Mierka Girten and Michael Shannon/Photo: Michael Brosilow

RECOMMENDED

Academy Award-nominee Michael Shannon is not resting on his almost-laurels in “Mistakes Were Made”; the man certainly works it. By the end of the close-to-a-one-man show, Shannon is bathed in sweat, surveying the rubble of his character’s life. He’s a wonder to watch.

If only Craig Wright’s script were as good. Felix Artifex is a schmuck theatrical producer with a shit-eating Letterman grin who we don’t care about, producing a show we don’t want to see. We don’t meet any of the characters involved in his fundraising scam; Artifex’s personal crisis, a vulnerability we could empathize with, stays sketchy until the end.

We don’t care but Shannon makes us want to try.  It’s almost painful to watch him drag a bad show through development by hook or by crook, committed to quasi-art for art’s sake.  He’s a gifted guy; the gift could be put to better use. (Lisa Buscani)

“Mistakes Were Made” plays at A Red Orchid Theatre, 1531 N. Wells, (312)943-8722 Through October 31.

Rob Fenton and Nora Fiffer

It’s almost a full hour into Brendan Behan’s play before we meet the hostage of the title, a young British solider caught up in a game of political tit-for-tat between the IRA and England in 1959. Everything prior to his arrival feels like so much throat-clearing—more scene-setting and forced colorfulness than any show needs. It all takes place in a Dublin rooming house that has become home base for a raggedy group of prostitutes (the cross-dressing and the merely tawdry) who pay rent to the practical-minded Meg (Donna McGough) and the slurry-voiced, exhausted revolutionary Pat (Eamonn McDonagh).

The joint is teeming and steaming with sweaty bedclothes and long-held Irish resentments. Every so often the gang bursts into song, as if life was one music-hall performance after another.  At one point, a bare-knuckled fist fight hilariously morphs into a jig. It is a surrealistic, whirling dervish of a show (directed by Jonathan Berry for Griffin Theatre), and yet the bitter comedy feels forced in places, a bit dullish in others.

The production doesn’t really gain traction until the hostage (Rob Fenton, looking like Prince Harry with a conscience) appears, and his dalliance with the very sheltered, very attractive housemaid (Nora Fiffer, who is every inch the definition of fetching) roots the play on real emotional ground more than any of the sentimentalized Irish eccentricity surrounding it.  (Nina Metz)

At the Theatre Building Chicago, 1225 W. Belmont, (773)327-5252 or www.tickemaster.com.  Thu-Sat 7:45pm, Sun 3pm.  $28.  Through November 1.

RECOMMENDED

It’s hard to tell whether this production succeeds in spite or because of its haphazard and often schizophrenic character. “Baal” is Brecht’s first play, and there’s not much substance to the story about its Romantic title figure whose lust for sex, brandy and poetry ends up destroying him and everyone who comes within his orbit. Though billed as a “live music spectacle,” EP Theater’s production has a minimalist percussion-and-cello score by art-rockers The Loneliest Monk, with gong-like cymbals recalling Japanese Noh theater that would later deeply influence Brecht. In contrast, acting is fervent if sometimes distractingly varied in style (and often accompanied by a goblet of booze). The show is carried by a magnetic Craig Cunningham as Baal and his incredible chemistry with Ekart (Shawn Pfautsch), Baal’s closest friend (maybe more), near-double and catalyst of destructive desires. The great contrasts in this show—between the spectacle of frenzied performances, restrained music and some truly inexplicable lighting and blocking choices—result in a permanently off-kilter experience that’s intriguing, alienating and, well, Brechtian. (Monica Westin)

“Baal” plays at EP Theater, 1820 S. Halsted, (312)850-4299, through October 10.

By Whitney Dibo

If the breakup of American Theatre Company is akin to a messy divorce, consider artistic director PJ Paparelli in the post-heartbreak phase. While the memory of being jilted by twenty-three members of his twenty-seven-member ensemble back in the spring still smarts, the Alaska native isn’t crying into a carton of Haagen-Dazs. “None of this has been easy,” he now says of the split, “but I want us to be a company that rolls up its sleeves and gets to work.” This year also marks ATC’s twenty-fifth anniversary and, while Paparelli is free to celebrate without the old ball and chain, he’s also embarking on the landmark season without the company’s founding members. “It’s certainly bittersweet,” he says. Read the rest of this entry »

Kelly O’Sullivan, John Stokvis/Photo: Michael Brosilow

Jason Sutherland, the new artistic director at Evanston’s Next Theatre, makes his Chicago directorial debut with Peter Sinn Nachtreib’s end-of-the-world comedy “boom.”  This play crackles with all the smartassery and f-bombs one would expect from a hip new play, although sometimes that hipness feels a little contrived. Don’t get me wrong, there are some really funny moments and artful turns of phrase, but what starts out as a rather intriguing story about two quirky loners bunkered down together as a result of a Craigslist personal ad suffers the drag of a second storyline, that of a museum curator with career troubles. Sutherland does an admirable job of keeping the action moving in Andre LaSalle’s beautifully rendered basement lab, but ultimately the play aches when it departs the apocalyptic aftermath and delves into the unnecessary personal problems of the curator. Although Nachtrieb exhibits great craft in shaping inquisitive characters full of honest emotional malfunction, he misses when he forces theatricality that is already present in the play. (William Scott)

Next Theatre, Noyes Cultural Arts Center, 927 Noyes Street, Evanston, (847)475-1875. Wed 1pm (Sept 30 and Oct 7 only)/Thu 7:30pm/Fri-Sat 8pm/Sun 2pm. $25-$40. Through Oct 11.

The noteworthy Highland Park-based Apple Tree Theatre announced its closure. The full press release follows:

Apple Tree Theatre and Eileen Boevers Performing Arts Workshop Closes

Highland Park, IL, September 14, 2009. – The  Board of Directors for Apple Tree Theatre (ATT) and Eileen Boevers Performing Arts Workshop  announced today that after 26 years of award winning theatrical productions and providing 40 years of educational programming  to thousands of North Shore students,  it is closing its doors, effective immediately. Read the rest of this entry »

Darrell Jones

RECOMMENDED

Have I recently mentioned that right now is an amazing time to see dance in Chicago? This week marks the opening of The Other Dance Festival and the mass output of thoughtful art is worth reiterating. Now in its eighth year, The Other Fest is a three-week smorgasbord of movement, each program serving up a mix of short works and tasty little samples of larger dishes cooked up by the most daring dancemakers in Chicago. The coming weeks feature premieres by Margi Cole and The Dance COLEctive, The Humans, The Seldoms and Cindy Brandle; a sneak peek into Peter Carpenter’s much-anticipated evening-length inquiry into the identity of Ronald Reagan, and a reprise of scenes from Breakbone’s episodic take on the moment of death—a disjointed work that will certainly hold up better once culled of gems, the fat discarded. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s the press release from Free Street:

Free Street Theater embarks on 40th Anniversary Season

Flashback Benefit : “To Kill a Teenager” :

“Abe’s in a Bad Way” : Tour to Thailand

Chicago, IL – Free Street Theater embarks on its 40th year with an anniversary celebration, tour to Thailand, and a season of original plays.

Born in the 1969 spirit of social questioning, Free Street continues to serve as a cultural arts laboratory inspiring new artists and new audiences. Founding Artistic Director, Patrick Henry, said that, “Our goal is to cut through the layers of political, social and religious philosophy that have separated people from one another and to concentrate on the rhythms and energies common to all people.” Read the rest of this entry »

William Raffeld, Sean Effinger Dean, Rus Rainear

There are box office records, and then there is the unparalleled case of “The Fantasticks,” the 1960 musical that ran uninterrupted in the same off-Broadway theater where it opened for no less than forty-two years.  An upside-down riff on “Romeo and Juliet,” here, two fathers fake a feud to get their son and daughter to fall in love, the idea being—as their duet “Never Say No” tells us—that kids will always do the opposite of whatever their parents tell them to do.  The proceedings are narrated by a mellifluous narrator who talks and sings of seasons of the heart and also serves as a comic foil for the trials of the couple.  Its special charms can work even with a mediocre cast and most of us have probably seen high schools and community theaters pull it off quite movingly.  How then, to explain the current production presented by Porchlight Music Theatre that is so underwhelming? Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

Oh, the joys of alcohol. City Lit opens its thirtieth anniversary season with artistic director Terry McCabe’s adaptation of popular Dashiell Hammett novel “The Thin Man,” a quickfire barrage of witty one-liners, copious drinking and classic noir. Christmas week 1932, and Nick Charles, a former detective who’s now retired and married to Nora, a young, wealthy socialite, is reluctantly drawn into a murder investigation with a cast of characters dug up from his past life—cops, street thugs and a dysfunctional family of scheming melodramatics. Lies are lies, unless they aren’t. Hammett famously based all three main female characters on his longtime lover Lillian Hellman. We make our way through the mystery with Charles (played with a tough-yet-joyful bounce by Wm. Bullion), as he often breaks from the rest of the cast to narrate and move the story along. And the booze—the characters in “The Thin Man” drink heavily, constantly and without worry, hopping from cocktail party to speakeasy, martinis and scotches and flasks and tumblers lubricating the mostly convoluted plot. (“It’s too early for breakfast,” Charles tells his wife one morning, and opts for a cocktail instead.) From the first scene, the play slams the audience with an abundance of information and names, and doesn’t let up—in a book, the information has time to settle in your head, but on stage there’s no opportunity to relax, and the intense concentration demanded is a bit exhausting. Read the rest of this entry »