Chicago

THE LAST VICTIMS An urban massacre grabs headlines for days, then burns out as quickly as it erupted. There’s always the next shock of the known to deal with: Without meaning to be cruel, we move on. An aftermath drama, The December Man is Canadian playwright Colleen Murphy’s 90-minute, three-character look at what won’t fade…

DEAF, DUMB, BLIND–AND FABULOUS! Right now there’s a lot of noise in the attic–Mary’s Attic in Andersonville. The uproarious occasion is Miracle!, a gender-bending, cross-dressing romp created by sex guru Dan Savage, the seminal spokesperson (“Savage Love”) for most matters GLBTQ. Losing not a laugh, it was inevitable that Hell in a Handbag Productions, Chicago’s…

A METAPHORICAL MESS “The truth can be cruel.” That’s the twisty motto of the interactive quiz show within Quiz Show, a maddeningly metaphorical one-act from Strawdog Theatre Company. The U.S. premiere of British playwright Rob Drummond’s puzzle piece, this treacherous 75-minute drama morphs like a microbe–from a game show that tests trivia to a lethal…

LIVING A LEGACY At this very moment Islamic State terrorists are on the brink of invading–and possibly destroying–the ancient Roman capital of Palmyra. Loathing any past but their present, their campaign of desecration and vandalism across Ninevah and Mosul, Iraq, as well as precious sites in Syria, echoes the culture rape of the distant Mongols….

DIRTY DOINGS IN DIXIE In a way The Little Foxes is a complete complement to Margaret Mitchell’s antebellum revisionism in Gone With The Wind (which appeared the same year as Lillian Hellman’s mistresspiece). This nasty work also exposes the true South–greed, not glory–half a century later. Hellman’s brilliantly constructed exposé of a monumentally dysfunctional Southern…

DISTURBED DANCES Two years ago Boris Eifman brought his all-absorbing story recital Rodin to the Auditorium Theatre. It delighted audiences with its stream of 1,000-word pictures: The vibrant talespinning depicted a great sculptor and his (outer) inner demons. Less enthralling and more problematic, Eifman’s equally elaborate Up & Down is just that–a roller-coaster focused more…

THE ONCE AND FALLEN DREAM It’s a continuing crisis seen from the inside out, fleshed out with warmth and truth. In The Project(s),  American Theater Company artistic director PJ Paparelli and documentarian Joshua Jaeger create a 140-minute crash course and action meditation on Chicago’s infam0us housing projects. Inspired by Jacob Riis’s pioneering expose How The Other…

BLACK IS BACK The “Man in Black” is back. Actually, it’s more like a non sci-fi “Men in Black”: It takes both Kent M. Lewis and Michael Monroe Goodman to play, respectively, the mature and younger Johnny Cash. Ring of Fire: The Music of Johnny Cash, a sensation at Indiana’s Theater at the Center, is…

BLUES IN THE NIGHT Side Man is a superb title. It fits the story/situation splendidly. Warren Leight’s 1999 Tony-winning memory play is narrated by a son named Clifford, its subject his jazz musician dad Gene and his hardluck mother Terry. Moving laterally from gig to gig, prospering only between Sinatra and Elvis, Gene’s only musical…

PRUDENCE AND PASSION Offhand, sense and sensibility hardly seem antonyms. As the Brits say, it’s a distinction without a difference. But in Jane Austen’s 1811 novel of the same name (her first success) two sisters set each other off (in every sense) by hewing to supposed extremes. Daughters whose father’s death has lost them Norland,…

SISTERS AND SOLDIERS Following their rather loose and unconventional takes on Greek tragedy and Gilbert and Sullivan, The Hypocrites return to a more classic approach with Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters. What gives the production its freshness is the use of a contemporary, idiomatic translation. This helps smooth over some of the awkwardness of the narrative…

ANCIENT LAUGHS TIMES TEN An irresistible mix of Roman “new comedy,” commedia dell’arte, and vaudeville, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum rivals The Producers as the funniest musical comedy ever–and the future seems no threat. Not seen in Chicago since Goodman Theatre’s lavish 1988 production, the once and future 1962 smasheroo…

OSCAR PLEADS FOR MERCY “We are all of us lying in the gutter–but some of us are staring at the stars.” This fusion of original sin and the saving power of grace fuels the artful ambivalences in Lady Windermere’s Fan. A well-made play with an untidy moral, Oscar Wilde’s four-act 1892 comedy traces the fault…

CHICAGO’S CIVIL WAR A grand dream is now completed. Over the last five years City Lit has delivered five old and new works to mark the Sesquicentennial of the Civil War, now finished with the 150th anniversary of the Appomattox surrender. Ending the reckoning is the series’ most documentary-like drama: Set in Illinois in the…

MUSICAL MEASURES Grandstine, the beloved Mississippi matriarch of the Harris clan, has died and gone to her reward. Her many loved ones return to their roots for a “going to heaven” sendoff for the founder of the feast. That’s the premise–and it’s excuse enough–for Sounds So Sweet, a fulsome tribute to one family’s values and…

THE CONTINUUM OF LOVE Ethan Lipton is a magic maker who’s mastered the art of intertwining characters. The five lost and found souls in his 2012 offering  Red Handed Otter  are security-guard colleagues at an unnamed facility. They come together or fall apart as naturally as any rival representations from real life. The hilarious anecdotes they share,…

HIPSTER HUMOR ON A ROLL The title  of Second City e.t.c.’s 39th revue, Soul Brother, Where Art Thou?,  is more wordplay than revelation. They know very well where to find their very specific “soul brothers.” Their generational sketch humor (targeted mainly to folks under 40) wants to invalidate 2015’s absurdities and expose our place in the idiocy…

SHTICK ON A SHIP R.M.S. Titanic was not unsinkable but the S.S. American really is. It’s been sailing strong since 1934 as Cole Porter’s biggest hit before  Kiss Me Kate. It may have jettisoned its original ballast-heavy book by P.G. Wodehouse and Guy Bolton, and taken on an equally cornball script by Timothy Crouse and John…

MAKING HEAVY OF LIFE “Can you see magic?” That’s both process and purpose in Jordan Harrison’s deliberately dazzling 75-minute bravura piece  The Grown-Up, now strutting its precious stuff in a Chicago premiere by Shattered Globe Theatre. The troupe’s last offering,  The Rose Tattoo, was Tennessee Williams’ painstaking and heartbreaking travelogue through broken hearts in the deep South….