Chicago Reader: Performing Arts

Cartoony Country

mail@chicagoreader.com (Kerry Reid) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:00:00 -0600

A review of All the Fame of Lofty Deeds, a show by Mark Guarino based on the music and art of Mekons cofounder Jon Langford. Tommy Rapley directs the world premiere production by the House Theatre of Chicago. by Kerry Reid In the second act of All the Fame of Lofty Deeds, Mark Guarino's homage to the music and art of Jon Langford, the title character tells a smarmy rock journalist/horse (stay with me), "You're going to write a piece that in no way represents the people and places my stories come from." Which is funny, because that's exactly what Guarino has done in this ambitious but disappointing production from the House Theatre of Chicago. The band sounds pretty good, but…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Isadora at Dinner

mail@chicagoreader.com (Albert Williams) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 04:00:00 -0600

A review of Timeline Theare's production of When She Danced, a play about Isadora Duncan by Martin Sherman. by Albert Williams Isadora Duncan never systematically filmed her dances, though she had the opportunity to do so well before her death in 1927, at age 50. (She was famously killed while riding in a car, when her long scarf got caught in one of the wheels.) Apparently, only a five-second snippet of her performing survives, hardly enough to convey the unique intensity that made her an iconic figure of the early 20th century, as notorious for her revolutionary politics and freewheeling life…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Bah Mitzvah

mail@chicagoreader.com (Tony Adler) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 04:00:00 -0600

The 13-year-old at the center of the Alan Gross's High Holidays shouldn�t be. by Tony Adler The Goodman's been doing a great job of putting diverse ethnic voices onstage. Last season ended with Boleros for the Disenchanted, José Rivera's sweet, sad look at the consequences of leaving Puerto Rico for the American mainland. Just before that came Ghostwritten, Naomi Iizuka's fairy-tale treatment of the tangled human—and culinary—relations between the United States and Vietnam. And last November there was Ruined, a devastating piece of work by African-American writer Lynn Nottage about walking casualties of the permanent war…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

River North Chicago Dance Company

mail@chicagoreader.com (Laura Molzahn) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 04:00:00 -0600

A preview of the company's new show, which features a premiere by artistic director Frank Chaves. by Laura Molzahn If I say "psychological," you might think "contemplative." But Forbidden Boundaries, a new work about "being your own worst enemy" by RNCDC artistic director Frank Chaves, is anything but. Fierce battles for control dominate this piece for 12, which consists mostly of duets in which one dancer embodies an aspect of the psyche that holds another back. Old habits of mind are represented by loose, sheer shirts—sometimes partly stripped off to bind the arms, giving Forbidden Boundaries an odd but…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Waiting for Hamlet

mail@chicagoreader.com (Tony Adler) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 04:00:00 -0600

Tom Stoppard's early, Beckettian play at Writers' Theatre by Tony Adler "No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meantto be; Am an attendant lord, one that will do To swell a progress, start a scene or two, Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, Deferential, glad to be of use, Politic, cautious, and meticulous; Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; At times, indeed, almost ridiculous— Almost, at times, the Fool." —T.S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." And there you have it: a concise description…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

The Hypocrites� Monster

mail@chicagoreader.com (Justin Hayford) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:00:00 -0500

In cobbling together a new Frankenstein, Sean Graney and company create one confused beast. by Justin Hayford Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was an overnight success when it appeared in 1818, and it's been in print continuously ever since. That's long enough for loads of wildly divergent interpretations to have sprung up. These days, it seems, Shelley's story can mean just about anything. The tale of a doomed, hubristic scientist who defies the laws of nature by creating life from dead flesh is Shelley's attempt to claim a spot beside her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, in the Romantic pantheon.…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Ghosts of Christmas Carols Past

mail@chicagoreader.com (Deanna Isaacs) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:00:00 -0500

Kevin Von Feldt, the producer behind the Dickens classic at the Civic Opera House, has a colorful track record�and a rap sheet for false advertising. by Deanna Isaacs Sometimes things that are too weird to be true actually happen, and when they do it can throw off your sense of what's possible. So after Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize, it didn't seem out of the question that F. Murray Abraham, Timothy Hutton, James Garner, Stockard Channing, Wayne Knight, and George Wendt would all be coming to town in a touring production of A Christmas Carol, set for an eight-performance stand December 22-27 at the Civic Opera House.…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

The New Boo Review

mail@chicagoreader.com (Tony Adler) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 04:00:00 -0500

We sample this year�s harvest of Halloween productions. by Tony Adler The eight Halloween shows reviewed here represent a mere fraction of the current offerings in a seasonal subgenre that's become as ubiquitous as Nutcrackers in December. So consider this a sampler, with selections ranging from family-appropriate (The Legend of Sleepy Hollow: A New Folk Musical) to more suitable for frat boys (Nightmares on Lincoln Avenue). More can be found in our listings. —Tony Adler Anna in the Darkness 2009: The Basement The advance material on Dream Theatre's annual Halloween show…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

You Gotta Have Guilt

mail@chicagoreader.com (Zac Thompson) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 04:00:00 -0500

A review of Fedra: Queen of Haiti, a futuristic retelling of the Phedre myth by J. Nicole Brooks, given its world premiere production at Lookingglass Theatre Company under the direction of Laura Eason. by Zac Thompson In Phèdre, French poet Jean Racine combined Greek tragedy with good old-fashioned Christian guilt and came up with the most powerful depiction of sexual obsession ever to appear on the stage. Euripides and Seneca had dramatized the myth earlier and, as a matter of fact, in the same week Racine's play opened in Paris in 1677, a rival Phèdre financed by his enemies also debuted, to a fuller house. No matter—in terms of tragedy, psychological insight, theological complexity, and shear…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Reagan Revisited

mail@chicagoreader.com (Laura Molzahn) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 04:00:00 -0500

A review of Peter Carpenter's My Fellow Americans, an evening-length piece about Ronald Reagan, at Hamlin Park. by Laura Molzahn In My Fellow Americans, queer performance artist Peter Carpenter blows apart the cliches of Ronald Reagan's presidency by bringing out their surreality, tying them to unexpected emotions, or both. But the piece ultimately runs aground on the personal. There's plenty of reason to look back, as this fast-paced, 70-minute dance-theater work shows. Weaving together multiple densely packed scenes, Carpenter reminds us of the Reagan legacy: a polarized populace, bellicose posturing, attempts to claim God as a political ally, and the…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Richard the Toad

mail@chicagoreader.com (Tony Adler) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 04:00:00 -0500

Chicago Shakespeare Theater plays the nasty little king for laughs. by Tony Adler The murderous little man with the hunchback? Oh, he's just the title character, King Richard III of England. The one to keep your eye on is the young nobleman called Richmond. Though he only shows up for the first time in act five, he's pretty much the point of Richard III—or so he was for Shakespeare and his audience—because he's going to become King Henry VII by killing Richard at Bosworth Field. Then he's going to marry Elizabeth of York,…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Before Blackbird

mail@chicagoreader.com (Kerry Reid) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 04:00:00 -0500

An early David Harrower play at Steep Theatre disappoints. by Kerry Reid What with the smash-hit run of David Harrower's Blackbird at Victory Gardens Theater last summer, it looked like the folks at Steep Theatre were lucky to land the midwest premiere of an earlier play by the same author. But as it turns out, Harrower's 1998 Kill the Old Torture Their Young is interesting mostly for demonstrating how much better he got in the nearly ten years between writing the two scripts. Harrower sets Kill the Old Torture Their Young in…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Everyone Is Implicated

mail@chicagoreader.com (Deanna Isaacs) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 04:00:00 -0500

My Kind of Town, John Conroy's unforgiving new play about the Chicago police torture scandal, gets a reading at the Chicago Writers' Bloc New Play Festival. by Deanna Isaacs The trial of former Chicago police commander Jon Burge, slated to begin later this month, has been postponed until January. We'll have to wait till then to see if Burge is found guilty of lying under oath about the interrogations-by-torture he allegedly conducted at Area Two headquarters in the 1980s. But on October 12, we can get a look at the latest work on the subject of police torture by John Conroy, whose reporting in the Reader exposed a situation…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Half Baked

mail@chicagoreader.com (Justin Hayford) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 11:01:00 -0500

A review of American Theater Company's production of Yeast Nation, a musical by Greg Kotis and Mark Hollmann, the authors of Urinetown. Directed by P.J. Paparelli. by Justin Hayford In his opening-night curtain speech, American Theater Company artistic director P.J. Paparelli went on about what an enormous risk it was to premiere the new musical Yeast Nation (The Triumph of Life), by Greg Kotis and Mark Hollmann. And the local press has been echoing his claim for weeks. Sure, the oddball show about a colony of single-celled yeasts living in earth's primordial sea ain't Oklahoma! But especially in a town where audiences are used to wildly unconventional theater, it's…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

The Long Con

mail@chicagoreader.com (Tony Adler) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 10:00:00 -0500

A review of Steppenwolf Theatre Company's world premiere production of Fake, written and directed by Eric Simonson. by Tony Adler Eric Simonson is clearly into mousetraps. His play Honest, which had a run this summer as part of Steppenwolf Theatre's First Look Repertory of New Work, gives us Gus, a smooth operator who's written a best-selling memoir of his harrowing—and entirely fabricated—experience with addiction, homelessness, and the radical environmentalist underground. When a reporter arrives to confront him about inconsistencies in the book, Gus plays the poor guy so mercilessly that he ends up handing over his integrity to advance Gus's…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Mikhail Baryshnikov & Ana Laguna

mail@chicagoreader.com (Laura Molzahn) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 04:00:00 -0500

"Three Solos and a Duet," at the Harris Theater, 9/25-9/27 by Laura Molzahn It's rare to see any dancer perform beyond the age of 50, but the remarkable duet on this program—Place, created for Ana Laguna, 54, and superstar Baryshnikov, 61, by Laguna's husband, Swedish choreographer Mats Ek—not only acknowledges but celebrates the dancers' maturity. Lifts and carries are slow and low; instead of dazzling technique, we see effort, emotion, and vulnerability. Not that Place is necessarily sad: the music, by Flaskkvartetten ("Flesh Quartet"), shifts feeling moment by moment as the dancers slip…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

The Sublime Beauty of Hands/Klown Kantos

mail@chicagoreader.com (Tony Adler) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 04:00:00 -0500

The first local production by Michael Montenegro and his "puppet symbolist theatre," Theatre Zarko, opening 9/26 by Tony Adler If Michael Montenegro is one of Chicago theater's best-kept secrets, it's largely because he's kept the secret himself. Though he's created marvelous puppets—starkly beautiful mechanisms that seem to harbor their own, powerful narratives—for productions by the likes of Mary Zimmerman, his own shows have been infrequent, irregular, under-the-radar affairs. Which is terrible, because he's as extraordinary a performer as he is a visual artist. I've known Montenegro for years (he's had a close relationship with the Actors Gymnasium, which I…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Loving the Volcano

mail@chicagoreader.com (Tony Adler) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 04:00:00 -0500

Review of A Red Orchid Theatre's production of Mistakes Were Made by Craig Wright, directed by Dexter Bullard and starring Michael Shannon. by Tony Adler If you know Craig Wright's name it's most likely because you've run across it in the credits for Six Feet Under, Lost, Brothers & Sisters, or Dirty Sexy Money—he wrote and produced for all four TV shows and created the last. Michael Shannon you're more likely to recognize on the street; his performance in the film version of Revolutionary Road got him nominated for best supporting actor at the Oscars. Both men have succeeded in electronic media, but both have…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

All My Sons

mail@chicagoreader.com (Albert Williams) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 04:00:00 -0500

A review of the play by Arthur Miller, as performed by TimeLine Theatre by Albert Williams Arthur Miller's 1947 Broadway hit lacks the iconic status of his later dramas, Death of a Salesman and The Crucible, but TimeLine Theatre's engrossing revival proves it can still pack a punch. Strongly influenced by Ibsen and Greek tragedy, it's the story of a prosperous, seemingly content small-town family haunted by guilt. Factory owner Joe Keller allowed a batch of defective airplane parts to be shipped to the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II, leading to the deaths…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Khecari Dance Theatre

mail@chicagoreader.com (Laura Molzahn) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 04:00:00 -0500

A preview of The Waking Room, a new evening-length dance piece by Jonathan Meyer. by Laura Molzahn Jonathan Meyer's preparations for The Waking Room—which began more than a year ago, with musical collaborator Christopher Preissing—included volunteering at Thresholds, a local organization that provides support for people with severe mental illnesses. The new evening-length work exploring what Meyer calls "nonordinary" states of consciousness is marked by spasmodic movement, by frequent blackouts that create snapshot scenes, and by the unusual space: a pie-shaped performance area in an art gallery, with a small couch and chair at its upstage apex.…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

After The Wild Party

mail@chicagoreader.com (Tony Adler) — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 04:00:00 -0500

Silent Theatre Company stages The Set-Up, Joseph Moncure March's other Jazz Age opus by Tony Adler Joseph Moncure March was a preppy former student of Robert Frost who became managing editor of The New Yorker in its early days and made his name with The Wild Party, a book-length poem about Jazz Age decadence. Written in rhymed couplets ("Queenie was a blonde, and her age stood still, / And she danced twice a day in vaudeville."), March's tale of a lethal Manhattan soiree was a succes de scandale in 1928, thanks to its depictions of high life,…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

The Original Second Life

mail@chicagoreader.com (Albert Williams) — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 04:00:00 -0500

Caffeine Theatre's new staging of Dylan Thomas's dreamscape for radio, Under Milk Wood by Albert Williams How do you bring a "play for voices" to the stage, where it has to be seen as well as heard? The answers offered by the new Caffeine Theatre production of Under Milk Wood yield an uneven show. Written by Dylan Thomas in 1953 as a radio play, Under Milk Wood follows the inhabitants of a fictitious Welsh seaside community called Llareggub through a spring night and day—starting and ending while they sleep, since it's only in their dreams that…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Cover Story

mail@chicagoreader.com (Albert Williams) — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 04:00:00 -0500

The Broadway bomb High Fidelity is a diverting entertainment, but a musical about music snobs deserves better music. by Albert Williams In December 2006, two new rock musicals opened on Broadway three days apart. One was Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater's Spring Awakening, based on the 1891 drama by German expressionist playwright Frank Wedekind—a dark study of teen alienation featuring suicide, rape, and abortion. The other was High Fidelity by David Lindsay-Abaire, Tom Kitt, and Amanda Green: a lightweight comedy adapted from Nick Hornby's 1995 best seller and the popular movie it spawned, about a thirtysomething record store owner named Rob…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Dead Men's Tales

mail@chicagoreader.com (Zac Thompson) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 04:00:00 -0500

Halcyon Theatre pairs two plays about the aggravations of being dead. by Zac Thompson Lorca in a Green Dress and A Shroud for Lazarus Halcyon Theatre You'd think dying would bring an end to your troubles. But in the two plays currently running in repertory at Halcyon Theatre, death only leads to more aggravation. It's not hard to see why the company has paired Nilo Cruz's Lorca in a Green Dress with A Shroud for Lazarus by Nigerian playwright Rotimi Babatunde. Both plays center on a protagonist who stands out like a sore thumb…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Fall Arts Guide 2009: Performing Arts Listings

mail@chicagoreader.com (Tony Adler) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 04:00:00 -0500

by Tony Adler Theater & Performance SEPTEMBER tuesday 9/8 Mistakes Were Made Michael Shannon appears in a new play about a film producer's out-of-control epic. a 9/8-10/18, A Red Orchid Theatre, 1531 N. Wells, 312-943-8722, $15-$30. The Night Season An American film crew upsets the life of a family in a small Irish town. A Vitalist Theatre production. a 9/8-10/17, Theatre Building Chicago, 1125 W. Belmont, 773-327-5252, $25. thursday 9/10 Cotton Patch Gospel A gospel and bluegrass retelling of the gospels of Matthew and John.…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]