Chicago

COUNTRY MUSIC PARODY BETTER THAN COUNTRY MUSIC ITSELF Country music can be whiney, right wing, corny, and macho. In the case of The Doyle and Debbie Show, it is also hilarious. I am no lover of country music, but who can resist a revue that includes numbers like “Stock Car Love,” “Barefoot and Pregnant,” and…

PORTRAYALS BRING BUS STOP TO LIFE William Inge was a hot American playwright during the 1950’s, but in the turbulent 1960’s and beyond, his realistic studies of small town Midwestern life became unfashionable. Lately, Inge has reappeared on the radar of important American playwrights, with theaters and audiences again finding pleasure in his sturdy dramaturgy…

TWO PLAYS IN ONE What is the purpose of theater? Some say that it is to reflect reality while being entertaining, enlightening, and/or educating. Yet when Shakespeare wrote that theatre is designed to “hold, as ’twere, the mirror up to Nature,” his character of Hamlet actually used theatre to shape reality, not merely reflect it….

THE SHADOW OF A GREAT PLAY The birth of the Irish Republic occurred around Dublin in 1916. Aiming to end British rule, Irish Volunteers staged an insurrection known as the Easter Rising, a rebellion many Irishmen did not support. However, after quelling the week-long insurrection, the British Government’s hostile reaction – including conscription (compulsory enlistment)…

WHO IS TO SAY WHAT IS REAL? Tom Stoppard is the thinking person’s playwright. Ever since his breakout hit Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead in 1967, the erudite scribe has been earmarked an absurdist, one whose work concentrates on the futility of man’s search for meaning in a meaningless existence. As with all Theatre of…

WHAT WE FIND IN THIS ATTIC IS A CASE OF THE CUTES It was a privilege to witness Snapshots: A Musical Scrapbook at Northlight Theatre, for this reviewer has never seen anything like it before. An omnibus of previously published Stephen Schwartz songs (not trunk songs, mind you, but songs taken from formerly produced shows)…

LITERATURE NOT MEANT TO BE STAGED Halfway through the first act of Brand at Red Tape theatre, it occurred to me that I had no idea what was going on. First of all, it can be argued that Henrik Ibsen’s 1866 dramatic poem (some call it a Verse-Drama) was not written to be staged. The…

LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO DYSFUNCTION What becomes a new artistic director? Ambition, with a two-fisted delivery. Timothy Douglas, the new chief of the Remy Bumppo Theatre Company, bravely goes bare-knuckles as the director of Mourning Becomes Electra. The production is Gordon Edelstein’s adaptation of Eugene O’Neill’s play, which updates the story of Orestes by following…

THIS MUSICAL IS MURDER Dear Drury Lane Theatre: Since your production of Sweeney Todd is closing this week, please allow me to write a love letter to you for giving me the privilege of witnessing the finest production of Stephen Sondheim’s masterpiece that this critic has ever seen. My first time was the original Broadway…

A PALE SHADE OF RED The closing stage picture in John Logan’s 2010 Tony-winning Red at the Goodman is about as thrilling and breathtaking as theater gets: as Abstract Expressionist painter Mark Rothko (Edward Gero) examines one of his paintings commissioned by an upscale restaurant in New York, the spectacular lighting (Keith Parham) and set…

REVUE REVIEW Richard Maltby, Jr., and David Shire are not household names among the teams of composers who have contributed to the American musical stage. Although their collaboration goes back to their college days at Yale, they only have two Broadway shows to their credit: Baby (1983), a favorite among regional theaters, and Big (1996),…

FORGIVE AND FORGET The Amish people of Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, taught the world a sobering lesson in 2006 when they instantly forgave the man who murdered five girls in their one-room schoolhouse. They offered condolences to – and even shared donations meant for the victims’ families – with the murderer’s widow. Here was a man…

WHAT ARE ANY OF US BUT A COLLECTION OF STORIES? Collaboraction’s 1001 spins the audience into a delightful vertigo. This whirling postmodern adaptation of The Arabian Nights collapses time and space, drawing vital connections across wildly disparate cultures and eras. Jason Grote’s poetic new play cleverly paces itself. After a shocking nuclear explosion, the collection…

  FOR THOSE WHO LIKE TO WATCH The rumblings of the elevated train beside Steep Theatre are chillingly atmospheric for the Midwest premiere of Simon Stephens’ Pornography. After all, this collection of monologues and two-person scenes are unified by an intense week in London in 2005, which included the Live 8 Concert, the G8 summit,…

CARLO COLLODI’S CLASSIC TALE COMES TO LIFE At the heart of Chicago’s Navy Pier lies the stunning Chicago Shakespeare Theater. On a recent Wednesday morning, this 500-seat space was packed with eager families and young summer campers for The Adventures of Pinocchio. Despite some narrative rockiness in this new musical, it is thrilling to see…

IN THE BEGINNING, IT WAS EVEN GREASIER Apparently Los Angeles is not the only city prone to over-praise its local theater. American Theater Company’s The Original Grease has been receiving consistently strong reviews and national attention for its return to the “gritty” musical that started at Chicago’s Kingston Mines Theatre Company in 1971. While a…

NOTHING FEEDS YOUR HEART LIKE A GOOD STORY Truth be told, The Last Act of Lilka Kadison chronicles an entirely conventional story – but Lookingglass Theatre’s production elevates this historical melodrama to a work of theatrical magic. Written by Nicola Behrman, David Kersnar, Abbie Phillips, Heidi Stillman, and Andrew White, The Last Act of Lilka…

STEPPENWOLF PROVES ITS WORTHY REPUTATION Will Eno’s Middletown suggests that life is a black hole; there will always be a gulf between reality and our perception of it, between our desire for human connection and our ability to actually connect. Loneliness pervades this small mid-American town. Yet in a beautiful production, Steppenwolf fosters an inspiring…