Lifeline's Rabbits in Their Pockets expands the company's focus on adaptation

For most of its 43 years, Lifeline Theatre in Rogers Park has focused on literary adaptations, ranging from 19th-century classics by writers such as Jane Austen and Wilkie Collins to detective stories by Dorothy Sayers and sci-fi/speculative fiction, alongside their parallel KidSeries of shows for young audiences. Their most recent production, ensemble member John Hildreth’s adaptation of H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds , gave the 1890s novel a contemporary Chicago setting.

But to kick off their new season, the company has found a different approach to adaptation by honoring folktales and the oral tradition rather than a published novel, while also giving a Chicago writer the world premiere of her first full production.

Drawing in part on the African American trickster tales of Br