Chicago

COSÌ FANTASTIC This was my third time seeing Mozart’s Così Fan Tutte. The second was Lyric’s 2018 production. While I was concerned about the three-and-a-half-hour runtime on a Sunday afternoon, I need not have worried. I had an absolute blast! The cast was outstanding, both as to their gorgeous singing and their laugh out loud…

THIS SALOME IS NO FEMME FATALE Like its source material (Oscar Wilde’s play Salomé), Richard Strauss’ opera Salome has a reputation for being scandalous, decadent, and daring. Unfortunately, Lyric Opera’s new-to-Chicago production is none of the above. This is partly because some elements of the play (premiered in 1896) and opera (premiered in 1905) that…

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…

THE GODFATHER AND FELLINI MEET VERISMO Opera’s most famous double bill is back… again Hundreds of one-act operas have been produced, but few have attained the popularity of Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana and Ruggero Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci. Premiering in 1890 and 1892, respectively, they have been commonly performed as a double bill since 1893. Interestingly, this…

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…

A COMIC REVIVAL OF FALSTAFFIAN PROPORTION ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ Chicago Opera Theater (COT) has given Antonio Salieri’s unjustly neglected Falstaff, ossia Le tre burle its outstanding Chicago premiere. Similarly, Lyric Opera just gave Cherubini’s Medea its Chicago premiere. These operas were first staged in 1799 and 1797, respectively….