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Purple Heart
Through 1/27: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PMTheater & Performance
Bruce Norris's 2002 play unfolds in 1972, in the nondescript home of Carla, a desperately unhappy alcoholic whose husband was killed while serving in Vietnam. She shares the place with her morbid teenage son and unflappable mother-in-law. One day Carla meets and starts to fall for Purdy, a disabled Vietnam vet with a misanthropic streak. Purdy apparently shares that last quality with the playwright, who undertakes Carla's undoing with relish, throwing in several gross-out scenes involving blood, vomit, and a prosthetic hand. The whole thing feels contrived and mean. Director Jimmy McDermott handles the grisly stuff clumsily, the cast fail to find the right rhythm for Norris's snappy dialogue, and KC Karen Hill's Carla is bratty and not much else. --Zac Thompson $25-$35
Caucasian Chalk Circle
Through 2/9: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 2 PMTheater & Performance
Bertolt Brecht's sweeping 1948 parable follows palace servant and good-hearted sucker Grusha as she reluctantly rescues an infant prince during an insurrection, then flees with him along back roads, over mountains, and across a 2,000-foot gorge with rarely a good deed going unpunished. It's a tough slog for her, and Ed Rutherford's 16-person cast make it unnecessarily tough on the audience, too, by displaying roughly a dozen different acting styles. In any scene requiring more than three actors—and that's most of them—the jumbled tone flattens Brecht's social critique. Still, the smaller scenes in this Promethean Theatre Ensemble staging are crafty, insightful, and occasionally heartbreaking, thanks largely to Sara Gorsky's forthright performance as Grusha. Matt Kahler's folk-influenced score is bracing and effectively sung. —Justin Hayford $20
American Wee-Pie
Through 2/16: Thu-Fri 8 PM, Sat 4 and 8 PMTheater & Performance
When he returns to his home town for a funeral, a textbook editor reinvents himself. $15-$30
Boy Gets Girl
Through 3/2: Fri-Sat 8 PM, Sun 3:30 PMTheater & Performance
Boy dates girl. Girl rejects boy. Boy tries to win girl over by sending boatloads of flowers, showing up at her office, leaving lots of messages, and watching her apartment at night. As the girl's coworker points out, "Normal male heterosexual behavior is somewhat psychotic"--so it takes a while for self-possessed journalist Theresa to realize that Tony is stalking her. But the tension in Rebecca Gilman's 2000 play is established right from the start, and builds as Tony's behavior becomes more and more terrifying. Leonard Kraft provides much-needed comic relief as an aging director of erotic films whom Theresa has to interview for an article. Cody Estle's dark staging makes it clear, though, that there's no plausible happy ending. At one point Theresa's colleague urges her not to change her life, because that would mean Tony had won. "He's already won," she replies. --Julia Thiel $36
Magic Chicago
Open run: first Wednesday of the month, 7:30 PM,
773-984-3817Theater & Performance
Magic by Robert Charles and Benjamin Barnes, along with special guests. $20
