exit Strategy at Jackalope Theatre in 2014, an intimate portrait of Chicago teachers facing the imminent shutdown of their school. Chicago Tribune critic Chris Jones compared it to one of 鈥渢hose famously seminal moments of Chicago theater鈥濃攕uch as an early Steppenwolf Theatre show, or one of David Mamet鈥檚 groundbreaking plays from the 1970s.
The man behind these powerful, enthralling dramas is a Minnesota native who regularly Rollerblades to his writing office at Victory Gardens Theatre in Lincoln Park, where he鈥檚 a member of the company鈥檚 playwrights ensemble. His tiny, cluttered cubbyhole is just down the hall from the space where Teatro Vista is presenting Holter鈥檚 new piece, The Wolf at the End of the Block (through March 5).
The play is a mystery and a thriller and Holter is reluctant to give much away except to say, 鈥淪omething horrific happens to somebody, that somebody survives. And the next 48 hours, that somebody has to figure out what they can do to stop this from happening again.鈥�
That somebody, a character named Abe, is played by Gabriel Ruiz, a Teatro Vista ensemble member who鈥檚 been Holter鈥檚 friend since they were students together at DePaul University a decade ago. In this new play, Ruiz says, 鈥淭he idea is that there鈥檚 been a crime, and a family is trying to get to the bottom of it.鈥� Racial profiling is one of the underlying themes. But as Ruiz observes, Holter isn鈥檛 out so spoon feed audiences a civics lesson. 鈥淥ne of the reasons I loved Exit Strategy so much was that the politics was happening above all of these people鈥檚 heads,鈥� says Ruiz. 鈥淭hey were just trying to survive it. That鈥檚 very much a theme that pervades this play, too. You watch people trying to maneuver under what鈥檚 already been given to them鈥攁nd survive the worst of it.鈥�
Holter says political and sociological themes naturally emerge out of the characters and situations in his scripts. 鈥�Wolf at the End of the Block does deal with racial profiling,鈥� he says. 鈥淲hen you have that, it kind of asks its own questions, you know what I mean? I don鈥檛 think plays are about murder or racial profiling. I think plays have that stuff in them.鈥�
Three of the five characters in The Wolf at the End of the Block are Latino, which is in keeping with Teatro Vista鈥檚 mission. 鈥淲e are a Latino theatre company, but we understand that our population exists within such a diverse community,鈥� says Ruiz. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 something we explore in all of our work.鈥�
Holter, who is African-American and gay, has written plays about characters of all races and many different backgrounds. Sender is about young white hipsters stumbling toward maturity. Night Runner, now running at DePaul University鈥檚 Merle Reskin Theatre, is a musical about an escaped slave girl in antebellum America who鈥檚 on a quest to find her brother.
As the wide range of Holter鈥檚 subject matter demonstrates, his work isn鈥檛 easily pigeonholed. But one common element in several Holter plays is the city of Chicago. The Wolf at the End of the Block takes place in the same fictional Chicago neighborhood where Exit Strategy, Sender and another Holter play, Prowess, are set. 鈥淭he plays respond to each other and they crisscross,鈥� Holter says. And Ruiz adds, 鈥淚t鈥檚 a treat. His fans and those who have been following his plays will begin to see that the plays each have repercussions on each other.鈥�
Holter believes Chicago is neglected as a setting for contemporary plays. That鈥檚 part of the motivation driving him to continue writing stories set in his adopted hometown. 鈥淚 love the city,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 my favorite city. There are good and bad and highs and lows to every single city. But I think our highs are a lot higher than other places.鈥�
Although several critics have described Holter鈥檚 work as poetic, he says he鈥檚 just trying to capture the way people speak. 鈥淚鈥檝e never been able to write a good poem,鈥� he says. 鈥淏ut people talk like crazy characters in real life. If you鈥檙e in a fight with someone, they will say, like, a Shakespeare monologue without realizing that they鈥檙e doing it. Everyone speaks differently. Everyone has their own flow.鈥�
So, don鈥檛 believe it when Holter calls himself dumb. Listen instead to Reader critic Tony Adler, who predicted that Holter 鈥渉as it in him to be a major deal in American theatre.鈥� Or pay heed to the Chicago Tribune, which named Holter one of its 鈥淐hicagoans of the Year鈥� in the arts for 2014. Or take it from his friend and colleague Ruiz, who declares, 鈥淚ke Holter鈥檚 superpower is language.鈥�
