Events Search – Closing (Theater and Galleries)
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
The Birdfeeder Doesn't Know
Sun-Wed 5/19-5/22: 7:30 PMTheater & Performance
A couple's relationship with their disabled son encounters rough patches as he grows up. $10
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
The Circus Collages of C.T. McClusky
Through 5/25:Galleries
The complete collection of McClusky's collages, which he made from household objects and that depict his life as a traveling circus clown. Reception Fri 1/11, 5-8 PM.
756 N. Milwaukee Ave.
River West
312-243-9088Death Takes a Holiday
Through 5/26: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 3 PMTheater & Performance
What did everybody else take—a sedative? In this soporific 2011 musical, based on an Italian play by Alberto Casella (it was made into a movie in 1934 and remade, as Meet Joe Black, in 1998), the Grim Reaper disguises himself as a handsome Russian prince to spend a weekend at a duke's villa. When he falls in love with his host's daughter, Death learns to appreciate life. Too bad there's no sign of a pulse in Peter Stone and Thomas Meehan's slow-moving book or Maury Yeston's operetta-like score. And Elizabeth Margolius's staging for Circle Theatre is about as spirited as a funeral, featuring dim lighting, pallid performances, and a cumbersome, staircase-dominated set (designed by Peter O'Neill) that leaves the cast looking isolated and far away. —Zac Thompson $30-$32
Don't Blink: A Doctor Who Burlesque
First Friday of every month, 9 p.m.Theater & Performance
Eleven actors have played the title role on Doctor Who over the years--a fact the creators of the long-running British sci-fi television series acknowledge with a plot device called "regeneration." Quirks like that make it risky to stage a parody of the show, since they can render things difficult for the uninitiated. But the friend I brought with me to see this Gorilla Tango burlesque knew nothing about the series and still laughed at all the jokes--particularly the ones having to do with regeneration. Busty Warren's smart writing, the cast members' comically awful Brit accents, and a judicious use of bawdry make Don't Blink a success--though Kay Smiles's amateurish choreography grows tiresome towards the end. --Tal Rosenberg $28-$35
The Elephant and the Whale
Through 5/26: Tue 10 AM, Wed 10 AM and 12 PM, Thu-Fri 10 AM and 6:30 PM, Sat 11 AM and 6 PM, Sun 11 AMTheater & Performance
Chicago Children's Theatre's enchanting collaboration with Redmoon isn't necessarily for children—call it a childlike play for adults. While it'll attract the interest of the preteen set, its themes of loyalty, sacrifice, and resignation to the vagaries of fate are decidedly grown-up. I'm not complaining; better to aim slightly above kids than talk down to them. On its surface, The Elephant and the Whale is a simple fable about an impossible friendship. It's 1919, and the Hoogebeck Family Circus is failing, to the surprise of no one (their "small-to-medium top" features the 11th-best unicyclist in the greater midwest). Shameless huckster Quigley buys the operation and sidelines its star attraction, the acrobatic elephant Ella. When Quigley mistakenly inherits a baby whale, Ella bonds with her fellow oversize captive. They communicate by singing, which Quigley makes the centerpiece of his show—unaware that their songs are elaborate escape plans. Seth Bockley wrote the silly, heart-wrenching script from a story he conceived with directors Frank Maugeri and Leslie Buxbaum Danzig, who put all manner of low-tech sophistication—stick puppets, toys, masks, projections, scrolling murals—into the hands of the delightfully mishap-prone four-person cast. Bockley and Kevin O'Donnell's forlorn folk score can be cryptic, and the story includes audacious logical gaps. The results may leave your five-year-old perplexed, but they might also amplify his imagination—and yours too. —Justin Hayford $25
1016 N. Dearborn St.
Gold Coast/Mag Mile/Streeterville
312-337-6543Enchanted April
Through 5/26: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 3PM; additional shows Wed 5/8 and 5/22, 1 PM, Sat 5/4 and 5/18, 1 PM.Theater & Performance
Citadel Theatre presents a romance about a group of women who rediscover themselves during a trip to Italy. $35-$37.50
Homeward Bound
Through 5/22Galleries
New sculptures from Stacey Holloway. Viewing by appointment only. Reception Fri 3/22, 6-9 PM.
How To End Poverty in 90 Minutes
Through 5/25: various times, see websiteTheater & Performance
A multidisciplinary performance, including elements of lecture and physical theater, that poses the question: "How do you attack the poverty problem in America?" $10-$25
The Hunting of the Snark
Through 5/28: Sun-Tue 8 PMTheater & Performance
Lewis Carroll's 1874 poem, about a boatload of ill-prepared would-be huntsmen tracking a never seen but possibly deadly creature, may be a heavily coded memorial to his uncle, a lunatic-asylum inspector killed by a patient a few months before the poem's creation. Or it may be pure nonsense. Whatever it is, its exacting rhyme scheme creates a giddy tension between formality and fancy, giving the cryptic work its power. Director Josh Sobel packs ample Carrollesque fancy into Strawdog Theatre Company's 50-minute adaptation, his childlike 12-person cast embarking on spontaneous adventures and inventing ingenious images out of suitcases, bits of rope, and handheld lights. But they play the silliness, never the seriousness—forgetting that Carroll himself delivered whimsy with an unwavering poker face. —Justin Hayford $15
The Jettisoned
Through 5/26Galleries
Inspired by "the tradition of the tableau vivant in painting and photography as it maps representations of identity and the bodily," Yoni Goldstein and Meredith Zielke created this experimental film installation depicting scenes of living portraiture. Part of Anatomy in the Gallery. Reception Fri 3/22, 5-8 PM.
Just Another Love Story: The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet
Through 5/25: Fri-Sat 8 PMTheater & Performance
An LGBTQ reimagining of Shakespeare's classic romance. $20
The Lake Effect
Through 5/26: Tue-Thu 7:30 PM, Fri 8 PM, Sat-Sun 4 PMTheater & Performance
Playwright Rajiv Joseph is best known for Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, which was introduced to Chicago last winter by the Lookingglass Theatre Company. A Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2010, the play offers a dreamlike, absurd, yet morally and politically serious evocation of Dubya's Iraq war—narrated by the title cat, who's killed for biting off an American soldier's hand only to find himself walking the ruined streets of Baghdad as a ghost. Don't expect the same sort of experience from The Lake Effect, the Joseph script getting an uneven but involving world-premiere production now at Silk Road Rising. This one is a totally different animal. Continue reading >> $35
