BONDAGE IN EGYPT AND VIRGINIA Of the 150,000 Jews who lived in the U.S during the Civil War, twice as many (6,000) fought for the Union as for the Confederacy. Less well-known is the fact that hundreds of Southern Jews owned, sold, bought and interbred with slaves: One minority in effect profited from the miseries…

A CIRCUS BUT NO BREAD The theater space is a cavernous church gym with lousy acoustics. The intrepid thespians at Red Tape Theatre transform it into the title setting, an arena of death without dignity: It’s set in an American war zone (presumably to show the interconnection between the violence of reality T.V. and actual…

RELIABLE CROWD-PLEASER ONCE AGAIN, WELL, PLEASES THE CROWD Puccini’s La Bohème has succeeded numerous times at Lyric Opera since its first performance in 1954, but their newest production is fresh and satisfying. First of all, it’s hard to go wrong (in general) with La Bohème, a relatively light tragedy buoyed with easy-to-love characters, provocative music…

A SPECTACULAR AND FASCINATING JOURNEY IN WHICH THINGS ARE NOT AS THEY SEEM Cameras have evolved from room-sized camera obscuras, to the box-like contraption of the nineteenth century, to the mundane and miniscule phone cameras in every modern pocket. We are now subject to constant documentation and the distribution of images can be global and…

BEST NOT TO SEE THIS PLAY ON A FIRST DATE The Raven Theatre is celebrating its 30th Anniversary Season with the return of Rebecca Gilman’s Boy Gets Girl, which debuted at the Goodman Theatre in 2000. Much has changed since then in our world: The economy, global revolutions, technological gadgets and the acceptance of gay…

SLOW, SAD AND STRANGE Sooner or later (preferably the former), we expect a play to pay off – to deliver a “gotcha” revelation that makes sudden or accumulated sense out of what seemed to be aimless exposition. A less than engrossing Chicago premiere at A Red Orchid Theatre, Annie Baker’s slow-paced, torpidly talky and seemingly…

AMERICA’S BEST NOTES Beginning its first new season of self-generated musicals, the Mercury Theater has, true to its name, raised the temperature with A Grand Night for Singing, a heartfelt, if sometimes overwrought, salute which happily honors and delightfully reprises the glorious, all-American (in the best sense) Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals and their inexhaustible legacy…