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Eat This! Stories for the Love of Food!
Wed., Jan. 23, 8 p.m.Food Events
This gathering brings Chicago chefs and foodies together for a night of storytelling and free samples. $10
773-251-1539Eat This! Stories for the Love of Food
Wed., Jan. 23, 8 p.m.Spoken Word/Poetry Slams/Open Mikes
Seven local food enthusiasts are participating in a spoken-word series titled Eat This! Stories for the Love of Food. Monte LaMonte, the self-described "King of All Foodies," hosts a lineup that includes television personality Ted Brunson, Lula Café sous chef Michael Simmons, and urban forager Dave Odd, each sharing personal stories based on their culinary experiences. If that's not enough to whet your appetite, the featured chefs are bringing free samples of their favorite dishes.
$10
Chicago Afrobeat Project, Nick & the Ovorols
Sat., Jan. 26, 9:30 p.m.International
Chicago Afrobeat Project—arguably the midwest’s best practitioners of the funky style pioneered more than four decades ago by Nigerian national hero Fela Kuti—adapt Afrobeat to a wide range of music on their new album, Nyash Up! (CAbP Music), including songs by local free-jazz combo the Vandermark 5, Brazilian pop thrush Ceu, and Led Zeppelin. In nearly every case the material has been so heavily remade that the only trace of the original is the occasional lyric or indelible lick—the bass line in Fugazi’s “Waiting Room,” for instance, or the vocals of guest singer Ugochi on Marvin Gaye’s “Inner City Blues.” CABP definitely have Fela’s sound down pat—they even fuse his “Just Like That” with Radiohead’s “I Might Be Wrong” on the opening track—but their take on it sometimes feels self-conscious and bland. And it doesn’t help that local rapper S. Squair Blaq adds some verses to the Gaye cover that back down from Fela’s radical politics to rather timidly demand an end to the war on the middle class—it sounds depressingly like an uninspired Obama stump speech. —Peter Margasak Nick & the Ovorols open.
$10
The Dark Room: A Play Workshop Event
Through 1/26: Thu, Fri, Sat 8 PMTheater & Performance
20% Theatre Company Chicago presents this workshopping of two new plays, Girlfriend and Residue. $5
Sunday Salon Chicago
Sun., Jan. 27, 7 p.m.Literary Events
Authors John Kersey, James McManus, Cecilia Pinto, and Suzanne Scanlon take part in this reading series.
Waiting For Godot
Through 1/28: Mon 8 PMTheater & Performance
Scenic designer John Wilson supplies an effective setting for this production of Samuel Beckett's existential Laurel-and-Hardy routine. To the requisite bare tree and stretch of road he's added a backdrop suggesting a charred landscape under an endless gray sky. It's about the only thing that works in Bob Fisher's staging for the Mammals. Whereas Beckett excelled at paring things down, Fisher shows little restraint. In fact, the predominant mood here is hysteria--found not only in the caffeinated exchanges between Justin Warren and Sean Ewert as bums Gogo and Didi, but also and especially in Gabe Garza's grandstanding take on the lordly Pozzo, whom he plays as a flamboyant buffoon with a silly French accent. By emphasizing comedy above all else, Fisher buries Beckett under a mountain of shtick. --Zac Thompson $22
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