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Chicago Theater Review: A DOLL’S HOUSE, PART 2 (Steppenwolf)
A SEQUEL WITHOUT A SOUL Some nerve. It takes chutzpah on top of arrogance to dare to continue, let alone complete, another playwright’s stand-alone masterpiece. Lucas Hnath has the temerity to imagine a sequel to A Doll’s House, Henrik Ibsen’s proto-feminist classic from 1879. It remains the still-controversial tale of a Norwegian wife who, refusing to…
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Theater Review: HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE (Raven Theatre in Chicago)
HOW I LEARNED TO LOVE THEATER Some plays take time to come into their own but they’re well worth a wait. Over two decades after its Off-Broadway debut, Paula Vogel’s How I Learned to Drive is only now reaching full impact. That’s thanks to the consciousness-raising of #MeToo, among other seismic changes in the body politic. With…
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Chicago Theater Review: PIPELINE (Victory Gardens)
A PIPELINE TO GREAT THEATER The title of Pipeline refers to the much-reviled “school-to-prison” conduit that keeps minority kids from any outcome but incarceration, soft or hard. It’s driven by a fatal fusion of low and self-fulfilling expectations of failure, endless and pointless discipline, and inadequate encouragement or alternatives to crime. Disadvantage can take many forms. It’s…
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Theater Review: THE FATHER (Remy Bumppo Theatre Company at Theater Wit)
THE SOUND OF A BRAIN BREAKING Uncertainty is the default drive behind the 95 excruciating minutes of French playwright Florian Zeller’s The Father. Seldom has a staged mystery shifted so suddenly and strongly between competing realities. As the protagonist Andre says, “There’s something funny going on here.” But it’s not amusing: Yes, The Father is crammed with mistaken…
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Opera Review: ELEKTRA (Lyric Opera of Chicago)
AN ELEKTRA WITHOUT ELEKTRICITY The first show I ever reviewed in Chicago was The Hypocrites’ All Our Tragic at the Den Theatre, a marathon twelve-hour distillation of every surviving Greek tragedy. It was an extraordinary experience. I’ve also seen a one-night performance of the complete Oresteia of Aeschylus and read both Sophocles’ and Euripedes’ versions…
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Theater Review: A GENTLEMAN’S GUIDE TO LOVE & MURDER (Porchlight Music Theatre; Ruth Page Center)
A DEATH OF FRESH AIR It’s a tour de force times ten as Monty Navarro, distant heir to the D’Ysquith fortune, slaughters his way to an earldom and marriage, for better or worse, with a doting cousin. A romp where vengeance gets served up hot and cold, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder is convulsing the Ruth…
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Chicago Theater Review: HOW TO CATCH CREATION (Goodman Theatre)
CONSIDER CREATION CAUGHT IN THIS SEMINAL WORLD PREMIERE It’s a tour-de-force to take home and reverently recall: A Goodman Theatre world premiere, How To Catch Creation lives up to a lovely title. In little more than two hours, Christina Anderson chronicles the intersected passions, both procreative and artistic, of three very different couples. They’re contrasted and combined…
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Theater Review: US/THEM (Chicago Shakespeare)
OUT OF THE BLOOD OF BABES It’s a probably thankless and certainly unsettling undertaking: Us/Them is an hour-long performance piece by two young members of the Belgian troupe BRONKS. It dares to depict the 2004 Beslan school siege and massacre from the point of view of two child victims: One survives the take-over by 35 Chechen separatists….
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Theater Review: THE REALISTIC JONESES (Shattered Globe Theatre and Theater Wit)
IS IT TOO REALISTIC, OR NOT REALISTIC ENOUGH? Is it smoke and mirrors or a trick of the light? No matter — the fact that nothing urgent is at stake in the 100 minutes of Will Leno’s The Realistic Joneses is not beside the point: It is the point. Next-door neighbors in a cookie-cutter suburb, four married characters —…
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Chicago Theater Review: EVIL DEAD THE MUSICAL (Black Button Eyes Productions)
BRINGING DEAD TO LIFE An import from our neighbor to the north that’s almost as inebriating as Canadian Club, Evil Dead The Musical is a blood-splattering, silly-ass, ham-acting confection based on a franchise of three gag-inducing 80s’ films. (How come the “good dead” never get a show? I guess it would be too dull.) A huge hit…
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Theater Review: DADA WOOF PAPA HOT (About Face Theatre at Theater Wit in Chicago)
FRIENDS WITH CHILDREN Gay parents — for centuries that seemed a contradiction in terms. How could promiscuity engender anything beyond itself? But, if, as Delmore Schwartz said, “With dreams begin responsibilities,” along with (modern) marriage comes children. A lot of stuff suddenly altered in 2015 when marriage equality passed. Theater is just now catching up…
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Theater Review: CARDBOARD PIANO (TimeLine)
THEATER AND RECONCILIATION Love never seems greater than when hate sets it off. Then, as if to prove its power, it finds so much to rise above. A huge hit at the 2016 Humana Festival of New American Plays and now making its Chicago premiere in a forceful staging by TimeLine Theatre, Cardboard Piano is an exercise…
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Chicago Theater Review: FUENTE OVEJUNA (City Lit)
#ME TOO, 15th-CENTURY STYLE If it didn’t actually happen, this play would not be believed. Its climax soars as, tortured by the Inquisition to reveal the murderer of the evil-doing Commander of Calatrava, 300 villagers declared that it was Fuenteovejuna — not a person but their town that struck the blow for freedom. Their defiance,…
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Theater Review: THE LIGHTNING THIEF: THE PERCY JACKSON MUSICAL (North American Tour)
LIGHTNING IN A BOTTLE, OR AN EMPOWER SHORTAGE? Holy Hades! It’s an all-purpose victim’s ur-dream of getting even: Every misunderstood teenager secretly imagines he was born better than life lets him show (off). Take that tonic/toxic delusion further: Supposing the Greek gods had secret kids — why not believe that you’re a demigod, not an…
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Chicago Theater Review: LA RUTA (Steppenwolf)
A RUTA WAKENING A play can be a cry for help — against a persistent peril, a former and future danger, a mindset that makes heartbreak. La Ruta, a Steppenwolf Theatre world premiere by Isaac Gomez, is all these and more. This 95-minute protest play both exalts and eulogizes Las Descomicidas, the disappeared Mexican women who…
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Theater Review: A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM (Chicago Shakespeare)
A SPORADIC DREAM There’s an epiphany near the end of Shakespeare’s celebration A Midsummer Night’s Dream when the mixed-up quartet of wayward lovers who’ve been confoundedly mashed up over the course of a long July night discover they’re awake! They jump for joy over the unearned deliverance. It’s an absolutely natural response to the very complex “dream” from…
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Tour Theater Review: CIRQUE DREAMS HOLIDAZE (Chicago Theatre)
IT’LL LEAVE YOU DAZED AND CIRQUE-FUSED Neil Goldberg has a fine formula for his fantastic franchise. His eleven Cirque Dreams spectaculars feature ever-changing processions of dazzling celebrants strutting to seasonal songs, amazing acrobatics, kaleidoscopic set pieces, and a charming touch of audience participation. With five troupes performing in 40 venues, Cirque Dreams Holidaze is a very busy…
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Theater Review: THE FULL MONTY (Theo Ubique Cabaret Theatre in Evanston)
GET YOUR FULL For the sake of the butterfly we love the cocoon. The Full Monty, a musical version by David Yazbek and Terrence McNally, is industriously inspired by the popular 1997 film about unemployed working-class Brits. The movie fondly embraced a bunch of lovable losers who give themselves a second chance to make and feel…
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Chicago Dance Review: HUBBARD STREET DANCE CHICAGO (Season 41 Winter Series at the Harris)
GROUP DYNAMICS SURGE AT HUBBARD STREET DANCE CHICAGO Four world premieres, especially crafted by in-house choreographers for the skills and needs of their company colleagues, display a tales-within-tales meld of individuality within synchronicity, a deepening of dance that’s more than conceptual. Hubbard Street Dance Chicago’s current Winter Series, a part of their ongoing dance(e)volve program,…
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Theater Review: THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG (National Tour)
THE PLAY ABOUT THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG GOES WRONG The title is brutally honest — and you can’t say you weren’t warned. In the style of Monty Python and Michael Frayn’s self-destroying farce Noises Off (an infinitely cleverer romp), The Play That Goes Wrong, a 2015 London hit written by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields, is…
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