Review: ‘Windfall’ heartbreakingly asks if money buys justice

For all of its unblinking, real-world brutality, “Windfall” unspools with an ethereal, dreamlike quality, nightmares included. The drama arrives at Steppenwolf as a commission from Oscar-winner Tarell Alvin McCraney.

As he did in the Tony-nominated drama “Choir Boy” and the Oscar-winning screenplay “Moonlight” (based on his unpublished play “In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue”), “Windfall” lives at the intersection of crushing tragedy and indomitable humanity. Terrible things befall the characters of “Windfall,” but it doesn’t extinguish their music, their fight or their love for each other.

At the core of “Windfall” is a blunt question: How much money is a murdered Black man worth? And if that money comes from the very system that murdered him, is taking it morally reprehensible or a modicum of justice?

Director Awoye Timpo creates a world that ripples between the real and the slightly surreal. McCraney embeds all-too familiar violence and economic struggle with a glimmering sheen of the spectral. Or maybe that light is just the flare from a gunshot.

Courtesy of Michael Brosilow

In "Windfall," tyrannical viciousness screams to the surface. But so does a scrim of fantastical protections: ancestral, spiritual and familial. Tinges of the supernatural aside, "Windfall" is deeply rooted in a story that’s been repeated more times than anyone will ever be able to count: This time around, it’s singing while Black that’ll get you shot.

The six-strong ensemble weaves a powerful story. At the onset, Marcus (Glenn Davis), his nonbinary sibling Eli (Esco Jouléy, alternately tough and vulnerable), their friend Cori (Jon Michael Hill, purveyor of much of the show’s humor) and “Brother 1” (Namir Smallwood, a magnetic presence throughout) are camped in front of the kind of black ops site overseen by Chicago cop Jon Burge, who tortured and abused more than 100 people over a two-decade career, leading to false confessions and wrongful imprisonment. They’re protesting the very existence of the site, and trying to save a child who has vanished into the building.

Through song and chant, Marcus, Eli, Brother and Cori heighten awareness and start a movement that snowballs into an avalanche. The cops mow down the encampment. Brother, Cori and Eli make it out. Marcus gets shot. (None of this is a spoiler as it all unfolds early on.)

The city offers Marcus’ adopted father Henri “Mr. Mano” Tamaño (Michael Potts) a settlement substantial enough to let him keep his house. When Mr. Mano refuses, the plot gestures toward Charles Dickens, but inverted: Mr. Mano has four visitors – some of the flesh, some possibly not — who try to convince him to take the cash.

The ensemble is strong throughout, but the dynamic between Potts’ Mr. Mano and Davis’ Marcus is particularly charged, their exchanges blistering. When an anguished Mr. Mano screams that he cannot take “blood money,” Marcus’ retort is tragically accurate: All money is blood money.

Mr. Mano is both sympathetic and stubborn. Appeals to logic, emotion and finally threats will not change his mind. Potts’ Mr. Mano makes the money seem like Judas’ 30 pieces of silver: a betrayal of the absolute worst kind.

Davis captures the complex, contradictory relationship between Marcus and Mr. Mano. Marcus loves his father deeply, and is prone to screaming at him in frustration. Marcus’ determination to expose torture and free survivors is aspirational and all-too-sadly familiar. Burge’s work continues, not in his name but definitely in his spirit. Black sites, detention centers — whatever you want to call them, they’re part of a law enforcement modus operandi that goes back centuries.

All of which sounds like “Windfall” is an exercise in grimness, but that it is definitely not. Music (great work by music director Mahmoud Khan) wafts through the story from gossamer lilt to percussive stomp as Marcus, Eli, Cori and Brother send their voices up to the stars, sometimes emphasizing the percussive insistence with drums and bells.

Courtesy of Michael Brosilow

Alana Arenas is invaluable in a trio of unnerving roles, none of whom provide names: First Lady shows up to tell Mr. Mano about the settlement the city is offering for the death of his son. Miss Second is an appraiser (or an apparition — could be either) who informs Mr. Mano his taxes are in arrears and his home is about to be put up for auction. The Last One appears clad all in black like the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, and with a similarly dire message.

McCraney wisely doesn’t attempt to sew things together neatly — or at all really — for Mr. Mano. Part of his gift as a playwright is his ability to leave things realistically ambiguous without the play feeling unfinished. “Windfall” provides no answers, but it finds the sustaining power of music and family, with or without life-changing (blood) money.

There’s power to spare in “Windfall,” but there’s also a looseness to some scenes — the intensity incrementally flags at times, especially during moments of brief audience interaction. And while the music is immersive, it’s not always seamlessly woven into the dialogue. These are minor points — tweaks, not dealbreakers.

Finally, some context on the settlement: The amount offered to Mr. Mano for the murder of his son is less than 1% of CPD’s 2026 budget. In real life, and after costing the city some $85 million in settlements, Burge retired to Florida with his full pension.