Kendal Marie Wilson, AJ Paramo, Christopher Kelley, Aaron James McKenzie, Jarais Musgrove, Eric A. Lewis, and Haley Gustafson Photo by Brett Beiner

The story centers around the Falk-Weems family, covering intertwined timelines that unfold in 1989 and 2016. In 2016, Emma awaits the return of her son, Hampton, who has been deployed in the Middle East and has returned home under fraught circumstances. Leon, the father of Hampton and his twin brother, Ernesto, calls the house on Chicago's South Side from prison in the hopes of speaking to one or both of his sons. But Hampton's exit from the army has been complicated and Ernesto has no interest in the trouble that follows both his brother and his father.

Avoiding home for reasons that don't become clear until later, Hampton seeks out his old friend and bandmate, Sean, and more importantly, Lucia, his ex-girlfriend. Although Sean and Hampton fall back into the easy rhythms of friends, busking near the El, Lucia wants nothing to do with her ex. She is only drawn back into his orbit when Ernesto arrives on a mission from Emma to find his brother and bring him home safe, and Sean maneuvers Ernesto into playing guitar while Hampton freestyles. As Hampton's erratic choices, as well as the surveillance and violence endemic to a disinvested community, drive the characters in 2016 toward complicated, ultimately tragic interactions with the police, the story of Emma and Leon unfolds in 1989.

Still on the South Side, we learn that Emma is a well-meaning white woman who, in trying to find her place within the radical legacy of her family, "gave up and became a school teacher." Leon, thanks to his cousin Sunny, has meanwhile taken a job as a janitor at the school where she teaches. The two bond over the radical readings she has tried to assign her students as extra credit. When they both lose their jobs, Leon because of an ostensible parole violation and Emma because she has tried to cover for him, they enter into a fantastical, satisfying career as Robin Hood thieves, liberating medication from the VA pharmacies that deny Leon his benefits, thanks to racism and a rigged system, stealing cash from the unworthy, and redistributing it through the community.

The two timelines twine around each another, as Leon, who has learned he has little time to live, writes for his sons the full history that they have been denied. Meanwhile, Hampton quite rightly resists the overreach of the Chicago Police Department, primarily to avoid discovery of the fact that he has gone AWOL from a military hospital after being shipped back to the U.S. subsequent to a mental health crisis. But even as Sean, Ernesto, and even the more radical Lucia desperately urge him to keep himself and them safe by "playing the game," the situation escalates until Lucia ends up shooting a CPD officer to prevent Hampton (for the moment) from becoming yet another police-involved shooting statistic.

The story, though not perfect, is skillfully told and powerful. Fantasy and reality meet and enhance one another within the confines of the narrative. Emma and Leon live the dream of Robin Hood radicals, then score a year of peace raising their two sons. Ernesto becomes a wildly talented guitarist, courtesy of lessons Leon gives him on a paper guitar, the only possible option in the context of prison visits. And even as Hampton and Lucia's night or two of reconnection seems poignantly infused with fantasy.

The Goodman's staging is also top notch, both on its own and in terms of serving the story. Derek McLane's set grounds itself in the disused warehouse aesthetic to great effect. The only permanent set pieces suggest ongoing (or perhaps abandoned) construction. Up-left is dominated by a staircase leading to a long, shallow platform housing Ernesto's attic room. The band is tucked away beneath this, and the handrail on the downstage side of the rickety staircase simply ends halfway down, a scenario that is quite familiar to an user of South Side transit.

The prison pay phone Leon uses is installed at this side of the stage, and a table and chairs representing the visiting room at the prison is occasionally moved in. At stage right, there is the same construction vibe, but in narrower, more constrained platforms that rise to the roof. The look captures the urban setting, and the layout accommodates both the intimate interactions among the characters and the tense, impossible standoffs with the police.

The upstage wall suggests two floors of warehouse windows, and Greg Hofmann's lighting design makes terrific use of this backdrop. Police lights roll across it and hot white strobe lights bounce off it at Lucia's protest concerts. As Leon and Hampton tell their stories, Hofman backlights the wall, giving the audience glimpses of ensemble members reenacting fragments in stylized movement. Rasean Davonté Johnson's stunning projections similarly bring the stories to life in Leon's handwriting, in flashes of song lyrics, and in devastating historical images.

Raquel Adorno's costume design is simple, but important to the show's vibe, particularly in the way Adorno makes Leon and Emma into the stuff of legends as they undertake their "reparations" spree. More subtly, Adorno clearly distinguishes Hampton and Ernesto from one another in their clothing, and also uses hoodies as an effective touchstone, evoking the brutal "sameness" of Black men and boys in the eyes of the system.

With all these elements so well set, it's music (direction by Paul Mutzabaugh and supervision by Jason Michael Webb, who is also credited with arrangements and orchestrations) and movement (choreography by Millicent Johnnie) that give he show its real power. Although the show opens with several satisfyingly hard-hitting numbers that literally rock the house, there are skillful shifts throughout into low-key ballads, an eerie, beautiful lullaby, and songs of grief and struggle. The diversity of style and moods is impressive, and the show is notable for not suffering a bit from a weak second act as so many musicals do.

The performances are outstanding across the board. Jakeim Hart (Ernesto) and Aaron James McKenzie (Hampton) work beautifully together to create two young men who believably have followed different paths leading away from their shared history. Hart's Ernesto is heartbreakingly subdued, trying to make himself invisible, only to shine for brief but powerful moments when he plays. As Hampton, McKenzie does a masterful job of bringing the complexities of the character's traumas to the surface, but also his caring nature and his artistic brilliance.

Al'Jaleel McGhee is a wildly charismatic delight as Leon circa 1989, and equally impressive as the father in 2016 who clings to the hope that seizing control of his own history and telling it can make a difference to his sons. There's a scene near the show's end where some of the old, well-founded anger that drove the younger Leon emerges as he calls Ernesto out for his passive, "apolitical" approach to life. It's brief and the book doesn't, perhaps, afford it as much time as it deserves, but McGhee's work here, alongside Hart's, encapsulates the show's power.

Although the show is certainly focused on its men, Jackie Burns (Emma) and Alysia Velez (Lucia) make the absolute most of the material they are given. The book hangs a lantern on elements of Emma's character that might seem implausible, but the material dealing with how a white woman winds up not just teaching on the South Side, but also living there, still requires skillful navigation, and Burns plays it with a mix of awkward charm and appealing confidence. Lucia's story as an undocumented person who has come to realize that the U.S. has no place for her is a bit sandwiched in, but Velez elevates the role, blending weariness and fury that resonates powerfully at this particular moment in Chicago.

As Sunny, Michael Earvin Martin carves out his own character, but his performance plays off that of his cast mates in interesting ways. Most obviously, Sunny exists to help develop young Leon's character. But in his affability and almost aggressively modest "wants" (a job that pays and a backyard where he can barbecue and play music with friends), Sunny reads as an earlier incarnation of Ernesto. Viewed this way, the sharp contraction of even these desires to Ernesto's determination to simply be quiet and keep his music to himself is sobering and painful.

The character of Sean (Billy Rude) is a bit shaky in terms of his integration into the story. He's white and though he seems to have primarily been Hampton's friend in the past, he and Ernesto have grown close in Hampton's absence. He's also in Lucia's activist orbit, and we see him (as Hampton explicitly says) use his privilege to try to diffuse situations with the police, but simply don't get to know much about him, and by the play's end, he has all but disappeared. Rude is very good, and possibly the intention is to turn the trope of the token Black friend on its head, but the character sticks out a bit in a show that is otherwise skillfully woven.

Revolution(s) has been extended through November 16, 2025, at the Goodman Theatre, Owen Theater, 170 N. Dearborn, Chicago IL. For tickets and information, please visit GoodmanTheatre.org or call 312-443-3800.