BLACK IS BACK The “Man in Black” is back. Actually, it’s more like a non sci-fi “Men in Black”: It takes both Kent M. Lewis and Michael Monroe Goodman to play, respectively, the mature and younger Johnny Cash. Ring of Fire: The Music of Johnny Cash, a sensation at Indiana’s Theater at the Center, is…

BLUES IN THE NIGHT Side Man is a superb title. It fits the story/situation splendidly. Warren Leight’s 1999 Tony-winning memory play is narrated by a son named Clifford, its subject his jazz musician dad Gene and his hardluck mother Terry. Moving laterally from gig to gig, prospering only between Sinatra and Elvis, Gene’s only musical…

PRUDENCE AND PASSION Offhand, sense and sensibility hardly seem antonyms. As the Brits say, it’s a distinction without a difference. But in Jane Austen’s 1811 novel of the same name (her first success) two sisters set each other off (in every sense) by hewing to supposed extremes. Daughters whose father’s death has lost them Norland,…

SISTERS AND SOLDIERS Following their rather loose and unconventional takes on Greek tragedy and Gilbert and Sullivan, The Hypocrites return to a more classic approach with Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters. What gives the production its freshness is the use of a contemporary, idiomatic translation. This helps smooth over some of the awkwardness of the narrative…

ANCIENT LAUGHS TIMES TEN An irresistible mix of Roman “new comedy,” commedia dell’arte, and vaudeville, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum rivals The Producers as the funniest musical comedy ever–and the future seems no threat. Not seen in Chicago since Goodman Theatre’s lavish 1988 production, the once and future 1962 smasheroo…

OSCAR PLEADS FOR MERCY “We are all of us lying in the gutter–but some of us are staring at the stars.” This fusion of original sin and the saving power of grace fuels the artful ambivalences in Lady Windermere’s Fan. A well-made play with an untidy moral, Oscar Wilde’s four-act 1892 comedy traces the fault…

CHICAGO’S CIVIL WAR A grand dream is now completed. Over the last five years City Lit has delivered five old and new works to mark the Sesquicentennial of the Civil War, now finished with the 150th anniversary of the Appomattox surrender. Ending the reckoning is the series’ most documentary-like drama: Set in Illinois in the…

MUSICAL MEASURES Grandstine, the beloved Mississippi matriarch of the Harris clan, has died and gone to her reward. Her many loved ones return to their roots for a “going to heaven” sendoff for the founder of the feast. That’s the premise–and it’s excuse enough–for Sounds So Sweet, a fulsome tribute to one family’s values and…

THE CONTINUUM OF LOVE Ethan Lipton is a magic maker who’s mastered the art of intertwining characters. The five lost and found souls in his 2012 offering  Red Handed Otter  are security-guard colleagues at an unnamed facility. They come together or fall apart as naturally as any rival representations from real life. The hilarious anecdotes they share,…