Chicago

WATKINS HAS US IN THE PALM OF HIS HANDS I had one reservation headed into The House Theatre of Chicago’s The Magic Parlour: almost every magic show I had ever been to has been obnoxiously showy, laughably cheap, or both. I grew up seeing magicians at birthday parties, went to magic shops and learned card…

A LUKEWARM PRODUCTION OF A HOT SCRIPT This July, Pastime Theatre is ripping off their clothes and inviting audiences to join in on the fun. “Naked July: Art Stripped Down” is a theatre festival, part in celebration of the human body, part in celebration of the opening of Pastime’s new space – which, oddly enough,…

THE YODELING ROCKS, THE SHOW DOES NOT Before Adam Guettel was declared the next Sondheim by many for his beautiful, swelling Light in the Piazza score, he drew on the rich folk sounds of Kentucky for the tale of Floyd Collins. This lesser-known musical is the true-life story about a passionate Kentucky spelunker whose foot…

LET ME GO, LOVER I’ll be the first to admit as a twenty-something that  I don’t know what it’s like to feel like your sex life has passed you by – something I’m told that many couples experience in their later years. Harold Pinter’s one-act The Lover seeks to explore one middle-aged couple’s attempt to spice…

FRESH NEW REVUE AT SECOND CITY Four of the six performers in the new Second City e.t.c. revue We’re All in This Room Together never appeared on a Second City mainstage before. And this is only the second show for the other two players. But youth and inexperience were not a factor on the opening…

HERO NEEDS TO ZERO IN ON THE BOOK Hero, a brand new musical at the Marriott Theatre, has enough warmth and humor to provide a pleasant evening of light summer entertainment, but the work of composer/lyricist Michael Mahler outshines that of the problematic book by Aaron Thielen, so whether or not the show has the…

MR. SANDMAN, BRING ME A NIGHTMARE There is something passing strange at the Oracle Theatre, and you won’t want to miss it. In Oracle’s The Sandman, dreams are not to be trusted, illusion and reality are constantly confused, and childhood fairytales prove to be fatal. Bob Fisher’s stage adaptation of E.T.A Hoffman’s 1816 fantastical, somewhat…

SOUTH OF SETTLING PROVIDES AN INTIMATE LOOK AT FAMILY LIFE The best part of the Emmy-winning television series Friday Night Lights isn’t the football drama, but the amazing chemistry between the actors that play the power couple of Coach Eric and Tami Taylor as they navigate life in small town Texas. Set in neighboring Louisiana,…

SHANGHAIED It takes a rare courage to brave Chicago’s Navy Pier during the summer. A combination of lines and advertisements threaten to ensnare you and your wallet with just a simple misstep. And amongst all this, Chicagoans like myself will be confronted with the Kafka-esque fear of feeling like one of them’”by “them,” I of…

A FRAGILE PRODUCTION STILL RESONATES Stepping from the bustling, sunny streets of Lincoln Park into Steppenwolf’s Garage Theatre feels like traveling back almost a century into the sepia-toned vision of disillusionment and despair that marked the Depression era. The dark, claustrophobic space is perfectly suited for The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams’ portrait of a family…

LITTLE-KNOWN CHICAGO DISASTER BECOMES TOWERING MUSICAL Eastland: A New Musical is the Lookingglass Theatre’s stunning meditation on one of the most terrible disasters in Chicago history: On the morning of July 25, 1915, an excursion boat overloaded with 2,500 people tipped over while docked along the Chicago River in downtown Chicago. The death toll was…

ABBA-DABBA-DO Delivered by an exuberant and attractive cast of young singers and dancers, Dancing Queen is an all-singing-all-dancing, high-energy nostalgia show that tries to churn its audience with happy memories of the songs of ABBA and other disco flag-wavers of the 1970’s. Even with no story and no dialogue, the hits, as they say, just…

A TRIUMPHANT FLY TO BUZZ ABOUT I won’t try to tell you the plot of Anger/Fly, other than that a fly lands in soup and the world ends. In Theatre of the Absurd, plot is rarely the point – and even if it is, it’s nearly unintelligible. The setting and the characters, too, are lost….

THESE MUPPETS ARE NOT FOR PUBLIC TELEVISION There is something disconcerting about watching an R-rated Muppets show. After all, for decades the Muppets television shows and movies have been the gold standard for family entertainment, funny and endearing for children and droll and hip for adults. Now comes a 75-minute live show called Stuffed and…

A RUDE AWAKENING In his 2011 Northwestern commencement address, Stephen Colbert told alumni that they may have been told to follow their dreams, but that sometimes dreams can change, especially if your first dream is a stupid one. That’s not advice that protagonist John Chapman is prepared to accept in I am Going to Change…

GUESS WHO’S COMING TO THE WEDDING DINNER? Immediate Family, written by Chicago actor and playwright Paul Oakley Stovall, is part sitcom and part dysfunctional family drama, garnished with racial and gay humor that flows into racial and gay tensions. As directed by Phylicia Rashad, it’s a pretty good play right now, but needs some tweaking…