Chicago

GONE BUT NEVER SILENT Commemorating the 75th anniversary of “Kristallnacht,” the terrible nights of November 9-10, 1938 when Nazi thugs unleashed their most public assault on Jewish life and lives, this 70-minute one-act by Ron Hirsen creates an “elegy” from an unclaimed legacy. Earnestly staged by Victory Gardens founder Dennis Zacek in a sometimes insecure…

THE SPECIFIC ENIGMA OF A BUNNY A play is generally defined as “a staged representation of a story – see: DRAMA.” A circle ensues, because drama is explained to be “a piece of writing that tells a story and is performed on a stage.” Nassim Soleimanpour’s White Rabbit, Red Rabbit meets these basic standards –…

COMPASSION PLAY Forgetting the ineptitude of Larry Kramer’s 1988 farce Just Say No, it’s ripe to revive his 1985 masterwork about how a health crisis defined the gay community–as much by what it didn’t do as how it rose to the occasion. Unlike Just Say No ‘s driven attack on Nancy Reagan and the abstinence…

FORMULAIC IN A GOOD WAY In The Book of Mormon, Trey Parker and Matt Stone proved that subject matter in musical theatre is a lot less important than sticking to the structural formula. There’s the ensemble intro that sets the scene, the romantic duet, the protagonist’s transformative moment and the final song that ties everything…

FAST, FURIOUS AND FUNKY Ending tonight at the Harris Theatre, the latest balletic blast from the newly renamed Giordano Dance Chicago delivers six hyper-kinetic pieces. This generous outpouring fully showcase the young ensemble’s dexterity, volatitility and, well, flash-dancing. Including world premieres by an Israeli-born and Philadelphia-based choreographer and an in-house artist, the recital offers a…

BOYS WILL BE MONSTERS William Golding’s 1954 cautionary thriller depicts a world on the edge of nuclear war. But when a plane crashes, a tiny portion of humanity is given a do-over. Tragically, reduced to feral bipeds, they succumb to our worst instincts. Lord of the Flies imagines a deserted tropical island’”a kind of modern…

A PUPPET IN THE WILDERNESS In The Table, a curious creation now on its first U.S. tour, three members of the U.K.’s Blind Summit puppet theater depict a garrulous Bunraku-style hand puppet, a vibrant invention who impersonates no less than the 120-year-old Moses on his dying day on the plains of Moab. The puppet, a…

INDIAN NIGHTS Earlier this fall the Joffrey Ballet revisited the uneasy birth of modern dance with a kinetic revival of Stravinsky’s still-shocking, century-old Sacre du Printemps in all its primitive vitality. As if to balance the ledger, the Auditorium Theatre is now filled with the gorgeous melodies of a late-blooming classical ballet from 1877. With…

THE STANDARD FOR STORYTELLING It’s a coup just to get the theatrical rights to this juicy work, the late, great Paddy Chayevsky’s Oscar-nominated 1956 screenplay. But it’s sensational to pull it off to perfection. Cinematic as its source, John Mossman’s adaptation and staging of The Goddess is a gem of make-believe, an engrossing cautionary tale…

A ZOMBIE MUSICAL THAT NEEDS BRAINS There’s something wrong with a show that demands you be drunk. On opening night the howling fans of this cult phenom, now in its fourth incarnation (if that’s the right word for a flesh-eating farce), managed to outshout even this screamingly unfunny offering. Literally buckets of beer flowed freely…

ROMANCE MEETS REALITY Written early but published posthumously (1817), Jane Austen’s most comical novel, Northanger Abbey, works equally well as a literary satire and a psychologically probing courtship chronicle. Inventively adapted by Tim Luscombe, who has as much fun as the author in contrasting thought and action, Remy Bumppo’s delightful U.S. premiere faithfully follows the…

CLUELESS CORRUPTION Much has been said about Neil LaBute’s work at Profiles, but there’s so much that can’t be given away about Wrecks (2005), a  70-minute solo show by the ever-controversial LaBute, now enjoying his 11th  production at this theater,  that this review will be sparingly short. The setting is a Chicago funeral parlor where the ashes of…

THE TALE OF A LOVE THAT LINGERS TOO LONG Freud said that an unfinished task is never forgotten. But the inability to forget is nothing to the life-long longing of an aborted romance. For novelist Marguerite Duras, a love affair cut short in 1930 fueled her masterpiece  Hiroshima Mon Amour, as well as the novels  The Lover  and  The…

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…