Chicago

READY FOR HER CLOSE-UP, MR. DEMILLE From the start it seemed strange that anyone would make a musical out of a movie that embodies its medium so completely. Yes, the film All About Eve deserved to become the musical Applause; both were obsessed with the theater. But Billy Wilder’s consummately cinematic 1950 masterpiece was a…

SAD TRIUMPH OF HOPE OVER EXPERIENCE It’s like kicking a puppy dog to dislike Charity Hope Valentine. Charity is the cloyingly-named heroine of the 1966 musical by Cy Coleman, Dorothy Fields and Neil Simon, a show once made famous by Gwen Verdon’s slinkiness and Bob Fosse’s choreography. Writers’ Theatre approaches this strange amalgam of high…

A CRY TO CARE The 85-minutes of this electrifying protest play begin with a lone microphone suddenly erupting in an ear-splitting feedback. The noise is intolerable, no less than what it ushers in. After this blast from the other side of the world, individual performer/protesters approach that mike, start to speak, back up and unfurl…

PUPPET SHOW Ethan Lipton’s Luther received rave reviews when it premiered in New York last June, yet it enjoyed only a brief run. So it makes sense that Steep Theater would want to try out the dark satire on Chicago and see if it sticks. Unfortunately due to an unfocused script and misguided direction, it…

A DAISY CHAIN OF DEAD ENDS MAKES FOR INVIGORATING THEATER Shattered Globe Theatre has uncovered yet another tailspinning drama to live up to  its name. British playwright Lucinda Cox shows a strong good grasp of dead ends, whether in conversations or in characters. In this sardonic black comedy  – with the ironic and accusatory title Happy Now?  –…

BONDAGE IN EGYPT AND VIRGINIA Of the 150,000 Jews who lived in the U.S during the Civil War, twice as many (6,000) fought for the Union as for the Confederacy. Less well-known is the fact that hundreds of Southern Jews owned, sold, bought and interbred with slaves: One minority in effect profited from the miseries…

A CIRCUS BUT NO BREAD The theater space is a cavernous church gym with lousy acoustics. The intrepid thespians at Red Tape Theatre transform it into the title setting, an arena of death without dignity: It’s set in an American war zone (presumably to show the interconnection between the violence of reality T.V. and actual…

RELIABLE CROWD-PLEASER ONCE AGAIN, WELL, PLEASES THE CROWD Puccini’s La Bohème has succeeded numerous times at Lyric Opera since its first performance in 1954, but their newest production is fresh and satisfying. First of all, it’s hard to go wrong (in general) with La Bohème, a relatively light tragedy buoyed with easy-to-love characters, provocative music…

A SPECTACULAR AND FASCINATING JOURNEY IN WHICH THINGS ARE NOT AS THEY SEEM Cameras have evolved from room-sized camera obscuras, to the box-like contraption of the nineteenth century, to the mundane and miniscule phone cameras in every modern pocket. We are now subject to constant documentation and the distribution of images can be global and…

BEST NOT TO SEE THIS PLAY ON A FIRST DATE The Raven Theatre is celebrating its 30th Anniversary Season with the return of Rebecca Gilman’s Boy Gets Girl, which debuted at the Goodman Theatre in 2000. Much has changed since then in our world: The economy, global revolutions, technological gadgets and the acceptance of gay…

SLOW, SAD AND STRANGE Sooner or later (preferably the former), we expect a play to pay off – to deliver a “gotcha” revelation that makes sudden or accumulated sense out of what seemed to be aimless exposition. A less than engrossing Chicago premiere at A Red Orchid Theatre, Annie Baker’s slow-paced, torpidly talky and seemingly…

AMERICA’S BEST NOTES Beginning its first new season of self-generated musicals, the Mercury Theater has, true to its name, raised the temperature with A Grand Night for Singing, a heartfelt, if sometimes overwrought, salute which happily honors and delightfully reprises the glorious, all-American (in the best sense) Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals and their inexhaustible legacy…

FIXING WHAT WON’T HEAL Jon Robin Baitz’ Broadway drama Other Desert Cities depicts a crisis of apparent betrayal and imminent exposure that besets the Wyeth clan, a wealthy Jewish family sheltered in the oasis of Palm Springs. Viewed one way, Baitz’ Pulitzer Prize finalist is very much a two-act family fight. But, as Arthur Miller…

ACCIDENTAL DEATH OF A PLAY Anarchy is not chaos. The former means “without law,” and the latter means “without form.” This is an important distinction to consider in a play that intends to make an argument for anarchy. After a government scandal, a schizoid anarchist poses as certain government officials to disrupt the government from…

THAT KINKY KINESCOPE It’s a time trip that denies the original intent’”a live taping of a dead T.V. series. The iconic archetype of the boob tube’s “golden age,” I Love Lucy wasn’t just the longest-running T.V. show’”it set the standards and stories for domestic sitcoms until All in the Family changed the rules forever. Depending…

HATS OFF TO STEPPENWOLF If the title wasn’t enough of a clue, Stephen Adly Guirgis’s The Motherfucker with the Hat is filled with bad language. But what’s really surprising is how well it uses creative vulgarity to shape a hilarious tale. Jackie (John Ortiz) is a recovering alcoholic on parole who seems to be finally…

YOU ONLY DIE ONCE One of the great pick-up lines that soldiers and sailors on leave during World War II (and probably the Trojan War too) used to seduce a one-night standee was, “Let’s do it – I could be dead in a month.” Chicago playwright Mark Mason’s sardonic Allotment Annie gives this plea a…

HAVEL UNVEILED AT TRAP DOOR While most probably know Václav Havel as the Czech Republic’s first president, he has gained notoriety in the avant garde world for his absurdist plays’”making him the patron saint of edgy liberal arts students everywhere. Just before the holidays,   Trap Door opened up two Havel one-acts: The Unveiling and its…