Areas We Cover
Categories
Tours
-
Theater Review: CATS (National Tour, 2019)
KITTY LITTER If I had my way, the slogan for Cats would be changed from “Now and Forever” to “Not Now, Not Ever.” Even when I saw the show back in the early 80s and again in the early 90s, I simply couldn’t make it through another act and bolted at intermission. After seeing the…
-
Theater Review: A BRONX TALE (North American Tour)
A BRONX CHEER Unpretentious and unpreaching in its streetwise survival lore, the gangster fable A Bronx Tale is, as the name implies, just one of many small sagas from the lesser borough. Now on tour, this 2016 musical has a book by Chazz Palminteri, based on his semi-autobiographical solo show and the 1993 film directed by…
-
Theater Review: THE CHOIR OF MAN (National Tour)
IN PRAISE OF THE PUB There’s no need for a plot, three-dimensional characters, or conflicts pending resolution — no, not when the setting and its songs sell themselves from the start. That feel-good premise pays off over 80 minutes in The Choir of Man, a British import now playing Chicago’s Broadway Playhouse on its first…
-
Las Vegas Theater Review: PUPPETRY OF THE PENIS (Jewel Box at the Erotic Heritage Museum in Las Vegas)
THE WRONGEST SHOW IN TOWN I never knew that I was a prude until I attended Puppetry of the Penis at The Jewel Box inside Las Vegas’s Erotic Heritage Museum. Silly me; since it had played, among other venues, at the Edinburgh Theater Festival as well as Off-Broadway for a respectable run in New York,…
-
Theater Review: WHAT IF THEY WENT TO MOSCOW? (Christiane Jatahy at REDCAT)
YOU MOSCOW, YOU MOSCOW The avant-garde seems more interested in re-invention these days than in invention, but from the point of view of someone who had thought that there was nothing new under the sun in the theater, it is amazing to come across, in the space of one year, Daniel Fish’s re-imagining of Oklahoma! in…
-
Dance Review: MATTHEW BOURNE’S CINDERELLA (International Tour at The Ahmanson in Los Angeles)
IF THE BLITZ FITS… The audacious, eccentric and flashily theatrical choreographer, Matthew Bourne, is a man full of interesting ideas, most of which, under close scrutiny, are fairly half-baked, but prove catnip to dance enthusiasts while driving serious balletomanes to distraction. There’s the famous all-male Swan Lake and a theatricalization of The Red Shoes, the…
-
Theater Preview: AN INSPECTOR CALLS (The Yard at Chicago Shakespeare)
SOCIETY UNDER CLOSE INSPECTION An Inspector Calls was first performed in 1945 at a time of great change — both World Wars were fresh in the minds of the people, women had become more prominent in the workplace, and it was possible to be class mobile, which is the idea that people can move upwards in class through…
-
Theater Review: THE B-SIDE: “NEGRO FOLKLORE FROM TEXAS STATE PRISONS” A RECORD ALBUM INTERPRETATION (Wooster Group at REDCAT)
B-SIDE MYSELF Breathes there a soul who hasn’t sung along with a favorite album? And, ah, if the songs we sing were rare and challenging and related to one’s life, we might have all approached The Wooster Group’s Kate Valk, as Eric Berryman did with his 1965 Elektra recording Negro Folklore from Texas State Prisons,…
-
Theater Review: HELLO, DOLLY! (National Tour)
BUCKLEY BUCKLES A BIT, BUT DOLLY DEFINITELY DELIVERS To start with, let’s agree to never say “Goodbye, Dolly.” Thornton Wilder’s genius for the common touch isn’t just a golden legacy in Our Town or The Skin of Our Teeth, both perfect comedies of life. There’s almost as much warm wisdom in The Matchmaker, Wilder’s craftily-plotted 1955 mating romp that…
-
Concert Review: BERNADETTE PETERS (Disney Hall)
SAINT BERNADETTE Now that she’s hung up her late-Victorian hat after taking over for Bette Midler in Hello, Dolly! on Broadway last year, the inimitable Bernadette Peters has embarked on another international tour, making a stop at Disney Hall last Tuesday to share her love of theater, singing selections from musicals as if for the…
-
Theater Review: US/THEM (Chicago Shakespeare)
OUT OF THE BLOOD OF BABES It’s a probably thankless and certainly unsettling undertaking: Us/Them is an hour-long performance piece by two young members of the Belgian troupe BRONKS. It dares to depict the 2004 Beslan school siege and massacre from the point of view of two child victims: One survives the take-over by 35 Chechen separatists….
-
Theater Review: AN INSPECTOR CALLS (The Wallis)
MAKE A CALL ON THIS INSPECTOR In Stephen Daldry’s architectually inspired revival of J.B. Priestley’s An Inspector Calls, an astute mixture of comedy of manners/tragedy of class/family crisis/ socialism versus capitalism/whodunit, the audience is asked, along with a trio of curious children, to get past that heavy red velvet curtain and enter a world of…
-
Theater Review: THE LIGHTNING THIEF: THE PERCY JACKSON MUSICAL (North American Tour)
LIGHTNING IN A BOTTLE, OR AN EMPOWER SHORTAGE? Holy Hades! It’s an all-purpose victim’s ur-dream of getting even: Every misunderstood teenager secretly imagines he was born better than life lets him show (off). Take that tonic/toxic delusion further: Supposing the Greek gods had secret kids — why not believe that you’re a demigod, not an…
-
Dance & Music Preview: HUBBARD STREET DANCE CHICAGO & THIRD COAST PERCUSSION (The Wallis)
HUBBA-HUBBA-HUBBARD As one of the world’s most important contemporary dance companies, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago encompasses a vast array of techniques and forms, as well as an understanding of abstract artistry and the emotional nuances of movement. With an exuberant, athletic, and innovative repertoire, Hubbard Street presents performances that inspire, yes, but also challenge how…
-
Theater Review: THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG (National Tour)
THE PLAY ABOUT THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG GOES WRONG The title is brutally honest — and you can’t say you weren’t warned. In the style of Monty Python and Michael Frayn’s self-destroying farce Noises Off (an infinitely cleverer romp), The Play That Goes Wrong, a 2015 London hit written by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields, is…
-
Review: COME FROM AWAY (North American Tour)
A NEWFOUND(LAND) WAY OF LOOKING AT MUSICAL THEATER This intimate ensemble piece may only have one stand-alone song, and it may not even be the best-crafted musical or have the emotional impact it could have, but it’s a cultural blessing when a show comes along that melts away the coldness of our polarized times by…
-
Dance Preview: GEORGE BALANCHINE’S THE NUTCRACKER (Miami City Ballet at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion)
CRACK AWAY Miami City Ballet’s new redesign of the magical George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker, featuring enchanting new costumes and sets by the Cuban-American artist/designer power couple Isabel and Ruben Toledo, Balanchine’s glorious choreography, and Tchaikovsky’s beloved timeless score, returns to The Music Center, having had its world premiere in Los Angeles last year. Running November 30 through December…
-
Review: DAVID SEDARIS (Royce Hall at UCLA)
BALLGOWN AT A URINAL Bestselling author David Sedaris provided evidence Friday night that he has not exaggerated in the stories he has written about shopping in Japan with his sisters Amy and Gretchen. The three of them (or sometimes just two) giddily, and with acknowledged codependence, buy clothes that are outrageous and often outrageously expensive….
-
Dance Review: DON QUIXOTE (Mikhailovsky Ballet)
DANCING AT WINDMILLS It’s surprising for those who have never seen this ballet before, but Don Quixote isn’t really about that legendary knight who is forever battling evil and seeking his Dulcinea. In fact, the Don is only an ancillary character in the ballet, which centers around two young Spanish lovers, Kitri and Basilio, who…
-
Theater Review: A BRONX TALE (North American Tour)
CULTURE CLASH Narratively, there are two cultural clashes at the center of A Bronx Tale, now at the Pantages as part of its North American Tour. Italians and African-Americans are on opposite sides, as are the mafia and law-abiding citizens. There is also a third clash, though, and it’s the one that matters most: The clash…
Search Articles
Please help keep
Stage and Cinema going!
