Beginning May 18, Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company will attend to a Detail of a Larger Work. That's the title of the Lisa Dillman play the troupe will present in its new Garage space beginning May 18. Official opening will be May 21 for a run through June 11.

Detail is about an elderly American painter and his wife visiting a tiny Mexican village. There, while the artist is trying a complete his final masterpiece, they meet and befriend a young couple. But when the young man, a photographer, asks to take the older man's picture, the relationship takes a complicated turn.

The work bear surface similarities to Ten Unknowns, the upcoming Jon Robin Baitz play, about an aging painter living in Mexico, whose life is altered by a visiting biology researcher. That work is due at Lincoln Center Theater next season.

Robin Stanton will direct the play. In the cast are Maury Cooper, Joe Forbrich, Katherine Martinez Ripley, Mary Ann Thebus and Ron Wells.

Past productions in the Garage space include Austin Pendleton's Orson's Shadow and Bruce Norris' The Infidel, both successes. Tickets are $10. The Garage is located at 1624 N. Halsted Street. For information, call (312) 335-1650, or consult the website at www.steppenwolf.org.

--By Robert Simonson