Chicago

A TRAGICOMEDY WITH TRICKS Well, why not do The Tempest as a magic show? It comes with Shakespeare’s territory. During the Duke of Milan’s unhappy exile, deposed by his nefarious brother, with only his daughter and two supernatural beings as companions, Prospero has become a sorcerer on an empty island. He’s able to cast spells,…

COMING CHOREOGRAPHY Opening its 60th season, the Joffrey Ballet literally leaps into the future with Millennials, a three-part program at the Auditorium Theatre. Closing Sunday, it features many bold new moves within two world premieres and one Chicago debut. Even if the majority of Joffrey dancers  qualify as  millennials, the rationale to showcase  today’s  dance is reason enough to…

BOYS WILL BE PIGS The title can mislead: Dogfight is not about World War I flying aces Eddie Rickenbacker and The Red Baron doing loop-the-loops as they shoot each other out of the sky. Dogfight does take place during war, but the title refers to a  much more cowardly act. Conducted by raw Marines in 1963…

THEY DO IT ALL FOR US 14 years ago, terror became a date in the calendar. “9/11” casts an ever darker shadow onto the future. It also remains the latest official loss of American innocence. (Happily, we suffer from such convenient cultural amnesia that we’ll regain it soon enough.) Lest we forget, here’s a two-person…

WHEN GETTING THERE ISN’T HALF THE FUN Call it a combination of Locked Up Abroad and Coming to America. In 90 gorgeously pictured minutes, “multi-racial” performer Debra Erhardt thrillingly chronicles her escape to America 35 years ago when she was 18. Her riveting narration turns  a one-person odyssey into a lavish epic: It enlists our imagination…

DELIVERANCE FROM DROUGHT It’s a terrific recipe for powerful theater. Confront audiences with an unfinished situation amid a collective challenge–with seemingly no way out. Then introduce a mysterious stranger who, like a catalyst, changes everything, maybe even himself. It works wonders with The Music Man, The Petrified Forest, Holiday, Shane, The Lone Ranger, Peter Pan,…

A POOR MAN’S PETER PAN Let’s put two prequels in perspective: What the novel-based Wicked is to The Wizard of Oz, Peter and the Starcatcher, a novel-derived “origins tale,” is for Sir James Barrie’s wonderful Peter Pan. Both “earlier versions” were written long after their celebrated “sequels.” Retrospectively, both provide complementary or alternate explanations for…

BEYOND THE PALE Bad Jews (the provocative title not as anti-Semitic as it sounds) was a 2015 hit at London’s St. James and New York’s Roundabout theaters. In the Chicago area Jeremy Wechsler’s staging has already packed them in at Theater Wit, Northlight Theatre, and now the Royal George Cabaret. Clearly, Bad Jews found its…

PLOYS IN THE ATTIC It’s noble to sacrifice for loved ones who need you. But what if it was for nothing? Arthur Miller’s 1968 family play The Price puts its title to rich use. Ostensibly, it’s about the purchase value of the heirlooms, keepsakes, and antiques in the cluttered attic of a Manhattan brownstone soon…

DIXIE DOODLES IN DISTRESS Beth Henley, author of 1979’s Pulitzer-winning Crimes of the Heart, has practically patented the Southern stereotype. Drawling in a stilted patois, Henley’s desperate, demented creatures are hell-bent on self-destruction: They’re pathologically ready to commit “crimes of the heart” to not get their way. 33 years after her masterpiece, Henley is still…

FROM THE MINES TO THE MOON A feel-good story of literal uplift, the new musical October Sky, like the 1999 film, is an anagram of Rocket Boys, the true-life confessional of Homer H. Hickam, Jr. Pushing many buttons, this 150-minute world premiere by Chicagoans Aaron Thielen (book) and actor/composer Michael Mahler (music and lyrics) spins…

WAKING UP FROM THE AMERICAN DREAM The title of Oracle Theatre’s typically invigorating offering, THIS HOUSE BELIEVES THE AMERICAN DREAM IS AT THE EXPENSE OF THE AMERICAN NEGRO, is actually a  proposition by the Cambridge Union Debating Chamber (called the “Arena of Ambition”) in February 1965 at England’s famed Cambridge University. Broadcast by National Educational Television…

NO MAN IS AN ISLAND Whenever it’s revived, it’s hard to imagine a more necessary musical than this 1949 Pulitzer Prize winner. Seventy years after the Japanese surrender, it remains a healing tribute to resilience in adversity and tolerance in the thick of war. Consummate showmen, Rodgers and Hammerstein knew just why Americans need to…

RISING UP FROM DOWN UNDER 23 years ago, mega-entertainer Peter Allen died of AIDS. But The Boy from Oz is the story of a survivor. The self-made star refused to be stifled by the Australian country town of Tenterfield or a drunk, suicidal dad. Encouraged by an unconditionally loving mom, the gay, blond singer-composer moved…

THE NEW DEAD-END KIDS It’s easy to hate the surly slackers in subUrbia, Eric Bogosian’s slice of strife. In this 1994 play, they infest the parking lot of a 7-Eleven’”now changed to a Quickie Mart’”in the bedroom burg of Burnfield, the “pizza and puke capital of the world.” (I guess the mall is too genteel.)…

STILL BREATHING 15 years ago a new show called First Breath launched the About Face Youth Theatre Ensemble. Appropriately, the current showcase  15 Breaths  is presented by the next generation (more or less) and looks back as much as forward. Interestingly, the concerns these GLBT teens address persist like unanswered questions–the generation gap, gender identity, homophobia, coming…

DIVA TO THE TOWEL SET In this summer fluff title tells all–Bette, Live at the Continental Baths (in Chicago, upstairs at Mary’s Attic). This uncredited concoction by Hell in a Handbag Productions, staged and choreographed by Christopher Pazdernik, recreates the Divine Miss M in her gay salad days at New York’s biggest bathhouse. Here, where…

TIME HEALS ALL PLOTS Shakespeare’s strange romance, which begins with gratuitous jealousy and ends with gratuitous forgiveness, is best treated as a fairy tale for grownups: A virtuous queen is condemned for adultery, her supposed spoiler her husband’s equally honest best friend. It suddenly seems as if we blundered from courtly courtesies into an Othello-like…

BLACKBUSTERS A dozen shows in one and a showcase of solos to beat any band, Black Ensemble Theater’s summer blockbuster Men of Soul pays kickass tribute to the greatest soul singers–black and white–of all time. Sensational singing, coming so close to the original vocalists as to be scary-accurate, is the payoff here for over two…