Events This Weekend – New Review (Theater and Comedy)
Criminal Mischief
Through 8/25: Sun 8:30 PMTheater & Performance
The audience acts as jury at this Law and Order-inspired comedy court, and also suggests the crime: on the night I attended, the crowd came up with failure to practice the piano. Some of the more inspired bits referenced the long-running television series, including detective Eliot Stabler's trademark woundedness. Legacy, the group assembled here, are ComedySportz players from around the country who are now based in Chicago; they've got the chops to play this for more than you'd expect. Even when a joke fails (which, hey, it might—one audience suggestion required a series of bits about screwdrivers), they take care of each other, so the flops come off as part of the fun. —Suzanne Scanlon $5
773-549-8080 or 312-559-1212Black and Blue
Through 7/28: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 3:30 PMTheater & Performance
Remounting his 2011 Factory Theater hit, director Nick Digilio digs deeper into what seems an insubstantial riff on sibling rivalry. Brothers Jake and Tommy, die-hard fans of opposing Chicago baseball teams, hold court in their father’s neighborhood bar through ten years of cross-town classics. The play, which Digilio wrote with Anthony Tournis (who also plays Jake), has almost no forward motion until the final few scenes. But as repetitive as the skirmishes among the brothers and the handful of bar regulars become, this satire of male fandom neatly undermines the characters' presumptions of masculine privilege. And when family tragedy strikes, the cast find a darkness merely hinted at in the original production. —Justin Hayford $15-$25
