'Brokeback Mountain' review: Chicago Shakespeare's North American premiere

Full disclosure: Before seeing the North American premiere of the play Brokeback Mountain at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, I hadn’t seen the 2005 film adaptation, starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. But when I walked in from Navy Pier to the Courtyard Theater at the onset of Pride Month, the love for this landmark of LGBTQ+ cinema was unequivocal: Theatergoers wore fringed leather jackets, cowboy hats, and cowboy boots, all in homage to these beloved cowboys.

Playwright Ashley Robinson and director Jonathan Butterell have big boots to fill, and for the most part, they succeed. This adaptation is based not on the movie, but on Annie Proulx’s 1997 short story (also the basis for the movie), to which it hews quite close. (Robinson’s play originally opened in May 2023 at Soho Place in London’s West End.)

‘Hope is a complex thing’

The Courtyard Theater’s three seating levels, which wrap around the thrust stage, evoke the design of Shakespeare’s Globe and fit the material perfectly. The closeness fosters further intimacy between the actors and the audience in an already raw story.

Tom Pye’s scenic design, too, artfully recreates the striking visual language of Proulx’s prose, which also surfaces as lyrics to Dan Gillespie Sells’ score, performed with heartrending clarity by the balladeer (Kat Eggleston) and her band.

All of this sets the stage for the lifeblood of the love story between Ennis Del Mar (Harrison Ball) and Jack Twist (Jack Cameron Kay). At times, the tone falters into a boisterous humor that ricochets off an eager audience, feeling more awkward than earned.

But for Pride Month, where theaters across the country are presenting works that amplify LGBTQ+ storytelling, Brokeback Mountain remains a modern classic.

“Hope is really a complex thing,” director Butterell writes in the program notes. “It’s multifaceted. It’s not purely transformative, but there’s potential. The important bit is the potential: to return home, to be loved and accepted.”