C.J. Fernandes

A DELICATE CHAMBER PIECE THAT WILL BREAK YOUR HEART One of the advantages of a small performance space is that, in the right hands, one can set the mood even before the play has begun. In the Chicago premiere of Anna Ouyang Moench’s Birds of North America, the seating area at A Red Orchid Theatre…

FOUR UKRAINIAN REFUGEES NAVIGATE WAR’S AFTERSHOCKS IN A NIGHTMARE OF BUREAUCRACY Natalka Vorozhbyt’s darkly funny, deeply bruising play finds Trap Door Theatre at its most urgent—and most human. Four women push mobile doorjambs around the stage as the audience filters in. Their movement is slow and halting, as if moving through fog. Once the theatre…

A HOLIDAY MYSTERY WITH VICTORIAN MISCHIEF ON ITS MIND Chesterton by way of Conan Doyle, wrapped in Wodehouse-style tomfoolery Arthur Conan Doyle wrote only one Christmas-themed Sherlock Holmes mystery, The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle — coincidentally, the first Holmes story I ever read — which was adapted into a charming play by Michael Menendian…

A THRILLER THAT OUTLASTS ITS TWIST Even when we know what’s coming, the tension holds Let’s talk about the cojones required to mount a production of Gaslight nowadays. Even if we assume — a tall order, that assumption — that most of the audience has not seen, or does not know, the plot of George…

THE OG CHRISTMAS GHOST STORY The Goodman puts the chills back in the chestnuts ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ In some ways, it is remarkable that Goodman Theatre’s annual production of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol has persisted as a theatrical tradition during the holidays. Theatre is expensive as a…

NO GROWN-UPS ALLOWED — SORT OF CCT’s Beatrix Potter party charms kids, critics, and everyone in between ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ “Channel your inner three-year-old, not your adult,” was the advice given to me as I settled into my seat at Chicago Children’s Theatre. To which my immediate unspoken…

TOAD-ALLY DELIGHTFUL Ribbiting from start to finish, this Year goes by in a flash. ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ Arnold Lobel’s Frog and Toad series has delighted generations of young readers for decades, beginning in 1970. In 2000, his daughter Andrea Lobel (a well-regarded theatrical scenic designer in her own…

THERE IS NO TAMING THIS PRICKLY AND INVIGORATING SHREW ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ I won’t deny it: I squealed in excitement when I received the invitation to review Court Theatre’s new production of The Taming of the Shrew. Not because it’s one of Shakespeare’s best (it isn’t), or even…

THE OTHER CHRISTMAS CAROL A clever, moving tale of a ghost searching for grace ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ Boy does it suck to be Jacob Marley. You die a lonely death, are doomed to perdition, and come back as a tortured ghost laden with chains to warn your former…

A WIG-PULLING, EYE-SCRATCHING BAUBLE OF HOLIDAY CHEER ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ When The Real Housewives of Orange County premiered on Bravo in 2006, I doubt anyone could have predicted the “reality” television juggernaut it would become. Over the next nineteen years the franchise has launched ten series, and assorted…

COARSE, HAIRY FUN ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ The Christmas pantomime, or “panto”, as it is colloquially called, is a longstanding English holiday theatre entertainment that’s never made much inroads outside the Commonwealth, more’s the pity. Drawing on the commedia dell’arte tradition, they’re usually based on fairy tales and incorporate…

MURDER, MAYHEM, AND A MANUSCRIPT TO DIE FOR Sometimes uncontrollable forces work in your favor. How fortunate then for MadKap productions that on the opening night of their production of Ira Levin’s Deathtrap, Chicago was plunged with little warning into its first winter storm of the season, with sub-zero temperatures, gale-force winds, and heavy snow….

GO ON AND BITE INTO THIS DONUT– YOU’VE EARNED IT It must have been quite a shock to Tracy Letts fans when Superior Donuts premiered at Steppenwolf in 2008. Chicago Theatre’s favorite adopted son had been coming off a streak of intense, gripping dramas, with his most recent one, August, Osage County, cleaning up at…