Chicago

THIS TURKEY IS SO SCARY, YOU HAVE TO KEEP REPEATING TO YOURSELF, “IT’S ONLY A PLAY… IT’S ONLY A PLAY…” There’s a glaring contradiction in  It’s Only a Play: Written by the usually crafty Terrence McNally, a 20-time Broadway playwright, this two-act love letter to Broadway theater and its “plays of fools” — depicted in full…

THE HOLY ROMAN EMPEROR AS FLOWER CHILD Some shows stay young by never growing up: Stephen Schwartz’ silly-stupid 1972 musical is the (im)perfect example of a musical that’s saved by its songs and spirit. A sort of ninth-century, one-ring circus crammed with presentational glee, it was practically a tribal sequel to Schwartz’s Godspell (with homage…

FLYIN’ HIGH: THE HEARTLAND SOLIDARITY OF SODBUSTING SISTERS For a while it must have seemed like a black Eden. Founded in 1877, Nicodemus, Kansas was a Reconstruction success story founded on a racial covenant. It offered a second chance for former slaves and future dreamers: The reputedly all-black town was the enlightened creation of the…

CRUMBS IS A RICH MEAL Much like Lorraine Hansberry and Tennessee Williams, Lynn Nottage is a memory-monger. She sees truth in small stuff that looms larger later. And as with Arthur Miller or Clifford Odets (especially the latter’s  Awake and Sing!), she also has the gift of moral magnification: She can make family feuds stand for…

THE BELLE OF COAL YARD ALLEY LEAVES YOU GWYNNING FROM EAR TO EAR When you’re mistress to a monarch, your perch is precarious. Envy supplants praise as, moving from “rags to royalty,” your origin pursues you through slander and shaming. Lacking the protection of marriage, seldom measured by your merit (just your maneuvers), the royal…

FORGET STICKS AND STONES: WORDS WILL  ALWAYS  HURT YOU Who says words can’t kill? In  BigMouth, flawlessly intoning English, Walloon, French, and German (with captions), Belgian solo performance artist Valentijn Dhaenens pours a dozen passions into nine alternating microphones. In little more than 70 minutes, this creator-performer conflates disparate speeches from sources as diverse as the innocent but…

THE RIGHT TO DO WRONG Count this among the finest offerings from a Chicago theater: Shattered Globe Theatre’s kinetic staging of Chris Hannan’s adaptation of Crime and Punishment is flawlessly directed by Louis Contey, Eleven actors simultaneously attain personal bests in 155 minutes. First, however, a look at the roots of this wonder: Following his…

TRAPPED IN A DREARY DRAMEDY There’s a tender scene at the start of HOMOS, OR EVERYONE IN AMERICA (a perversely paradoxical title) that wants to convince us that Jordan Seavey’s lads really are  lovers. Brooklyn’s streetlights are dark from a power failure, so one guy comforts the other by playing some vinyl Vivaldi and holding him…

NO CLOSURE FOR GENOCIDE Family is how history happens. As Arthur Miller wisely showed in  All My Sons,  The Gift  and  The Crucible, change radiates outward. Even, or especially, an immense abomination like the Holocaust can’t be measured in six million dead as powerfully as in one family crushed and confronted by what was, what might have been, and…

A WAY TO GHOUL OFF THIS SUMMER It’s not easy for a frightfest to work (or play) just as well as a laff-fest, let alone to be both: A delightful exercise in creepy-crawly quirkiness,  Nightmares and Nightcaps: The Stories of John Collier  pays hilarious homage to a British-born master of the macabre. Collier (1901-1980), a long-time  New Yorker  contributor…

CLASSICAL MARTYRS AS NEW JERSEY HOUSEWIVES MYTHS SOMETHING Imagine Medea, Clytemnestra, Antigone, and Cassandra transported to a New Jersey suburb in 1960. There the same cycle of repression and revenge repeats itself. The ancient victims — two anti-heroines with loathsome mates, one religious martyr, and a disrespected prophetess — are now, respectively, two pill-popping, grievance-nursing…