Events Search – The Short List (Theater)
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
773-871-0442If You Split a Second
Through 6/2: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM; also Tue 5/7, 7 PM, and Sat 5/18, 3 PMTheater & Performance
Premiering at Pegasus Players, Dana Lynn Formby's play contains plenty of interesting elements: six characters played by two actors, an intriguing premise (one character alters everyone's destiny when, in a fit of anger, he kills his brother-in-law). There's even an intellectually challenging underlying question: How much control do we have over our lives when a split-second decision can change everything? What a shame Formby is never able to pull all this together into a moving, coherent story with relatable characters who grow over the play's two hours. This despite Ilesa Duncan's strong direction, and, in Stephanie Chavara and Dylan McGorty, a cast adept at quickly and gracefully transforming from one character to another. —Jack Helbig $25
So I Killed a Few People
Through 6/6: Thu 8 PMTheater & Performance
"Go for the heart, just don't eat it," says Archie Nunn, recalling a friend's counsel—pretty sage advice for someone with nothing in the world but an orange jumpsuit, a tape recorder, a date with the electric chair, and a solo show on death row. A legendary killer, Nunn has one last wish: to heap abuse on the Disney corporation, which he blames for his problems, and tell of his twin obsessions with serial television and serial murder. Annoyance vet Mark Sutton plays Nunn with southern charm and a working knowledge of Facebook and Twitter—the script, by David Summers and Gary Rudoren, has been updated since the play's 1997 premiere. Nunn's hatred of the media, coupled with his insistence on being seen and heard, gives the audience plenty to chew on in its dual roles of voyeur and priest. —Hannah Gold $8-$12
Wizard Quest
Through 6/14: Fri 8 PMTheater & Performance
There may be something easier to mock than fantasy role-playing games, though nothing readily comes to mind. So the Annoyance Theatre has set the bar pretty low with its latest production. The premise—seven gamers retreat into a collective fantasy world in order to avoid problems in their real lives—is predictable. But for a few minutes in the second act, the disjunction between fantasy and reality turns shocking and horrifying and hilarious all at once. It's glorious. At this point, unfortunately, the Quest Masters behind the show seem stumped by the situation they've written themselves into and resort to rolling the dice of sitcom cliches—on-the-nose dialogue, overly simple solutions to complex problems, an 80s-style freeze frame—to get themselves out of it. —Aimee Levitt $20
Closing Time and The Imminent Future
Through 6/30: Sun 8 PMTheater & Performance
Closing Time is a noir crime drama; The Imminent Future follows two friends traveling through postapocalyptic America. $8-12
Chicagoland and Fish Nuts
Open run: Tue 8 PMImprov/Sketch
At the start of each show an all-star ensemble creates a tableau onstage, then asks after a blackout, "Where in Chicago did that take place?" "Soccer practice" was the response the night I was there, and after an hour the improvisers--intensely alert and feisty--had crafted a veritable community, complete with idiosyncratic characters, unpredictable backstory, and tragicomic intrigue. Veteran T.J. Jagodowski, recognizable from a series of Sonic commercials he's done with quick-witted cast member Peter Grosz, played a thick-accented German coach. Abruptly launching a new scene by charging to the front of the stage, he squatted and gestured as he yelled at his coed youth team, "I will yank on your nuts like the Hunchback of Notre Dame working a bell!" --Ryan Hubbard $8
Messing With a Friend
Open run: Thu 10:30 PMImprov/Sketch
Susan Messing's weekly show, where she pairs off with a guest "friend" for an hour of purely improvised comedy, is one of the funniest entertainments in town. Messing is deeply talented: her acting is focused and nuanced, and she's got one of the the sharpest shit-detectors around, allowing her to cut or extend scenes like a good director. She works with a different "friend" at nearly every performance, often for the first time ever, and each prods her in unpredictable ways. But Messing stays on her toes, finding newer and quirkier characters—like a chatty old lady who sings musical numbers and pop songs at work or a wife from a 1940s screwball comedy who encourages her husband to tie her up—and the proportion of what works to what doesn't is a testament to her congeniality, experience, and broad intelligence. Messing was my pick for Best Improviser in the Reader's 2008 Best Of Chicago issue. --Ryan Hubbard
$5
In a World . . .
Open run: Tue 9:30 PMImprov/Sketch
T.J. Jagodowski, Rebecca Sohn, and others perform comic characters and situations based on audience suggestions. $8
