Chicago

A REAL BEAUTY Reality T.V. meets classical ballet and the latter wins: The stars of the CW’s Breaking Pointe have teamed up at Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre through Oct. 6 to produce a dazzling and faithful version of Tchaikovsky’s sweeping and soaring three-act ballet. Adam Sklute’s staging honors the gorgeous fairy tale and even more sumptuous…

PANACHE, YES’”PASSION, LESS If a story’s strong enough, you just need to rekindle the plot. Edmond Rostand’s timeless love story celebrates the one-sided love between the famous 17th century swordsman-poet disfigured with a humongous schnoz and Roxane,  his beautiful cousin. Roxane is initially infatuated with Christian, her younger, handsome suitor who nonetheless can’t win her without…

VERDI UNLEASHED A DOMESTIC TERRORIST Written in 1845 and seldom seen since, this early opera by Giuseppe Verdi (whose centenary we celebrate) was a promissory note to be redeemed over and over before 1901. Based on an obscure play by Schiller, the somewhat preposterous plot (with libretto by Temistocle Solera) imagines “Giovanna d’Arco,” but not…

A TRAIN TO NOWHERE It’s not enough reason for Joan Allen’s Chicago comeback. She returns to her ensemble-thick roots on the Steppenwolf stage after a 22-year absence during which, among other cinema roles,  she three times pursued Jason Bourne. Now the screen star finds herself in The Wheel, a vehicle that’s both sprawling and stunted. Zinnie…

A SMOKING SAMOVAR It’s a different kind of “spring fling,” much m0re fitting for September when the season has faded fast. The latest installment in the Joffrey Ballet’s “Masters of Dance” season is a revival of their 1987 and 2009 recreations of the seminal and controversial, century-old Sacre du Printemps–a labor of the future by…

BON APPETIT! A welcome return engagement (which is now part of the prestigious Broadway in Chicago subscription lineup), TimeLine Theatre Company’s revival of its 2010 original work To Master the Art remains, even in a much less intimate space and with a higher ticket price, a delicious passion play. As delightfully developed by authors William…

KILLER THEATER Recreating in part the pivotal Civil War battle fought 150 years ago this July, Lifeline Theatre’s labor of hate, powerfully staged by Matt Miller, is as cinematic as theater can get in three dimensions. Commissioned for the company, Karen Tarjan’s 2004 adaptation of Michael Shaara’s much-praised novel (made into the 1993 film Gettysburg)…

AN UNFOCUSED VIEW FROM THE BALCONY In Jean Genet’s The Balcony, authority, sexual desire, and violence are so intricately intertwined that they’re nearly indistinguishable. Outside Madame Irma’s brothel, rebellion licks at the very foundations of civilized society, disrupting the rule of law and overthrowing the monarchy. Inside, cowardly men pose as judges, cardinals, and generals…

WAR IS CONCENTRIC SLICES OF HELL Just as America seems to be expanding rather than concluding our deal with the Devil in the Middle East, Sideshow Theatre Company’s Chicago premiere–a valuable, 100-minute drama–seems all the more topical, valuable and non-negotiable. In the spirit of A Few Good Men, Bill Cain’s pile-driving play 9 Circles exposes…

LOONY TUNES IN EVERY WAY You could call this two-act, two-actor, two-hour romp Irma Vep  meets Singing in the Rain. A charming trifle that’s also a stunning tour-de-deuce, Porchlight Music Theatre’s local premiere features two ostentatiously talented and handsome brothers, Adrian and Alexander Aguilar. They star in a madcap revue created by two very showbiz brothers,…

WHERE BLARNEY GOES TO DIE Who’d have guessed that a 90-minute Irish play would be set in a bar where everyone gets sozzled and crocked much sooner that an hour and a half could ever allow? But in his 1985 exercise in forensic disillusionment, acclaimed Irish author Tom Murphy wants to subvert stereotypes as much…

HEROISM AND ESTROGEN Well worth seeing, this stylized 100-minute tour de theatre nonetheless requires’”and rewards’”an informed audience: It needs eager theatergoers already aware of the story it tells so well. Despite depicting the same tragic tale, Pink Milk is not to be confused with Breaking the Code, Hugh Whitemore’s superb 1986 drama and acclaimed 1996…

AN ARAB ZELIG Supple, swift and slippery, this 80-minute, four-character satire by Jonas Hassen Khemiri (translated by Rachel Wilson-Broyles) skewers Islamophobia and its many mutations. Its trick is to center our self-terrorism on an exotic name borrowed from an old play. Meaning everything and nothing, the fake persona “Abulkasem” takes on as many protean forms…

A HIGHLY ENGAGING SLOWGIRL After a traumatic accident, millennial teenager Becky (Rae Gray) visits her uncle Sterling (William Petersen) in Costa Rica, where her constant chattering disrupts his nearly monastic lifestyle. As the two learn to live with each other, layers of regret, anxiety, and fear begin to surface. Playwright Greg Pierce treats his characters…

A GREAT PLAY (BASED ON SOMETHING) Though little happens and nothing is resolved in the Pulitzer-nominated Thom Pain (based on nothing), the play is oddly and intensely captivating. Will Eno’s extended monologue wades into an ethereal spot where conscience and consciousness collide, using his everyman Thom Pain as a lens to reveal the gaps and…

THE ENSEMBLE IS HOT, THE PLOT IS NOT Sam Shepard loves to level, if not to topple, his characters. In the treacherous course of True West, two brothers exchange identities: The Hollywood hotshot falls into the bottle and his inarticulate loser of a brother gets good fortune from his sibling’s bad karma. (Harold Pinter also…

HOUSE THEATRE PULLS A RABBIT OUT OF ITS HAT The House Theatre has, once again, remounted its wildly successful Death and Harry Houdini at the Chopin Theatre – and why not? It’s still as fresh as ever. The death-defying wonders of the world’s most famous escape artist are recreated right before our eyes, and it’s…

FIRST DISNEYFIED AND NOW ZIMMERMANNED, THIS MUSICAL CAN’T SEE THE JUNGLE FOR THE TREES Not one of the great animations to grace the Disney studio, 1967’s The Jungle Book was certainly a product of its time. Rudyard Kipling’s 1894 collection of quasi-folk tales set in the rain forests of India became a very Americanized adventure…