LAKEVIEW — Workers' rights, poverty and immigration have been heated issues for decades, and the remaining struggle is what keeps works like "The Jungle" relevant for over a century.
At least that's how Matt Foss sees it. The director feels his adaptation of "The Jungle" — which opened Friday at Lakeview's Oracle Theatre — will resonate even with those too young to have experienced Chicago's stockyards firsthand.
"I'm part of that generation that's struggling under crippling student debt, trying to make our way onto the job market," Foss said. "There's something nice about a group of people who aren't necessarily winning but aren't giving up. Chicago's the kind of city that makes it all pay off."
Oracle Productions' adaptation of "The Jungle" first opened last summer, but is returning to the theater, 3809 N. Broadway, for a second run. The 90-minute free show will play at 7 p.m. on Sundays and at 8 p.m. on Fridays, Saturdays and Mondays through April 25.
In Upton Sinclair's sensational 1906 novel, a family of Lithuanian immigrants struggles to survive in Chicago's meatpacking district. The protagonist, Jurgis Rudkus, can barely make ends meet for his family and suffers through terrible working conditions at a slaughterhouse.
Ariel Cheung says the novel's themes continue to resonate:
"By the end, while he loses his naivety, he's more informed or pragmatic without sacrificing his hope. He's earned a more resilient kind of hope, and that was something I really loved," Foss said.
While Sinclair's novel covers a decade in Rudkus' life, Foss condensed the story into a six-month period. The "humbling" process took six months, although Foss hit a snag when trying to figure out how to depict slaughterhouse scenes in the small theater. Eventually, the theater company figured out how to stylize butcher paper to form the space "and suddenly, something about that opened up the piece in a beautiful way."
As a child, Foss dreamed of moving to Chicago, even before he decided to become a writer.
"I'm kind of a Carl Sandburg apologist for the city — maybe a little too much like the farm boys being lured by the painted women under the lamps in the 'Chicago' poem," Foss said. "From Carl Sandburg to Harry Caray, it was always kind of a destination, a hope. Nothing could make me give up my hope or my love of Chicago."
Of course, part of that love for his city translates into a love for Chicago theater.
"It's the rule rather than the exception for this ensemble-based, creative, shoestring budget production, and this is just a really great example of that tradition," Foss said.
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