Performing Arts This Weekend
Homecoming 1972
Through 6/23: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 3 PMTheater & Performance
A soldier returns to his Midwest town after being injured in the Vietnam War and tries to make his old life-"football, cars, and Sunday dinners"-make sense again. $15-$32
Lipstick Goes on Last
Through 6/23: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PMTheater & Performance
As former pageant winner Meredith grows up, she must cope with alcoholism and a far-from-perfect family. Meanwhile, her best friend and arch-nemesis are facing their own adult struggles. $30
Reverb
Through 6/23: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PMTheater & Performance
A couple experiences reverberations of their own troublesome pasts, causing a "vicious maze of loving tenderness and mortal combat." $25-$30
Speech and Debate
Through 6/23: Thu-Fri 8 PM, Sat 2 and 8 PM, Sun 2 PMTheater & Performance
Three high school friends set out to reveal one of a teacher's secret online identity in this comedy. $38-$43
The Timey Wimey Fantastic Brilliant Extravaganza (Geronimo!)
Through 6/23: Fri-Sat 10:30 PM, Sun 3 PMTheater & Performance
This performance features "a handful of actors, a colorful scarf, a bow tie, a screwdriver, a robot dog, a big blue box, and adventure nearly 50 years in the making." $10-$15
Brighton Beach Memoirs
Through 5/29: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3:30 PMTheater & Performance
Set in the far reaches of oceanside Brooklyn in the depths of the Great Depression, the first play in Neil Simon's semiautobiographical "Eugene trilogy" surveys the emotional and financial tribulations of an extended Polish-Jewish family. Charlie Bazzell shines as the smart-ass teenage narrator, Eugene. There aren't any obvious weak spots in director Cody Estle's cast, though more than a few actors flubbed lines as they gargled on thick Brooklyn accents. Simon's grand family comedy can feel at times like an entire sitcom season compressed into one sitting, with the first act setting up dilemmas like dominoes for act two's often pat string of resolutions. Ambitious stuff, maybe, but this Raven Theatre revival is up to the task. —Keith Griffith $36-$45
Richard III
Through 6/29: Thu-Sat 8 PMTheater & Performance
The characters in this production of Richard III are a motorcycle gang, and London's Bar in 1970s Pittsburgh is their castle. The post-show concert on Fridays is $5 or free with a Richard III ticket. $15-20
Closing Time and The Imminent Future
Through 6/30: Sundays, 8 PMTheater & Performance
The director of Closing Time describes it as a "noir crrime drama... whose characters are typically greedy, selfish, and amoral." The Imminent Future follows two friends traveling through post-apocalyptic America. $8-12
Hair
Through 6/30: Wed-Fri 8 PM, Sat 2 PM and 8 PM, Sun 2 PMTheater & Performance
American Theater Company presents a rock musical about a batch of young hippies in 1968 New York exploring hedonism while protesting war and inequality. $48-$53
In the Company of Men
Through 6/30: Thu-Fri 8 PM, Sat 5 and 8 PM, Sun 7 PMTheater & Performance
A prank executed by two frustrated businessmen goes awry in this dark comedy. $35-$40
Smokey Joe's Cafe
Through 6/30: Thu-Fri 7:30 PM, Sat 5 and 8 PM, Sun 2 and 6 PMTheater & Performance
Songwriting duo Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller penned some of early rock 'n' roll's biggest hits. This musical revue, revived by Theo Ubique, strings together a few dozen of them in a plotless bender of nostalgia. For anyone interested, director Brenda Didier's cast—rife with good looks and strong voices—does a fine job of it. Melodramatic minidramas like "Charlie Brown" and "Love Potion #9" lend themselves to casual theatrics. Still, my mind wandered to the people behind the songs, rather than the characters in them. How did Big Mama Thornton, the African-American artist who first performed "Hound Dog," feel when Elvis Presley's version took off? But don't let my cynicism ruin a good knee-slapping romp through the total racial harmony of postwar America. —Keith Griffith $25-$46.50
Blood and Gifts
Through 7/28: Wed-Thu 7:30 PM, Fri 8 PM, Sat 4 and 8 PM, Sun 2 PM; no show Sun, 6/30Theater & Performance
If you want to learn how U.S. involvement in the Russian-Afghan war sewed the seeds of 9/11—and Steve Coll's magnificent, 652-page Ghost Wars is too daunting an undertaking—J.T. Rogers's 2010 play is a good start. In the gripping first act, Rogers puts operatives from the CIA, MI6, and ISI on the ground in Pakistan, each hoping to advance his nation's short-term interests by arming just the right Afghan warlords. Afghan commander Khan, meanwhile, plays all ends against the middle. Even though their acting styles can clash, director Nick Bowling's cast make the four-sided chess match harrowing. While the second act loses some urgency—the action moves from shell-shocked Pakistan to buttoned-down D.C.—Timeline Theatre Company's swift, cunningly designed production is always engaging. —Justin Hayford $22-$42
Wellington Avenue United Church of Christ, Baird Hall Theatre, 615 W. Wellington Ave.
Lakeview
773-281-8463Hoodoo Love
Through 7/28: Fri-Sat 8 PM, Sun 3 PMTheater & Performance
Two ambitious blues musicians in 1930s Memphis struggle to love each other in this "brutal look at black life." $30
Yellow Moon
Through 8/4: Tue-Wed 7:30 PM, Thu-Fri 8 PM, Sat 4 and 8 PM, Sun 2 and 6 PMTheater & Performance
A teenage couple, fleeing a murder rap, head to the Scottish highlands in David Greig's unsettling 2006 drama. Told through a series of high-flown interior monologues mixed with spurts of action, the story gets an intimate, borderline-claustrophobic staging in the Writers' Theatre's shoebox of a space. Director Stuart Carden seems intent on overemphasizing the script's weaknesses, barreling noisily through nonsensical transitions. In occasional respites from the clamor, Carden's four cast members find interesting edges to their characters, though never enough to assemble a full picture. Their motivations are impenetrable in the end, leaving a story with life-or-death stakes feeling wispy and insubstantial. —Keith Griffith $35-$60
Goldilocks and the Three Bears
Through 8/16: various times, see websiteTheater & Performance
A family-friendly show about a young girl who discovers a bears' house in the woods. $12
