Chicago

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…

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…

STRIDENTLY SILLY, THEN SUDDENLY SERIOUS The title  Familiar  alludes to family’”and, when loved ones squabble over who they are and where they come from, this title questions just what  is  familiar. A Chicago premiere from Steppenwolf Theatre Company,  Familiar  is Danai Gurira’s family tragicomedy about whose legacy will control the future. Insistently manic, Danya Traymor’s staging, unfortunately, fits all too well…

FROM CANCER TO THE COSMOS, OR TO HELA AND BACK There’s cold fusion and then there’s hot fusion–the theatrical kind. In the world-premiere  HeLa, an awesome co-production by Sideshow Theatre Company and Greenhouse Theater Center, it forges its own supernova of discoveries. In 150 truth-packed minutes, playwright J. Nicole Brooks manages to connect a medical miracle…

A PERFECT TEN OUT OF TIN, OR YOURS, MIME, AND OURS This “soldier” is well worth saluting: There’s an enchanting Christmas Pantomime on Michigan Avenue — Lookingglass Theatre Company’s jewel-box of a holiday  divertissement. Transformed by music, dance and spectacle more than by words and lyrics,  The Steadfast Tin Soldier, Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale from 1838,…

INGE’S NOISY DESPERATION Mission accomplished: Eclipse Theatre Company characteristically concludes its season with a play that wears a big heart on an open sleeve. The troupe, which cultivates one playwright per year, delivers a vintage family saga for the all-Inge year — a sad tale of thwarted affection and canceled happiness. Following  Natural Affection  and  Bus Stop, Eclipse…

THE BITTER END The gulf is clear from the start. Joe Schermoly’s set consists of interconnected boxes that create shelves which suggest two apartments separated by a crosswalk. It’s an apt depiction of the divide between the interracial gay lovers in  This Bitter Earth. An earnest if unfulfilled one-act by Harrison David Rivers, this Chicago premiere…

A SHOW TO END ANY THEATER DROUGHT It’s a “big sky” story with a ton of heart, this  other  musical created by Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones, composer and lyricist of  The Fantasticks  and  I Do! I Do!  Wonderfully revived by BoHo Theatre at Theater Wit,  110 in the Shade  deserves packed audiences for a sweet show steeped in down-home decency and wise…

WHEN REALISM IS NOT ENOUGH, SOMETHING IS ROTTEN IN DENMARK It’s strange that an enterprise as lavishly bounteous as Goodman Theatre should seem to shrink itself: Currently it’s hosting two world-premiere solo shows in both its big Dearborn Street stages. (Talk about taking “less is more” too literally: Also, in the last year, Goodman has…