“You’re strange, unfamiliar, great,” says the young woman to Oscar Wao, the nerdy, collegiate, Dominican American hero of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Junot Díaz.  No sooner are those words out of her mouth than she realizes their inadequacy. “No,” she says, as her feelings start to overwhelm, “better than great. You’re wonderous.”

And thus we come to see the genesis of the title of a sweet and affirmative story about a very smart and creative young man who not only inhabits a singular world of the imagination, but his combination of naivety, insight and vulnerability turns him into a cypher, or a catalyst, whose presence teaches others how to love and how to be true to themselves. “The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,” now in a world premiere adaptation by Marco Antonio Rodríguez at the Goodman Theatre, has a title that signals all will not end well, at least if you define “well” as a life of long duration, as distinct from the imprint you leave on family and friends.

But “Oscar Wao” also makes the case that life can be beautiful.

Gentle protagonists whose personal struggles with self-actualization end up activating the lives of others are, of course, familiar in the theater. Oscar Wao (his name comes from his dressing up as Doctor Who for a Rutgers University costume party, only to look more like Oscar Wilde, or Oscar Wowww in his friend’s eye) has aspects in common with Christopher in “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,” Juicy in “Fat Ham,” Usher in “A Strange Loop,” or Auggie Pullman in R.J. Palacio’s similarly toned “Wonder,” which I recently saw staged in Cambridge, Massachusetts. But Díaz’s novel sets this character amid the Dominican American immigrant experience with a focus on those brought to the U.S. as children and now trying to figure out their Stateside role alongside their ties to Hispaniola, the island of their birth, with its history of dictators and coups that traumatized their parents and grandparents and that still ricochets through successive generations.

In this new dramatic adaptation at the Goodman, “Oscar Wao” intermittently breaks out into a vibrant celebration of youthful Dominican culture, a rarity at a downtown theater. Oscar, generously and earnestly embodied here by Lenin Izquierdo, of Chicago’s own Humboldt Park, is a character filled with humor and vitality, an extrovert nerd if ever there was one and a savant when it comes to seeking out and contextualizing one’s experiences of the day. “Oscar Wao” has an exceptionally fun and warm-centered cast — from Kelvin Grullon, who plays Yunior, Oscar’s college roommate, to Julissa Calderon, who plays Oscar’s sister, to the excellent Jalbelly Guzmán, who morphs into different characters who both disappoint Oscar and make him the happiest he ever has been. The potential of the production, which is designed with great humor by Regina Garcia, is self-evident.

Still, wonderous as this show could occasionally be, in the human sense, I don’t think it’s yet in shape for a Goodman stage. At two hours and 45 minutes, the piece is much too long, especially since that running time, at least half an hour more than what is needed to tell this story, does not all flow from the innate length of the material, but from very slow internal pacing and very lengthy transitions that, on opening night at least, sometimes left an empty stage for several moments, killing momentum. That doesn’t reflect the central character’s zest for life.

Indeed, much needless effort is expended here on scene setting and bits of furniture coming and going, even though the scenes don’t need them in so symbolic a story. As a result, the close relationship that Izquierdo’s Oscar could and should be building with his audience gets squelched by too much clutter. Director Wendy Mateo does some fine work within scenes, but she perhaps needed an outside eye to help her make the hard choices of what to cut and, most importantly of all, to help her ensure that this work in progress had sufficient drive, stakes and momentum to carry us through Oscar’s lifelong journey, determined as he is to remain himself and let others figure out what he should mean to them. The emotional stakes remain some distance from where they need to be. And they are what matters the most.

That said, “Oscar Wao” still offers an affecting evening as the titular character navigates life from his college dorm room to his broader identity, heart always open and notebook ever in hand. This cast is clearly deeply committed to telling his story; if you are planning to be a witness, I’d wait a little while for the wonders to better find their way.

Chris Jones is a Tribune critic

cjones5@chicagotribune.com

Review: “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” (2.5 stars)

When: Through April 12

Where: The Goodman’s Owen Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn St.

Running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes

Tickets: $34-$94 at 312-443-3800 and goodmantheatre.org

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/03/03/review-oscar-wao-goodman-theatre/