YOU CAN NEVER GO HOME’”AGAIN Chaim Potok’s 1972 novel My Name is Asher Lev is a coming-of-age story that pits one passion against another. It depicts the declaration of independence by a young Jewish artist from his rigid Hasidic childhood and a family where obedience is prized over self-expression. Aaron Posner’s successful, 90-minute stage adaptation,…

A POWERFUL PLAY EVEN WITH A PLOT AS POINTLESS AS ITS PEOPLE With Ecstasy, now being revived at A Red Orchid Theatre, a new Chicago theater succeeds at first: Cole Theatre Company establishes its roots in realism with a play that’s older than most of the actors. Made famous in 1997 by Roadworks Productions’ trenchant…

THIS SHOW’S ON FIRE “Ich bin ein Biedermann” isn’t what President Kennedy famously said in Berlin in 1963, but it’s something playwright Max Frisch might have said while writing Herr Biedermann und die Brandstifter in 1958. Now translated as The Arsonists in Alistair  Beaton’s 2007 version, Frisch’s comedy explores the complex interplay between perception and reality….

BREAKING BETTER He who laughs last laughs best’”especially when you overcome an addiction to methamphetamine. So, after recovery, what do you do next? (And I don’t mean Disneyland.) You turn pain into gain. You write and act out Methtacular!, a strategically comic postcard from the edge. In a manic, memorable 90 minutes, thirtysomething Steven Strafford…

THE SEAGULL AS AN ALBATROSS At over two hours, it’s almost as long as its source. So it’s a good thing that Stupid Fucking Bird is more than a parody or it would soon lose its welcome. Aaron Posner’s reductionist, presentational semi-musical and meta-theatrical updating of Chekhov’s The Seagull, a drama where one generation frustrates…

THE GREAT GAY IMPROVISERS You could call it an action meditation on marriage. As if to sum up his own theatrical legacy, as well as 70 years of gay life and love, Terrence McNally’s valedictory drama Some Men is a collage that merrily defies chronology. The reason: To prevent us from confusing the challenges of…

A TRAGEDY OF EPIC PROPORTIONS Writing a play of more than 800 pages that takes twelve hours to perform is both an act of hubris and an act of genius. Written and directed by The Hypocrites’ founder Sean Graney, All Our Tragic distills all 32 surviving Greek tragedies into one nearly seamless narrative. The result…

A REVIVAL WHICH ISN’T FIDDLING AROUND “To Life” indeed. There’s a ton of it, not to mention heartbreak and wisdom, in Rudy Hogenmiller’s warmly wise revival, Light Opera Works’ second coming in 11 years. The universality of this nearly flawless, 50-year-old musical comes from its spontaneous specifics, the story of a scripture-citing, God-fearless milkman who’s…