Chicago

I REMEMBER THE AMUSEMENT PARK BUT FORGOT WHAT THE RIDE WAS ABOUT The more I think about the Hypocrites’ latest theater spectacle, Ivywild, the more entranced I feel about the imaginative proceedings – the way in which the story was told – and the less I care about the story itself.   In an impressionistic, non-concrete…

CORNOGRAPHY It’s been 70 years since Rodgers and Hammerstein ushered in the “golden era” of Broadway musicals with Oklahoma!  but  given the right production, the innovative musical can still soar. Old-fashioned staging, however, can  thicken  the  aging brown dust on the bright green corn;  that’s when  the innovative musical can show its age. Well, an Oklahoma!  twister blew through Lyric Opera last night,…

PLEASE, SIR, I WANT SOME MOOR Alas, this is mainly a review of record: This is the final weekend to savor the triumphant revival of the Joffrey Ballet’s Othello. Originally given its world premiere by the American Ballet Theatre in 1997, this “dance in three acts” is fueled by a suitably ferocious score by still-young…

PERFECTED STORIES Ever since Donald Margulies’ Collected Stories premiered at South Coast Rep in 1996, and especially after it hit the Broadway boards starring Linda Lavin in 2010, the one-set, two-character play — being inexpensive to produce — is   seemingly occurring at any given time somewhere in the U.S.A. There is some predictability in the  plot,…

LEAVE IT TO  CHILDREN’S THEATER TO MAKE THE BIGGEST STATEMENT OF ALL The biggest opening in Chicago last week was the behemoth pre-Broadway spectacle Big Fish,  but right across town at Lifeline Theatre is another musical with more heart, a more resonant message, better songs, funnier dialogue, and performers who are infinitely more watchable than their non-distinctive…

SQUALL IN THE FAMILY In meteorology, the phenomena known as Lake Effect occurs when a cold system glides over the warmer water of a large lake and dumps huge amounts of precipitation, usually snow, in the surrounding area. This weather pattern can occur anywhere, but it is especially hard-hitting in the areas around the Great…

PLOUGHED UNDER BY  GOOD INTENTIONS AND BAD  SONGWRITING What a great idea: Create modern folk songs to represent Americans whose voices have been given short shrift (or ploughed under) by history. There are boundless unsung heroes who can attain mythical stature through inspirational ditties. Given the little we know factually about the subjects, there is room for…

FAUST IN SPACE Just because I recommend Trap Door’s latest production doesn’t mean that I understand it. Core of the PUDEL (pronounced “poodle”) is an Avant Garde/Experimental/Movement Theater production conceived and directed by Thom Pasculli, who draws from Goethe’s Faust to present a one-hour rendering that is practically impossible to follow for those unfamiliar with…

ALMOST A FULL MOON The theater has been sorely affected by electronic communication. Since the advent of the internet, at least, the cumbersome amount of news bits and twittering has infected storytelling like a cancer. Modern playwrights must be so caught up in instant missives and self-promotion on Facebook (or some such nonsense) that even…

WHEN UNIONS RULED THE EARTH Outrageously overdue for revival (the last one was at Marriott Theatre in 2004), this irresistible 1954 Broadway classic harks back to a time when producers could actually pin a plot on a threatened strike by union workers in the Sleep Tite Pajama Factory in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. (Solidarity, alas, isn’t…

CHICAGO CAD MAKES BAD LOOK GOOD Sassy and brassy Pal Joey is  a wondrous rouser that spins the tale of a roué gone rotten in Depression-era Chicago. Porchlight Music Theatre gained the exclusive rights to Rodgers and Hart’s original 1940 version of their masterwork, and is staging a  glorious revival at Stage 773 (they’ve even restored “I’m…

ALICE FALLS THROUGH  AT LOOKINGGLASS “I miss myself.” That’s the plaintive cry from  the titular character of  Still Alice, adapted from Lisa Genova’s book, and presented by Lookingglass Theatre Company.  The didactic  new work recalls Arthur Kopit’s Wings as it shares the struggle from the inside out of Prof. Alice Howland, a 50-year-old brain researcher who senses – but can’t…

A FISH OUT OF WATER Ten years ago, the Tim Burton film Big Fish with Ewan McGregor and Albert Finney, based on Daniel Wallace’s 1998 “novel of mythic proportions,” charmed audiences with its depiction of tall tales turned true. A tribute to storytelling as a gift from one generation to the next, Big Fish is…

THEATER OF CRUELTY (TO THE AUDIENCE, THAT IS) A blast from the past, this 1963 curiosity from the once-living Living Theatre is a tribute to author Kenneth H. Brown’s total recall and recreation of a very ugly world. Written when Brown was a 27-year-old former U.S. Marine, The Brig is his attempt to replicate the…

COMPRESSED CRUELTY IN A SMALL STRINDBERG SHOCKER August Strindberg, the “father of modern psychological drama,” told his publisher that Creditors, a drama that he prized as much as he did his masterpiece Miss Julie (also written in 1888) was “humorous, loveable, all of its characters sympathetic.” Nothing could be further from the truth – as…

YOU GOTTA HAVE FAITH The adventurous playwriting of Tarell Alvin McCraney, who  wrote  the successful “Brother/Sister Plays” (In the Red and Brown Water, The Brothers Size, and Marcus),  is the reason he is Steppenwolf’s newest ensemble member. Now  comes the  fervently meant Steppenwolf Theatre Company world premiere Head of Passes, directed by Tina Landau. The play, McCraney’s African-American version of…

FORGING COMEDY FROM CHAOS Early in The Second City’s 101st revue Let Them Eat Chaos, the excellent Second City veteran Katie Rich sits on the stage alone and alternately chats with the audience, and sings and plays some simple notes on a mini-xylophone. Mixing romantic clichés with ribbing (every parent has a least favorite child,…

A FAMILY HAUNTED BY ITSELF Even among dysfunctional clans – an apparently exhaustible topic for today’s theater – Jason Grote’s self-haunted family in Maria/Stuart gets laurels for looniness.   Unflinchingly depicted in Marti Lyons’ Chicago premiere for Sideshow Theatre Company, these six relatives hide more secrets that the two-act, 130-minute drama is willing to divulge. Instead…