Monthly Archives: February 2019
A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes
Mike Pence Sex Dream – First Floor Theatre
Following the 2016 election, two young men do their best to live their newly-wedded lives happily while coping with the frighteningly disastrous effects of the Trump presidency and administration. Ben is an excellent, compassionate elementary school teacher who cares for their students, but who also passionately wishes be a role model and make a difference. Ben, as a gay American, wants to show the school, and the world, that the Constitution has given them the unalienable right to be themselves. Thus, if Ben wants to wear a dress, there’s no reason for them to be challenged or ridiculed.
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And the Walls Came Tumbling Down
Act(s) of God – Lookingglass Theatre Company
A brand new original play, written by one of Chicago’s finest, most respected actors, and a Lookingglass Theatre company member, is a cause for celebration and demands an appreciative audience. Kareem Bandealy’s brilliant work as an actor has been seen by many and lauded by critics and audiences in productions all over Chicago. In his first attempt as playwright, Mr. Bandealy has embarked upon a new educational journey. His learning curve has expanded as he’s soaked up what it means to be on the other side of a production. This fledgling playwright has discovered, probably not unexpectedly that, in turning his script over to a director, a cast and a team of creative artists, it’s almost like sending your child off on his first day of kindergarten. But it’s the natural next step in the growth and nurturing of his young work, now in the hands of the theatre community.
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Pride and Prejudice
Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde – Promethean Theatre Ensemble
One of the oldest maxims of the theater is that you can create drama by letting the audience know something the characters don’t, at least not yet. It’s what gives historical dramas their bite. We know what’s going to happen, but we aren’t bored as long we’re invested in the characters unknowingly marching to their doom. That truism is on full display in Promethean Theatre Ensemble’s restaging of it’s 2016 production of Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde.
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Super Trouper
Mamma Mia! – Drury Lane
Artistic Director, William Osetek has staged a fresh and exciting new production of the 1999 smash hit musical, a show that became a cult classic for Baby Boomers twenty years ago, and is one of Broadway’s original juke box musicals. Taking almost two dozen hit tunes from the ABBA songbook, Drury Lane’s stage version makes audiences forget Chicago’s cold, snowy winter, as well as a rather disappointing 2008 film version. Here, live and on stage, is a great opportunity to enjoy a polished, professional production of how that musical is suppose to look and sound. And this production is not only pitch perfect but, decked out in shiny spandex, platform heels and a ton of glitter and glitz, it’s a feast for the eyes, as well.
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Ordinary People
Twilight Bowl – Goodman Theatre
Rebecca Gilman is a Chicago-based playwright who keeps close to her small town roots. She doesn’t write about lofty characters using elevated language. Her plays reflect the struggle of ordinary people who are trying to live the lives they want. Through such notable plays as “Luna Gale,” “Boy Gets Girl” and “Spinning Into Butter,” Ms. Gilman paints portraits of real folks, showing how, instead of being true to their own goals and aspirations, find themselves trying to meet everyone else’s expectations in life. This is the focus of her latest play, now enjoying its world premiere in Chicago.
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Mystery Most Foul
An Inspector Calls – Chicago Shakespeare Theatre
Following an elegant family dinner at Arthur and Sybil Birling’s comfortable home in northern England, the arrival of a mysterious man is announced. He claims to be police Inspector Goole who inexplicably shares with them the sad news that Eva Smith, a young working-class woman, has tragically committed suicide. No one at the family gathering, including young Gerald Croft, who has just officially proposed to Arthur’s daughter Sheila, nor Arthur’s son Eric, recognize the young woman’s name. It then begs the question: why is the inspector involving this family in the unfortunate incident?
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The Opera You Didn’t Know You Knew
La Traviata – Lyric Opera of Chicago
Before seeing the premiere of the Lyric’s new production of La Traviata at the Civic Opera House this weekend, I attended a preshow lecture about the history of the show. I learned that though it is now considered one of the finest operas ever written and a staple of many companies’ repertoires, it actually flopped on opening night amid composer Verdi’s battles with censors demanding edits and an opera house that wouldn’t cast the roles of its young lovers with actors who were…well…young. A couple of years later, some edits and better casting made the show the hit it has remained but, while I was listening to the lecture, I couldn’t help but think how hard it is to picture how classical works were received in their own time. They didn’t come into the world at stuffy or sophisticated pieces — they were the popular culture of their day, and inspired as much passion in their audiences as Hamilton or Dear Evan Hansen do in ours. Fortunately for this show, once the curtain went up the gap was easy to bridge.
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Almost
Requiem for a Heavyweight – The Artistic Home
Requiem for a Heavyweight started life as a television play in 1956 by a pre-Twilight Zone Rod Serling, starring Jack Palance as an aging boxer. It was adapted into a film in 1962 with Anthony Quinn. This week, it is adapted into a stage version at The Artistic Home. The story focuses on ‘Mountain’ McClintock, a heavyweight boxer who spent his career always almost, but never quite, winning the championship, and is now too injured to continue boxing, and his manager Maish. It is revealed in the opening scene that Maish bet against Mountain in his final fight to get the money he needed to buy the contract of a young up-and-comer, Mountain’s replacement. Seeking any work he can get, he meets Grace at an employment agency and begins a tentative friendship.
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The Music of Words
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom – Writer’s Theatre
During the 1920’s, the blues, sung by topnotch black performers, became so popular that it crossed over into mainstream America. The recording industry helped bring African American music from Harlem into the homes of white families all over the nation. Singers like Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey became household names and, although there would be many more years of fighting for Civil Rights, the African American integration movement was, thankfully, about to begin.
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Black Lives Matter
Pipeline – Victory Gardens Theatre
In 90 short, uninterrupted minutes, playwright Dominique Morisseau lays out how the direct route from school to prison has become the American norm for young, black men. That is, if they’re not being gunned down by some trigger-happy police officer. This is the hopeless existence depicted by the playwright of such important dramas as “Sunset Baby,” “Skeleton Crew” and the upcoming musical, “Ain’t Too Proud—the Life and Times of the Temptations.” In director Cheryl Lynn Bruce’s new production, a topic the playwright explored in a solo documentary, “Notes From the Field,” is starkly played out upon Andrew Boyce’s sparse, flexible scenic design. It’s a theatrical environment that wisely offers more focus upon the characters than the setting.
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