Frank Galati and Jon Michael Hill/Photo: Michael Brosilow

Don’t let the bare stage fool you.  Stripped down to the concrete blocks of the foundation, Tina Landau’s playing space for “The Tempest” (at the Steppenwolf) is more like a blank canvas painted with undulating video, eye-popping costumes and a sonic barrage of thunderclaps.

The visuals aren’t arresting so much as extravagant, and there is fun in that—to a degree.  Too often the choices feel random and I found myself asking: why?

The disparate narratives of Shakespeare’s play—the marooned, scheming noblemen; the budding romance; a slave who plots his revenge; the existential pangs of an old man—exist in separate worlds.  As for an overall theme?  You got me.  I’m still drowning in imagery that refuses to sort itself out.  Landau’s vision is flashy, but it doesn’t reveal the essence within.  It is the theatrical equivalent of a rave, where sensory-overload becomes the end rather than the means.  I suspect many will disagree with this sentiment.

Though busier as a director than an actor these days, when Frank Galati takes the stage it makes an impact.  His Prospero lords over this remote isle like a hippie with a god complex.  Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night,” often considered the Bard’s best and funniest comedy, was conceived as a midwinter diversion related to the end of the Christmas season, January 6, or Epiphany, which in Elizabethan times was characterized by revelry, masquerades, charades, trickery, servants and masters trading places and chaotic partying, something akin to New Year’s Eve, April Fool’s Day and Halloween combined.  Josie Rourke’s water-themed production made a splash, literally, opening in the midst of a spring blizzard that reminded us that you can schedule a Christmas-themed production virtually any time of the year in Chicago and can still get Christmas-like weather.           Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

Having finished third on last season’s “Last Comic Standing,” Spokane, Washington’s Jeff Dye rolls into Chicago with the bronze around his neck, appearing poised for long-term success and armed with the good looks of “Jim” from “The Office.” In retrospect, Dye’s audition on “Last Comic Standing” is a microcosm of his entire routine: he calls himself a “badass” because he pees on vegetables at Costco, his screen name is “Dragonslayer” on eHarmony, he watches B.E.T. even though he’s white, he speeds through school zones while texting (“I hit a kid? LOL, I don’t care!”), and he reads “Goosebumps” books alone. That’s the running theme throughout Dye’s act: self-deprecation with a smile. Bustling with energy and youthfulness, Dye’s already learned to make fun of his weak body, his love for fu-fu drinks and the fact that he’s an all-around pansy. Once he figures out how to really rip on people other than himself, he’s got “guy who appears on Comedy Central at random times ”written all over him. (Andy Seifert)

April 10-11 at Lakeshore Theater, 3175 N. Broadway, (773)472-3492, 8pm and 10:30pm. $25

RECOMMENDED

It’s weird to even consider, but Denis Leary hasn’t done a stand-up tour in twelve years, so we’ve gone twelve years since he’s taken the stage and spasmodically decreed everyone (including himself) to be an asshole. At this point, Leary’s famous for acting (on the firefighting FX drama “Rescue Me”), voice acting (as the character Diego in three “Ice Age” movies, which is just as surprising as the fact that three “Ice Age” movies exist), writing books (last year’s “Why We Suck: A Feel Good Guide to Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy and Stupid”), and bizarre commercial appearances (Quaker State motor oil?), and perhaps not so much for talking insanely fast, chain-smoking on stage, and outbursts of profanity. But Leary wouldn’t be winning awards for “Rescue Me” was it not for his memorable (to say the least) and furious stand-up routines, specifically the classic stuff that led to “No Cure for Cancer.” So it’s nice to see him back doing what he does best: spitting venom at the masses—live! For this tour, Leary will be joined by two “Rescue Me” co-stars, Lenny Clarke and Adam Ferrara. (Andy Seifert)

April 11 at Chicago Theatre, 175 N. State, (312)263-1138, at 8pm.

RECOMMENDED

Some twenty-odd years ago, a then-unknown comic named Richard Lewis graced the stage at Zanies, introducing a stand-up style that continues to lean on random tangents, lovable self-loathing (his 2000 book is titled “The Other Great Depression”) and Woody Allen’s fidgety neuroticism. Lately, it’s been pure joy to watch Lewis in a constant state of bickering with Larry David on “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” as the two basically play extensions of Lewis’ stand-up persona and of their real-life friendship. Riffing without direction on penis fatigue, hypochondria and his futile attempts for the bastards at Bartlett’s to recognize him for coining the phrase “[blank] from hell,” Lewis has turned his misery into comic delight. Returning to the intimate Zanies stage, he’ll have little room to pace freely with his usual restlessness, but there’s nonetheless something nostalgic and profound to see a legend return to his roots. (Andy Seifert)

April 15-16 at Zanies, 1548 N. Wells, (312)337-4027, at 7:30pm.

Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal

RECOMMENDED

Even though “Rent” finally came due on Broadway last September after an extraordinary twelve-year run, national tours of the show of various talent levels continue to do brisk business across the country.  The end of the New York run, however, afforded the unique opportunity to create a topnotch, standard-bearing tour incarnation called “Rent: The Broadway Tour” by employing cast members fresh from the Broadway production as well as original cast members, who were willing to tour with the show in the roles that they had originated back in 1996.  Both Pascal (Roger) and Rapp (Mark) created their roles off-Broadway and maintained them through the show’s initial huge Broadway success and reprised them in London and in the movie version, although Joliet native Rapp also starred for a time in the initial Chicago run, wrote a book about the “Rent” phenomenon and actually made his professional acting debut downtown as a child extra in “Evita.”  The chemistry between these two performers was a factor in the show’s initial success, even though both are now in their late thirties, i.e., nearly twice the age of their characters at this point.  But unlike, say, elderly opera stars decades older than the young, impoverished artists that they are portraying routinely appearing in Puccini’s “La bohème,” the work that “Rent” is based on, Pascal and Rapp both look much the same as they did back when the show first opened, still sing and act superbly and move with extraordinary energy and are able to convincingly blend in with their much younger colleagues.  Read the rest of this entry »