Review in Elgin: Janus Theatre Company unveils 25th anniversary season

It’s not easy defining the Janus Theatre Company. Having produced more than 100 classical and contemporary works, and now celebrating its 25th year, Janus has always been a creative and engaging source of theater productions. Part of the reason may just be because Janus has long had co-founder Sean Hargadon as artistic director.

Based out of Elgin since 1999, Janus successfully has put on shows in a variety of spaces: the long gone Vail St. Café in Arlington Heights, behind Elgin’s defunct Schock’s greenhouse, in a Chicago venue, and in its current home, the Elgin Art Showcase. Coincidentally, Janus was responsible for the Showcase’s opening, producing the very first production in that eighth-floor space.

Under Hargadon’s supervision, Janus has been devoted to exploration: of actors and audiences’ relationships, of places to try things out, and new projects. Quite a leap from the early concerns over ticket subscriptions, sets, season show decisions and performances in “legitimate theater spaces.” As Hargadon wisely points out: “Those things can become a hindrance.” He also remembers his theater hero André Gregory’s comment: “All you need is a few people in the room and you can make a miracle.”

It is interesting that Hargadon’s training was not in theater. He came to it late, when he was 27, and answered an Elgin Community College postcard ad for an acting class. There he met his mentor, Terry Domschke, and was hooked. Hargadon never looked back. He was a rookie in the beginning, but his “curiosity and energy” propelled him forward. He learned how to produce, direct, budget, promote – working with actors in Elgin, Chicago, New York City and the London Fringe festival in Ontario, Canada. His work experience included short-play festivals, repertory theater, the Free Theatre, outdoor shows, promenade performances, ancient and new works – all which Janus continues to produce to this day.

In 2013, Hargadon embarked on a master’s program with the University of Warwick in connection with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and also completed some training at the prestigious Globe Theatre. Those later influences changed his directing practice to something “more collaborative and supportive.“ And although Hargadon still acts “now and then,” he prefers producing and directing – the shared experience.

As for drawbacks, Hargadon admits it can be difficult when a theater company does such work for so little money.

“We’re professionally trained and organized, but keeping the engine running can be challenging financially,” he said.

And yet over the years, Janus has stayed relevant as it matured. The play choices have reflected that with always riveting classic themes, experimental staging, humor, intelligence and drama. Best of all, Janus’ approach has not been predictable.

Hargadon admits his first “big” favorite was “Feydeau’s Folly” (2000). So popular was that play that performances had to be added; Chicago Reader critic Jack Helbig reviewed the show very favorably. It also happened to be Hargadon’s first directing job.

Later that summer, Janus produced “Hippolytus” by Euripides; it was a first production in an outdoor amphitheater, with costumes, set and sound all built from scratch. Despite losing money – shows had to be canceled because of lightning and the loss of a key cast member – Janus was able to move forward and continue to present hits from the obscure to the well known: “The Game of Love and Chance,” the ensemble production of “The Santaland Diaries,” the first non-Equity production in Chicago of “The Laramie Project,” “Night, Mother,” “The Tempest,” “Art,” “The Iliad” and “Shakespeare’s Sister.” Hargadon was also responsible for the all-female “Beowulf” and the all-female “Romeo and Juliet.” He confesses the all-female “Romeo and Juliet” was done out of necessity because “there were not enough quality men. As it turns out, the women were more than up to the challenge and opened my eyes to a new way of creating work.”

Janus’ motto pre-pandemic was “get close, no, closer.” Hargadon states “that was our special effect or power – intimacy between the actor and the audience.” The current motto is “finding a shared space together.” Hargadon believes we are in a new world: “So we continue to try and connect any way we can with the people in the room with us.”

Janus Theatre Company’s 25th season recently was announced, featuring prominent figures from the past. The season’s theme is “Resistance, Rebellion, Revolution.” Loosely based on the Globe Theatre’s Read Not Dead project is Janus’ own “Read Not Dead, Page to Stage, Scripts in Hand Production” approach in which the actors get together to read, rehearse and present the play in performance using scripts in hand. Hargadon is directing the very first play, which runs June 15 to 24: “Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde” by Moises Kaufman. A play he has always wanted to direct, “The Three Trials” weaves courtroom testimony and primary source documents with Wilde’s own writings and the words of his contemporaries from the 1895 libel suit against the Marquess of Queensberry. (The Victorian age condemned both Wilde’s ideas and sexuality.)

The second play, Jean Genet’s “The Maids,” is scheduled to run Aug. 17 to 27, and is based on true events. Two domestic workers resentful of their inferior social position rebel against their employer.

The final production will be presented Oct. 26 to Nov. 5. “The Revolutionists” by Lauren Gunderson is a woman-powered comedy set during the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror, and features playwright Olympe De Gouge, assassin Charlotte Corday, Marie Antoinette and Haitian rebel Marianne Angelle. Exciting and intriguing and not quite your typical theatrical season

Theater doesn’t only act as entertainment. As good theater companies like Janus prove over and over, theater holds up a reflective mirror to culture and society, and helps us connect with collective experiences. So, congratulations to the Janus Theatre Company. Here’s to another successful 25 years. And thank you for all the passion, enrichment and magic.

• Regina Belt-Daniels has seen more than 25 seasons in the theater. A retired Reading Recovery and special education teacher, when not traveling with her husband, she can be found onstage, backstage, in the audience, on a theater board or writing a theater review somewhere.

IF YOU GO

WHAT: “Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde”

WHERE: Elgin Arts Showcase, 164 Division St., eighth floor, Elgin

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. June 15, 16, 17, 22, 23, 24

COST: $15; tickets at threetrials.eventbrite.com

INFORMATION: 847-363-3573, janusplays.com