On a recent Friday afternoon, Devon Avenue in West Ridge is abuzz with people and families shopping, eating and conversing in and out of storefronts. Arya Daire and Anish Jethmalani are my tour guides for an exploration of the neighborhood, a cultural hub for South Asians, which will be fictionalized on stage in an upcoming play.
Daire and Jethmalani are actors in “Dhaba on Devon Avenue,” opening at Writers Theatre in Glencoe, a co-production with TimeLine Theatre Company, running June 19 through July 27. The show, written by Madhuri Shekar (“3 Body Problem” on Netflix, “The Nevers” on HBO), tells the story of a family-owned restaurant on Devon Avenue battling financial hardships and generational divides.
“The play is about a chef,” said Jethmalani, in the role of the patriarch, Neeraj Madhwani. “He has two daughters, and he loves his culture, which is the Sindhi culture. He is trying to keep his restaurant afloat, and he’s trying to preserve the kind of food that is near to his heart. One daughter is working with him at the restaurant aspiring to take it over; the other daughter is a little estranged, and she’s trying to look at opportunities to sell the restaurant.”
“Dhaba On Devon Avenue” endured a long process to make it to the stage. The show was originally commissioned by Chay Yew in 2018 while he was the artistic director at Victory Gardens Theatre. The show’s world premiere was scheduled for spring 2020, but the production, the last of Yew’s tenure at Victory Gardens, shut down due to COVID.
“This is a very special, very personal play,” said Shekar. She is not a Chicago native, but met Yew, who was based in Chicago, while a graduate student at the University of Southern California. Yew was a responder for her thesis play, “A Nice Indian Boy,” which Victory Gardens staged in 2015. The two formed an artistic relationship, leading to Yew commissioning her to write a play about the city of Chicago.
Now, five years later, the production is back with Yew at the helm as director, and many actors from the first run, including Daire and Jethmalani, on board for the reboot.
Shekar is excited the cast will have the opportunity to return to the roles. “It’s not often that South Asian actors get to portray themselves in their whole selves on stage,” she said. “For that alone, I think everybody was really hoping that we would make this work.”
Back at the real-life Devon Avenue, outside of the Patel Brothers grocery store, Daire discusses the significance of putting the vibrant neighborhood on stage.
“It’s kind of amazing,” she said. Daire was born in the western suburbs, and her parents still live in her childhood home in Oak Brook. Devon Avenue was an important part of her childhood.
“That was a big part of the enticement to do the play,” she said. “It’s set on Devon Avenue, which is a place that we came as children with our parents. We would come here and eat at Udupi Palace, which is still there, and very delicious. My mom would come and buy sarees and things here, and it was a community gathering spot.”
Jethmalani has similar memories. Born in Chicago and raised in Uptown, he moved to the suburbs as a teen. He said wherever his family lived, they always came back to Devon Avenue.
“My mother had a very strong connection to the community here,” he said. “I grew up coming here during the weekends. We would come here and shop, we would visit family friends. This place holds a lot of memories.”
Leaving Patel Brothers, Daire and Jethmalani head to Sukhadia’s for lunch. Just like their characters, the actors both relish South Asian food. At Sukhadia’s, Jethmalani encourages everyone to try one of his favorite dishes: dosa, a thin savory crepe filled with spicy potatoes.
Asked about her own go-to food, Daire offers something sweet. “Pistachio kulfi,” she said. “It’s a frozen dessert with pistachio and a cardamom spice. It tastes like home to me. My mom would keep them frozen in these silver cylinders. When I would go home for a visit, I would always check in the freezer to see if they were there.”
For the playwright, staging this play about South Asian culture and telling the story of an immigrant family has taken on a new layer of significance in the years since its original commission. When previews open this week, they will take place in the shadow of nationwide protests against immigration policy.
“I think any piece of storytelling that affirms humanity, that affirms the human condition, and affirms decency between people is going to feel radical just because of what we are experiencing right now,” she said.
Mike Davis is WBEZ’s theater reporter.
