Theater & Performance Search
AIn't No Crying the Blues (In The Memory of Howlin Wolf)
Through 8/11: Wed-Thu 7:30 PM, Fri 8 PM, Sat 3 and 8 PM, Sun 3 PMTheater & Performance
Rick Stone plays Howlin Wolf, reflecting on the life of the influential blues singer of the 70s. $45-$65
Aloha, Say the Pretty Girls
Through 6/16: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 2 PMTheater & Performance
Naomi Iizuka's comedy features a young group of characters searching for a place while faced with career and location changes while uncovering questions about the nature of the world they live in. $10-$20
Autobahn
Through 6/14: Fri 7:30 PMTheater & Performance
Seven short plays focusing on "deception, disconnection, and dissatisfaction" will each take place in the same setting: the front seat of a car. $10-15
The Bachelors
Wed 5/29, 7 PMTheater & Performance
The staged reading tells the story of two men in the 30s that form a relationship and a life together, based on the original staging by David Zak. $10
The Ballad of Little Duck
Through 6/23: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 7 PM; no show Fri 6/21Theater & Performance
Directed by Rachel Martindale, this play tells the story of a man who loses his girlfriend and child must relive his past and seek redemption. Mature audiences only. $17-$20
Bally Hoo
Open run: Fri 7 PMTheater & Performance
The supper-club floor shows in vintage movies always look like such elegant fun, with Adolphe Menjou sitting ringside in his tux while spunky chorines tap and a smiling tenor croons. I've wondered why something like that couldn't happen now. The people behind Untitled obviously wondered the same thing, and have revived the concept in Bally Hoo. Still, the night I saw this 90-minute, "1930s-style" production, it was more a promising work in progress than a fantasy come true. Richard Strimner had the right voice, style, and application of pomade for his role as emcee; the seven-piece band was clean if not hot; and the four-member chorus line hit their stride doing a cute number about exercise. But the details were often off. Anachronistic belly-dance and musical-saw acts wrecked the mood. The contemporary look of the musicians created dissonance. And while she had some alluring moves, stripper Lady Jack was occasionally betrayed by her costuming. I hope Untitled tightens things up, because this could be delightful. Reader food critic Mike Sula has commented on the dining experience. —Tony Adler $25, food and drink not included, reservations required
Barnum
Through 6/16: Wed 7:30 PM, Thu 2 and 7:30 PM, Fri 8 PM, Sat 2 and 8 PM, Sun 2 PMTheater & Performance
A musical that follows the life of circus master P.T. Barnum. $25-$59
Beast Women
Through 6/1: Sat 10:30 PMTheater & Performance
A multigenre show that highlights the performance talents of Chicago women. $20
Beaten
Through 8/11: Thu 7:30 PM, Fri-Sat 8 PM, Sun 5 PMTheater & Performance
Three generations of women struggle to save each other from abuse. Suggested donation of $32
Big Love
Through 5/25: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 4 PMTheater & Performance
This young couple walked by me as I headed up the street after seeing Charles Mee's Big Love at Strawdog Theatre. They were probably in their late teens, early 20s. The boy put the girl in a headlock and kissed the part in her hair. She laughed, but in a fakey, uncertain way, like she hadn't quite decided whether she should be pissed or pleased. Still, when he let go, she stuck with him. And there you have it: the paradoxical, not to say creepy, glory of love. A headlock and a kiss. Big Love draws wisdom from that paradox. An oddball yet deadly serious update on Aeschylus's The Suppliants, it tells the tale of 50 (yes, 50) Greek sisters whose father has promised them in marriage to their 50 male cousins. Rather than go through with the wedding, the sisters commandeer a yacht and head for Italy, where—still in their bridal gowns—they ask asylum of wealthy Piero. Soon enough, the 50 cousins show up at Piero's estate as well. What follows is a comic, tragic, utterly terrific battle that makes The Taming of the Shrew look like the kid's stuff it essentially is. Matt Hawkins's staging is also terrific. The precisely choreographed cast of 30 (yes, 30) play for keeps—especially those in featured roles, such as the fierce Michaela Petro, the convincingly dangerous Shane Kenyon, the girly-girlish Sarah Goeden, and Stacy Stoltz and John Ferrick as gender warriors who find themselves caught behind enemy lines. Paul Fagen and Cheryl Roy float through in delightful character roles, and Mike Mroch's apparently simple set discloses its value as the show goes along. All in all, this Big Love is a marvel of big ensemble work in a tiny space. —Tony Adler $28
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
773-281-8463Blue Man Group
Open run: Thu 8 PM, Fri 7 PM, Sat 4, 7, and 10 PM, Sun 4 and 7 PM 773-348-4000Theater & Performance
At the Briar Street Theatre since 1997, the cobalt zanies have added wizard-worthy tricks to an already potent mix of visual puns, physical stunts, and cultural commentary. The latest edition conjures up a 2.5-D universe, giant "GiPads" that perform outsized multitasking, and Lady Gaga hat spin-offs. The same subversive spirit fuels the show's still-potent signature bits, including splatter-crazed "paint drumming." The secret of their cerulean success? Understanding that laughter and thought can be BFFs. —Lawrence Bommer $49-$59
Boobs & Goombas: A Super Mario Burlesque
Saturdays, 12 a.m.Theater & Performance
Originally, Mario's famous mustache was just an animator's dodge, a way to avoid rendering detailed facial features on the eight-bit NES. At the very end of Gorilla Tango's clunky, opportunistic spoof on the long-running Nintendo franchise, performer Paly Flames takes off her thick Mario 'stache, and her strikingly beautiful visage may be the show's most sensual reveal. The burlesque numbers are hurried, the periodic audience shakedowns for "coins" distracting, and the parlor-psychology dives into Mario and Luigi's motivations exasperating. Director Jeremy Eden's cast includes attractive women of all body types, but hearing the "level up" sound effect when they flashed pasties made me cringe. If self-empowered sexuality and the conquer-and-proceed imperatives of video games can comfortably coexist, they don't do it here. –Keith Griffith $35
The Book of Mormon
Through 10/6: Tue-Fri 7:30 PM, Sat 2 and 8 PM, Sun 2 and 7:30 PMTheater & Performance
I know it'll seem incomprehensible to you fans of talking turds, but I've never paid Comedy Central's South Park much mind one way or another. And when New York fell all over itself last year appreciating The Book of Mormon, I wondered if there wasn't just a smidge of hyperbole in calling the musical by South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone (along with Robert Lopez) the best of the "century." Now that I've seen the Chicago production, however, I've been—well—converted. A wise mix of nasty satire and compassionate truth telling, Parker, Stone, and Lopez's tale of Mormon missionaries in Uganda is as entertaining—and, strangely, uplifting—a piece of work as anything in recent American theater. Although the book draws whole quivers full of big red arrows to everything that's ludicrous about the Mormon way, it also ends up making a case for the hope we all derive from silly myths. Meanwhile, playful as it is, it ranks up there with Lynn Nottage's Ruined in exposing the danger, dignity, and distortions of African life. The cast is uniformly and perfectly seductive. And is that Steppenwolf's famously earnest James Vincent Meredith, showing a new side of himself as the Ugandan village chief? Incredible. —Tony Adler
$65-$125
The Brig
Through 5/26: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 7 PMTheater & Performance
Kenneth H. Brown's meticulous depiction of a day in a Marine prison camp caused a sensation when it premiered at New York's Living Theater in 1963. The guards' unrelenting, systematic dehumanization of their fellow Marine prisoners is appalling, especially since the abuse seems intended to instill loyalty to the Corps. And Brown's near-total eschewal of plot—the maltreatment goes on until it simply stops—removes any comforting fictive filter between audience and action. Wisely, director Jennifer Markowitz does nothing to make her Mary-Arrchie production enjoyable. Her actors endure an hour of exhausting physical drills while we watch from various uncomfortable locations. As movement theater, it's grotesquely beautiful; as a glimpse into the darkest recesses of male psychology, it's sickening. —Justin Hayford $25
