Downstate at Studio Theatre

Downstate is a button-pushing play from provocateur Bruce Norris (Clybourne Park) that looks at the limits of compassion, the desire for retribution, and what happens when society decides some acts are unforgivable. In downstate Illinois, at a group home for registered sex offenders, four men are living with the realities of post-incarcerated life: ankle monitors, no internet, and no shopping at stores closer than 2,500 feet from playgrounds. When a man shows up to confront the piano teacher convicted of molesting him as a child, events begin to build to an explosive conclusion in this riveting play that the New York Times calls "a squirmy moral thrill-ride."