Joe Minoso and Elizabeth Ledo/Photo: Eric Y. Exit

“Boleros for the Disenchanted,” at the Goodman, is an unremarkable new play by a remarkable playwright (Jose Rivera) whose success almost entirely depends upon an audience checking its intelligence at the door, and instead surrendering to its potent mix of sweetness, silliness and sorrow.  It’s the kind of play that drives reviewers to churn out adjectives like “beautiful,” “lyrical,” “life affirming” and all that stuff that makes some people cry, but reduces intelligent critics to professional equivocators:  it’s not as bad as a two-and-a-half-hour dramedy featuring Puerto Ricans waling about marriage and commitment sounds, but it’s also not as good as the artists involved would like to think it is.

The first act begins in the sleepy town of Mia Flores, Puerto Rico, in the late 1950s, where we meet Flora, a headstrong young Puerto Rican woman for whom fidelity and commitment—especially from her philandering fiancé—means everything. After a funny scene that plays off the machismo-driven myth that Latin men can’t—and won’t—be faithful (“You can’t stop nature.  Do you ask a tiger not to stalk the antelope?” remarks Flora’s boyfriend), Flora breaks off her engagement and swears off love.  Until she meets Eusebio, who becomes the yin to her yang and (surprise, surprise) breaks through Flora’s tough exterior to win her heart as well as her hand in marriage. Like many other idealistic young Puerto Ricans at the time, or so we learn from Rivera’s play, they soon leave for America in search of a better life. Act two, which takes place almost four decades later, reveals that after nine children, bitter Long Island winters, a cancer scare for Flora and the loss of legs for Eusebio, their love has only grown stronger.  Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: nick mangafas/linz09

We received the following response to Goodman’s cancellation of Joan D’Arc this morning from the artistic director for the performing arts at 2009 Linz European Capital of Culture. (The European Capital of Culture is a one-year designation of a showcase city by the European Union.) In the email, Airan Berg takes strong exception to the Goodman’s characterization of the show as “not ready” and suggests “censorship” on the Goodman’s part and pledges to “take all necessary steps to present the work in Chicago.” Needless to say, this is an unusually strong manifestation of “artistic differences.” We’ve asked Goodman for their response, if any, and will add it to the mix when we get it.

Below is the email from Berg in its entirety and original form:

URGENT – response from linz09 to JOAN DARK & a statement by the goodman theatre Read the rest of this entry »

Jessica Miller Tomlinson/Photo: Cheryl Mann

The Dance Center of Columbia College announced today that choreographer Jessica Miller Tomlinson is the winner of the first Chicago edition of The A.W.A.R.D Show! and took home the $10,000 first-place prize. Tomlinson is a member of Thodos Dance Chicago.

Runners-up Allyson Esposito and Megan Schneeberger (The Space/Movement Project) and Julia Rhoads (Lucky Plush Productions) each collected $1,000.

Ian Barford/Photo: Michael Brosilow

Aerialist Philippe Petite’s walk between the World Trade Center towers lasted minutes and took a lifetime to plan; love and friends were lost along the way. In that vein, “Up” explores the chasm between dreams and their painful maintenance.

The Griffin family wants: Walter (Ian Barford) longs to recapture his glory day (singular) when he built a flying machine that soared; son Mikey (Jake Cohen) wants love with pregnant paramour Maria (Rachel Brosnahan) and money enough to secure their future; wife Helen (Lauren Katz) simply wants to get by.

While newcomers Brosnahan and Cohen master the show’s most affecting moment, the performers are strangely detached from an unsatisfying  script (oddly, cast member and real-life wirewalker Tony Hernandez is never allowed to demonstrate that skill). Director Anna D. Shapiro’s staging doesn’t seem to utilize Dan Ostling’s curiously claustrophobic set. It’s a story about flight that never really takes off. (Lisa Buscani)

“Up” plays at Steppenwolf Downstairs Theatre, 1650 North Halsted, (312)335-1650, through August 23.

Molly Brennan

RECOMMENDED

Ever wanted to go backstage to a catastrophe? 500 Clown’s “The Elephant Deal” is a wonky, Brecht-inspired cabaret, proudly displaying all its flaws and seams. It’s a lovely, death-defying mess.

The show-within-a show slowly runs off the rails; the hyper-vigilant, incompetent tech staff supporting Madame Barker (Molly Brennan) spins out of control. The comfortable, confident ensemble is a wonder to watch; Brennan’s vocalist-of-the-apocalypse is charming; Adrian Danzig’s hapless tech guy is flakey and fun. Composer John Fournier’s torchy, Weimar-era cabaret numbers evoke sleazy, (legally) smoke-filled black boxes with contraband in the corners.

No piece about imperfection is without its own; the cast occasionally loses track of the audience interaction and the story arc isn’t as effortless as the movement work and humor. Technicalities, technicalities. 500 Clown restores energy and physicality that’s missing from the scene. Bring someone who doesn’t like theater and watch them change their mind. (Lisa Buscani)

“500 Clown and the Elephant Deal” plays at Steppenwolf Upstairs, 1650 N. Halsted, (312)335-1650, through July 11.

RECOMMENDED

If it’s the stand-up’s responsibility to uncover the overlooked humor in our ever-frantic daily lives, Owen Benjamin is fulfilling his obligations. The New York State-based stand-up has a knack for lightheartedly illuminating the peculiar situations in his life that reek of absurdity, like the “Peanuts” theme song being played the precise moment a friend starts to have a serious conversation with him, or the crushing letdown that ensues when people find out that, even with his six-foot-six stature, he sucks at basketball. His “Owen Benjamin Presents” series on Crackle.com takes that principle and applies it to several “how to” lessons, including “How to be ‘the man’ at a BBQ” (open beers without a bottle opener), “How to fake talent” (wear a beret) and “How to look rich” (use an umbrella when it’s not raining). Benjamin appears as part of the MySpace Secret Show series, so, um, don’t tell anyone I told you. (Andy Seifert)

July 8 at Lakeshore Theater, 3175 N. Broadway, (773)472-3492.

Citing “additional time for artistic development prior to the show’s scheduled Chicago opening in September,” Goodman Theatre’s artistic director Robert Falls today announced that the Aida Karic-directed “Joan D’Arc,” its planned world-premiere adaptation of Friedrich Schiller’s “Die Jungfrau Von Orléans (The Maid of Orléans),” would be replaced on the fall schedule by the Chicago premiere of Dael Orlandersmith’s solo performance,  “Stoop Stories,” which will run September 11-October 11 in the Owen Bruner Theatre. A spoken-word artist best known for her play “Yellowman,” a finalist for the 2002 Pulitzer Prize,  Orlandersmith also received an OBIE Award for “Beauty’s Daughter.”

Tekki Lomnicki

“In Your Facebook,” Tellin’ Tales Theatre’s new solo performance show about the pros and cons of Facebook addiction, opens with a social agenda of its own. Although Live Bait Theater and its Fillet of Solo festival are now gone, Tellin’ Tales Artistic Director Tekki Lomnicki hopes to continue the legacy of solo performance theater. “I just didn’t want that spark of Solo beauty to die,” says Lomnicki, the Fillet of Solo veteran who came up with the concept for “In Your Facebook.” Lomnicki explains that she was inspired by her recent experiences looking up old boyfriends on Facebook. Convinced that the “national phenomenon” of Facebook had affected everyone, she thought it would make a great theme for a solo performance show and that now would be “a hot time” to do it, before the Facebook craze faded. Lomnicki recruited several local solo performers to join the act, including Neo-Futurist and “Facebook Me!” author Dave Awl, who Lomnicki “met” when he friended her on Facebook. “In Your Facebook” consists of four twenty-minute acts, in which each performer—in addition to Awl and Lomnicki, Barrie Cole and Beth Ann Bryant-Richards—tells a story about Facebook, and takes a different angle on the role that the social-networking site plays in their lives. Performers describe experiences that run the gamut from fearing Facebook and staying away from it, to becoming so absorbed with the site that one becomes trapped inside. “People should see the show because they will be able to laugh at themselves,” Lomnicki says. (Ilana Kowarski)

“In Your Facebook” plays at Prop Thtr, 3502 North Elston, (312)409-1025, www.tellintalestheatre.org, June 26-28, July 10-12 and July 17-19.

Here is the press release from The Neo-Futurists:

THE NEO-FUTURISTS ANNOUNCE THEIR 21st SEASON OF ORIGINAL WORK

CHICAGO – The Neo-Futurists announce their 21st Season to explore the experience of fright, the exposure of images and an exercise in competition. Also on the books is another great year of the smash hit, Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind. Read the rest of this entry »

“Guess what I’m going to say: Bears or Bulls,” quizzes comedian/veteran TV writer Robert Smigel, baiting the capacity crowd to shouts of “Bulls!”, “Bears!” and “Hawks!” while he holds a fifteen-second long note: “Daaaaaaaaaaa…Bulls.” An oblivious audience member whispers, “He really does kinda sound like one of the Superfans,” not knowing Smigel really was the guy sandwiched between Chris Farley and Mike Myers on SNL’s classic “Bill Swerski’s Superfans” skit. The same guy seems preoccupied, “When’s he gonna bust out the Triumph?”

Smigel and “Morel Orel” creator Dino Stamatopoulos stop by Lakeshore Theatre for one of the “Just for Laughs” festival’s most intriguing concepts: to show their original “TV Funhouse” pilot, a parody of the “Bozo the Clown” children’s show, specifically Chicago legend Bob Bell’s incarnation, who Smigel admired because “he was clearly not taking the job seriously.” Read the rest of this entry »