Lawrence Bommer

THE RHAPSODIC SIDE OF STALKING Stendhal wrote a story once about a man who also wrote a story as a way to force himself to fall in love. It seems an impossibly pure task. Passion carries that degree of difficultyand overcomes it with precision, power and, well, passion. Stephen Sondheim has been cheaply faulted for…

THE FORCE OF FORGIVENESS What’s too ugly or scary to process, let alone to confront, in real life is grist for the mill of theater, such as how a gun appears and death comes out of nowhere. In the optimistically titled The Gospel of Lovingkindness, hit-and-run scenes present the prelude to, and aftermath of, a…

BAPTISM IN WORDS Seminar, Theresa Rebeck’s utterly engaging one-act, is all about the wonders and terrors of writing. Both in the author’s dazzling dialogue and the fascinating issues she confronts–authorial authenticity and the corruption of ambition on art–these 105 minutes seethe and surge. A lucky audience reaps a harvest of biting psychology, whiplash wit, sexual…

HAPPY IN THEIR SECOND HOME It’s its second annual homecoming, the much-anticipated, event-filled Alvin Ailey American Theater arrives at the Auditorium Theatre, as well as to community venues all over Chicago. Bringing with them three complete programs of dazzling dance, this 2014 edition showcases the troupe’s vital verve, reminding audiences why they retain a love…

CHERCHEZ LA CORPSE Sometimes truths get told that only murder can out. The quaint, perhaps anachronistic, setting for David Alex’ problematic two-act drama, just premiered by MadKap Productions, is a book repair shop. (Nowadays it’s hard enough to sell paper literature, let alone fix it.) In this dingy cellar cluttered with vellum covers and scrolled…

WHEN THE BRASS RING IS JUST ANOTHER NOOSE The siren song of the bitch-goddess “success” croons loud and clear in this cautionary, modern melodrama. Golden Boy, Clifford Odets’ 77-year-old potboiler about a guy who decides to use his fingers as a fist rather than to play an instrument, hasn’t lost its knockout impact or visceral…

FRANCE TRIMS ITS 1% WITH THE GUILLOTINE 2014 has been as good to 1859 as it was to the late 18th century. Christopher M. Walsh’s adaptation of Charles Dickens’ novel’”a saga of unexpected heroism during the French Revolution–is Lifeline Theatre latest page-to-stage triumph. Dickens put faces to history, and in 150 minutes Walsh’s new version…

A SEXUAL CAGE FIGHT The punning title’”Cock’”is a heavy clue on what to expect. From the moment you enter, you know you won’t confuse this 80-minute tour de theatre with anything else. Profiles Theatre’s auditorium has been transformed into a cock-fighting amphitheater: Three rows of unpainted wooden bleachers hang above a “cock pit,” one designed…

RACIAL PROFILING AND YOU Smoothly staged by Jessica Thebus for the Goodman Theatre local premiere, the blame game reaches Olympic proportions in Tracey Scott Wilson’s wicked two-act troublemaker, Buzzer. Perilously set in a gentrifying neighborhood in New York City, this slick, almost sit-comic, slice-of-change depicts three old friends in dangerous new circumstances. The character contrast…

NASTY NESTING DOLLS In Steppenwolf’s new show, it’s the specifics that startle. There’s enough grit here to repave Chicago’s countless February potholes. But, despite its well-rooted situations, Russian Transport could be any immigrant family facing hard decisions between Old Country corruption and an unfulfilled American Dream. A Chicago debut, Erika Sheffer’s disturbed and disturbing two-act…

STATE OF THE STEPS Playing (in every sense of the word) through Feb. 23, Joffrey Ballet’s three-part showcase of Contemporary Choreographers delivers some (happily) bloodless cutting-edge miracles of movement. Mostly more impressive to the eyes than comprehensible to the brain, this very mixed rep won’t curl up to you before a warm fire. But our…

IT DOESN’T GET MORE GOLDEN THAN THIS Hot stuff on a cold night! Just released as a companion piece to Black Ensemble Theater’s runaway hit It’s All-Right to Have a Good Time: The Story of Curtis Mayfield, Chicago’s Golden Soul (A 60’s Review) provides a deliriously happy musical context for its sister show. Also produced,…

PLAYING GOD AIN’T FOR AMATEURS Following his return from a decade in exile in Siberia as a dissenter against the Romanov order, Fyodor Dostoevsky intended his second novel, written as much to pay off gambling debts as to share a story, to be called The Drunkards.  It would depict how alcohol destroys a family from the…

THE DUKE WHO WAS A KING A blast from the “big band” past, Queenie Pie is the great late Duke Ellington’s sole–if unfinished’”opera, recently revived in Los Angeles. On February 15, Chicago Opera Theater (COT), in a co-production with Long Beach Opera, takes that reclamation effort to the Harris Theater in Millennium Park, with the…