Dan Zeff

FOR BETTER OR WORSE, IT’S A TELLTALE TITLE Suzan-Lori Parks claimed that her play Fucking A, now playing at the Urban Theater Company, was inspired by Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter. The Hawthorne work centers on a strong-willed Puritan woman named Hester who is forced to wear a scarlet letter by her community as…

ALL ABOUT ALFRED AND LYNN Ten Chimneys is the name of the estate near Madison, Wisconsin, where the famous American husband-and-wife acting team of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne retreated annually to prepare for their season on the American stage. The estate is now a major tourist attraction, a monument to the lives and careers…

REAL GENIUS OR REAL CLUNKER? Tennessee Williams wrote at least 10 plays that are more accessible and commercially viable than his Camino Real (pronounced CA-mino Reel). Even the most zealous playgoer likely has never seen a production of this perplexing symbolic drama. So when the Goodman Theatre placed the 1953 play on the company’s 2011-2012…

THE BOOK ISN’T READY, BUT BRING IT ON ANYWAY Bring It On at the Cadillac Palace Theatre is cut from the Legally Blonde cloth of contemporary musical theater: they are both inspired by motion pictures (Bring It On spun off into five movies from 2000 to 2009), and feature a lithe young blonde heroine, a…

A REVIVAL THAT’S WORTH THE PRICE The Price (1968), in a solid revival at the Raven Theatre, demonstrates Arthur Miller at the top of his game – writing intense, eloquent, densely textured dramas about families under stress.   The production may have been marred a bit on opening night by some line-reading glitches, but the staging…

A STRANGE MIXTURE OF BELLY-LAUGH FARCE AND POLITICAL INTRIGUE The North Plan at Theater Wit is either a farce with dark political conspiracy overtones or a political conspiracy drama played heavily for farce. Playwright Jason Wells may intend to say serious things about the political state of the nation, but if the audience doesn’t take…

SECOND CITY GROWS UP Second City is expanding its cabaret empire in a new Chicago venue currently housing five shows. The operation carries the umbrella title of the UP Comedy Club, located on the third floor of Piper’s Alley near the Second City Mainstage and e.t.c. performance spaces. One of three Second City cabaret spaces,…

THE ACTING FILLS YOU UP BUT THE ADAPTATION LEAVES YOU HUNGRY FOR LESS Elise Blackwell’s slender 2003 novel Hunger tells the harrowing story of a group of Russian scientists trying to survive the siege of Leningrad during World War II. Blackwell’s novel has been adapted into a drama receiving its world premiere at the Lifeline…

A DRESS THAT’S ALREADY OUT OF STYLE The two-character romantic play typically follows a set pattern. A man and a woman have just met. They are very different in lifestyles and initially they don’t hit it off. But gradually they connect, and by the end of the story they are either in a happy-ever-after clinch…

A CRIMINAL SCRIPT OF AN EVIL STORY Lucy Prebble’s play Enron tries to dramatize the Enron financial scandal, one which serves as a poster child for everything greedy and immoral and corrupt in the American financial system. The play was a big hit in London, but the Broadway outing died after a few performances. Interestingly,…

A TEPID DISCOURSE ON SEX AND RELIGION IN THE HEARTLAND Hesperia is the name of a small Midwestern town, home to a number of devout Christians. Young Claudia fled here from Los Angeles in spiritual turmoil, seeking peace and consolation from life in the pornographic film industry. She finds succor in Hesperia’s sympathetic Christian fundamentalist…

FIRST FOLIO MOVES THEIR BLOOMIN’ FARCE INTO HIGH GEAR Unnecessary Farce is that rarest of theatrical birds: a farce that is actually funny. Sure, it’s silly to the max, but it makes the audience laugh, the primary responsibility of a farce (and a goal rarely achieved). Paul Slade Smith, a popular Chicagoland actor a couple…

IS THERE A RECONCILIATION IN SIGHT? Every dedicated theatergoer should attend both Race at the Goodman Theatre, and Disgraced – which just opened at the American Theater Company, even though both shows will evoke a pretty bleak vision of culture wars in the United States. Both dramas see the gulf as virtually irreconcilable, largely through…

WOMEN BEHAVING BADLY Attend the Profiles Theatre production of Leslye Headland’s Bachelorette and meet Gena, Katie, and Regan – three foul-mouthed, pot smoking, cocaine sniffing, pill popping young ladies that the audience can accept as funny, pathetic, repulsive, or tragic. The maidens spend about 70 minutes of stage time doing their drugs, stabbing every back…

PHOTO REALISM Time Stands Still has only four characters and a single set, but it covers an immense amount of dramatic ground, exploring personal matters of love and commitment while addressing larger public issues connected to our attitudes toward war and violence. The play can be seen in an impeccably acted and directed production at…

THE SILLY BLONDE MUSICAL THAT ACTUALLY WORKS Local musical productions will have problems hiring skilled and energetic young performers for the next couple of months. The Chicagoland talent pool of youthful men and women is being monopolized by the presentation of a deliciously silly musical comedy at the Marriott Theatre. Legally Blonde originated as a…

WHOSE ETHNIC HERITAGE IS IT, ANYWAY? Black Pearl Sings! is a two-hander that explores the odd couple relationship between a black woman in prison for murder and a white female academic in Texas during the depths of the Great Depression. The play touches on lots of chewy issues, like racism, sexism, and, most provocatively, what…