In ‘Windfall,’ Tarell Alvin McCraney asks if money buys justice for Black men

Tarell Alvin McCraney slides into a cushy chair wearing a hoodie with “Trayvon” across the chest. That hoodie, as the 45-year-old Florida native will later reveal, is doing a bit of foreshadowing.

McCraney, the author of Steppenwolf’s world premiere play “Windfall,” is perhaps best known for his unreleased semi-autobiographical drama, “In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue,” which was adapted for a theatrical release as “Moonlight.” It earned McCraney an Oscar in 2017 for co-writing the film’s script.

Today, McCraney is fresh off a plane from Los Angeles where he’s the artistic director of the Geffen Playhouse. The sweatshirt he’s wearing pays homage to Trayvon Martin, the Florida teen who was fatally shot in 2012 by his neighbor while walking home from a corner store. The case garnered national attention.

The expectations for McCraney’s new play are huge. It stars four actors with recent Broadway runs and is the apex of Steppenwolf’s historic 50th season. The play also follows on the heels of “Purpose,” the Branden Jacobs-Jenkins family drama that went on to win two Tonys including Best Play.

On its face, “Windfall,” running through May 31 at Steppenwolf, is a play about money. Set in Chicago, the play follows a father who loses a child to police violence and stands to inherit a hefty sum from the government.

But underneath the unfortunately common story of a Black person being killed by police in America, sits a more complex examination of how money functions as religion. This is McCraney’s real creative sandbox.

“‘Windfall’ came from wanting to get in the room and have some courageous conversations about things like money, where money comes from and how we value it,” said McCraney, who describes himself as an “elder millennial.” “And how it's become a belief system. In the society that we live in, we often think of religiosity, or spirituality, as something intangible. But the American ethos has, for the past at least 100 years, made money a kind of tangible religion.”

McCraney offers an example, how society has normalized easing someone’s sadness or pain by giving them something of monetary value, like a GoFundMe after a tragedy. Or, when someone faces injustice, like police violence, “we think Justice can be rendered by a dollar amount,” he said.

“I know that to be true,” he continued, “because in our policies, in our cities across the country, if the city or the county has harmed you, there is a budget line item set aside specifically so that there’s some recompense. And I don’t know if that’s a bad thing, because, again, as a society, we value that.”

A cast of accomplished Steppenwolf ensemble members have reunited to bring these ideas to the stage. Artistic director Glenn Davis, Jon Michael Hill and Alana Arenas — a trio that all performed in “Purpose” both in Chicago and on Broadway — are joined by fellow ensemble Namir Smallwood, who is returning to Chicago after performing a Broadway production of Steppenwolf’s “Bug.”

Critics responded positively to “Bug,” with the “New York Times” describing Smallwood’s performance as “perceptive” and praising him for approaching the role with a “muted calm.”

Smallwood said he feels “spoiled” to return to his artistic home and join the cast of familiar faces. “It’s really been an exercise in patience and not getting attached. I really haven’t done a new play in a long time,” he said. “It’s a lot of moving parts, but Tarell is a genius.”

The production puts McCraney’s mind on display. While the story is sparked from an instance of police violence, he approaches it with surrealism and a tone that may not be as heavy as one would imagine given the subject matter.

“I have a weird sense of humor, so I tend to laugh at things that I'm not supposed to,” he said. “So it was never even a question of whether or not there would be things that delight the senses.”

He also looks at art through the lens of the Church. “It’s amazing how 'The Passion of Christ' — the story of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ — “is put to song, to rhythm, to clapping, to jubilation,” he said. “And to me, that's how I've learned theatrically to move through tough conversations. You move through them with music. You move through them with rhythm.”

Arenas, who also grew up in Florida, attended the Marshall Davis African Heritage Cultural Arts Center in Miami with McCraney. From there, McCraney came to Chicago to study theater at DePaul University, where he met Davis. That opened up doors to the Steppenwolf ensemble, where he met Hill.

Along the way, McCraney has garnered a MacArthur “Genius” grant, a Tony nomination, a stint as the chair of the department of playwriting at Yale — and recently a job as artistic director at Geffen Playhouse. He’s also on a short list of Black writers who’ve won an Oscar.

Arenas said the playwright’s words land in a special way.

“When I read Tarell’s words, it feels like a nice garment that I put on,” she said. “It’s a comfortable fit. That’s a very nice experience.”

In this production, the award-winning writer is using his words to foster a conversation at the intersections of capitalism, race and religion.

“When someone’s in grief, my first instinct isn’t to give them money,” he said. “But it may be the only thing that we can do. We don’t prioritize care. We don’t prioritize compassion. So what do we give people? What is the price? Then, when you start to look at the ways in which Black bodies, particularly, have been monetized, things get a little gnarly.”

McCraney’s hoodie is bringing awareness to Trayvon Martin. His new play, he hopes, will push forward the conversation around Black bodies and what justice on the backend of violence actually means.