Nube Blanco/Photo: Kristie Kahns

In the midst of this, their tenth anniversary year, the founder and artistic director of Luna Negra Dance Theater moved to New York to take the helm of Ballet Hispanico: the first company he danced with professionally. This week, Eduardo Vilaro is back in town to premiere “Danzon,” new work for Luna Negra, now in the process of vetting a new creative director. The return is a comfortable one; talking with him in the rehearsal space on South Wabash, watching him direct and critique during rehearsal, it doesn’t feel as though Vilaro ever left.

“I miss Chicago,” Vilaro says. A Cuban immigrant, he spent his later childhood and early professional life in New York, then left fifteen years ago when the city was still, as he puts it, on edge. “It’s lost a little bit of that edge, but what it hasn’t lost is this constant energy of creation, both capitalistically and artistically—there’s a lot of movement.” New York has changed significantly in the last decade and a half, but Vilaro is quite comfortable returning to direct Ballet Hispanico. “I don’t feel estranged,” he says. “I feel like the environment, the actual physical space welcomes me.” Change comes naturally to Vilaro, who describes himself as an immigrant who has still not found home. “For a while I was extracted from my family. In the assimilation process you’re ripped apart. It gives you drive, but there’s a harsh part, where you never know where you’ll plant your feet. It puts me in a place where I need to connect.”

For now Vilaro is staying connected with Luna Negra and forming new ties via a collaboration with Latin jazz artist Paquito D’Rivera. “Danzon” is a sexy, playful work that weaves lush athleticism sprinkled with lighthearted break steps into D’Rivera’s stormy, suggestive clarinet lines. The piece will be presented as part of Luna Negra’s fall performance this Saturday at the Harris, along with repertory favorites including the sultry, cinematic “Tango Vitrola” by Argentinean choreographer Alejandro Cervera and “Nube Blanco,” Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s delightful, immensely witty surrealist confection that must be experienced at least once.

“I’m going to do my best, to stick to my vision of the impact I want for the whole Latino community,” Vilaro tells me. “Here to New York to Los Angeles to Latin America to Spain—my goal is to connect, not disconnect. I want to keep working on giving voice to a culture while inviting people in to explore.” (Sharon Hoyer)

Luna Negra performs at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 205 E. Randolph (312)334-7777. Saturday, October 10, 8pm. $25-$55.

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In 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts, bored little girls accused their neighbors of witchcraft; twenty people lost their lives. Not exactly fertile comic ground, but the Annoyance warps historical record with a feminist twist and makes it work in “Salem! The Musical.”

Reverend Parris ( Lauren Van Kurin) arrives from Barbados with his daughter Betsy (Ashley Thornton), slave Tituba (Allison Black) and unwanted orphan niece Abby (Elise Dubois). Educated Abby becomes the immediate object of lascivious Dr. Grimes’ (Kayce Alltop) suspicion.

The writing can be spotty; the second act is abrupt and this crew doesn’t need a gratuitous cuss word to land a punch line. But the smart ensemble’s high-energy, varied approaches win over the audience: Van Kurin is a cross between Jimmy Swaggart and Elvis, Thornton is wry and sly, and Alltop leads with her pelvis. Dan Wessels’ score is in on the joke. It’s a sharp rewrite of a  scary story. (Lisa Buscani)

“Salem! The Musical,” Annoyance Theatre, 4830 N. Broadway, (773)561-4665, through October 30.

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So, it’s Chekhov and people are “bored;” bored with their unfulfilled lives and their provincial neighbors. But thanks to some skilled performances, “Ivanov” isn’t boring; it’s a humorous tragedy about unrealized dreams.

Nikolai Ivanov (Jeremy Fisher) is a bankrupt landowner who wallows in his failed aspirations. His tubercular wife Anna (Cyd Blakewell) remains faithful to her husband, even when he abandons her nightly to seek brighter society at the Lyebedev home with their lovely daughter Alexandra (Sue Redman).

The first act is muddled by exposition, but the second is a hoot and the third a powder keg. Fisher captures Ivanov’s desolation; his pain is genuine and heartfelt. Blakewell’s Anna is heartbreaking; she allows her blind belief in her husband to be her undoing. Redman’s attempts to spark life into her prospective lover are amusing and frustrating. Thanks to Sheldon Patinkin’s astute direction, the ensemble handles Chekhov’s abrupt mood swings with aplomb. (Lisa Buscani)

“Ivanov,” SiNNERMAN Ensemble, 3111 N. Western, (773)296-6024, through November 7.

Photo: Liz Lauren

The finale of the history plays, “Richard III” is that remarkable early work of Shakespeare where the Bard fully developed his villain chops, i.e., his ability to create a character that, though thoroughly despicable, can take the audience into his confidence so disarmingly and with such charm that we become virtually complicit in the crimes that are to follow just by becoming engaged in the play.  Or at least, it is usually so.

With Barbara Gaines’ Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s season-opening production, Washington D.C. actor Wallace Acton plays Richard with such affectations and disinterest that we don’t feel a thing. From the first moments of Richard’s soliloquy “Now is the winter of our discontent,” Acton is up there talking to himself, not us, refusing to connect either with the audience nor anyone else in the play.  At one point after revealing his plans, he offers a brief, cursory faux smile to the thin air. His faux British accent is a cross between Charles Laughton and Roddy McDowall impressions and makes Richard into such a detached dandy that we cannot possibly accept that he would be able to sway anyone in the court into his confidence to do his bidding, let alone that he would be able to woo his way into the bedchamber of Lady Anne. Without a Richard that works, the play falls apart and much of the rest of the cast just falls into standby mode, the women most effectively able to get their characters across despite such a handicap. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s a great premise, with the potential to address racial discrimination and the immigrant experience with incisiveness and humor: two first-generation Cambodian-American siblings living in Long Beach learn about their mother’s flight from the Khmer Rouge from their childhood friend, now a gang member, whose history with the sister threatens to undermine her new relationship with her whitewashed, Orange County-born Chinese-American boyfriend. Sadly, there’s little good to be said about “Year Zero,” the first of two plays presented as Victory Gardens’ first “Ignition Festival,” devoted to emerging playwrights of color. At best, the production’s consistent stiffness and sluggish pace drains what should have been the play’s moments of highest drama. At worst, the writing itself feels like a public-service-announcement disguised as art. Not only is the plot formulaic, with a love triangle, coming-of-age story and a good man gone bad (at one point, the gang member actually says, and this is a quote: “There’s something I’ve gotta do, and after that this won’t be my home anymore”); but the script is littered with so much information about Cambodian culture, the stereotypes and hierarchies that different Asian immigrants hold,  and SoCal culture (“Oh, Roscoe’s? That famous chicken and waffle place?”) that it’s more of a lecture-based pedagogical experience than a theatrical one. (Monica Westin)

At Victory Gardens Biograph Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln, (773)871-3000, through October 18.

Darrell W. Cox and Cheryl Graeff/Photo: Wayne Karl

On his way to work in downtown Manhattan the morning of September 11, a man makes a stop at his lover’s apartment for a breakfast blowjob.  Neil LaBute’s “The Mercy Seat” begins in the early hours a day later, the man sitting immobile on his lover’s couch, refusing to answer his cell phone and let his wife and kids know that he is alive.

He is one of the presumed missing.  One of the presumed dead.  This is their meal ticket, he says.  They can leave without a trace—an idea his lover finds both alluring and repellent.  Over the course of ninety minutes, they will jab and joust as they debate their options.

It was only last year that I think I finally understood for the first time where LaBute is coming from as a playwright.  “In a Dark Dark House” was the play that did it for me, where the odiousness of the story revealed something deft and complex about human nature and the way we deal with our problems.

“The Mercy Seat” precedes that play by a number of years (it was first staged in 2002), and it features some of that same old repetitive LaButian jazz that can be such a turnoff—the play is essentially a fight repeated over and over again, though LaBute is witty as hell as he cuts these people down to size. Read the rest of this entry »

An almost-but-not-quite successful (and admittedly impressively ambitious) adaptation of the epic Dostoyevsky novel “Demons,” Bruised Orange’s production tries hard to overcome but can’t manage to avoid the built-in problem of overwhelming amounts of narrative, which ultimately drowns out much of the show’s theatricality. A number of gestures at metatheater and the show’s tone of hysteria tempered with melancholy help keep the dramatic pitch, but there’s simply too much detail needed for the audience to keep up, and it breaks up and stiffens what would otherwise be exciting scenes of a Russian town falling apart.  Even in the climax of the play, in which a society benefit is interrupted by anarchists’ bombs, there’s more speech-making and explanation than action; the overall experience is of one long series of exposition broken up by anarchist speeches, boozing, fighting and general Russian self-destruction. That said, the ensemble works valiantly to stay buoyant, and a few performances (Ross and Sonneville in particular) transcend the cumbersome narrative. (Monica Westin)

Bruised Orange Theater Company‘s production of “Village of K_” plays at side project theater, 1439 W. Jarvis, (773)336-2682, through October 11.

Pictured: Andrew Adams

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This weekend, Winifred Haun & Dancers premiere ”Promise,” an evening-length work inspired by the female characters from Steinbeck’s “East of Eden.” Stills show dancers entwined in aerial ropes, suspended in the midst of struggle. Haun has been developing the work for three years, exploring themes of community versus individuality, rebellion and conformity, and the ways women respond to conflict. Natalie Rast portrays Liza Hamilton, the sensible spouse of imaginative and good-natured inventor-slash-farmer Samuel Hamilton in Steinbeck’s most ambitious novel. It’s a relatively large cast—more than fourteen dancers—for large themes and spans musical genres, including music by every one from Japanese composer Maki Ishii to folk songbird Jolie Holland to Kanye West. This is Haun & Dancers’ first full-length ballet. (Sharon Hoyer)

At the Ruth Page Center for the Arts, 1016 N. Dearborn, (773)454-9843. October 9 and 10, 7:30pm. $25, $20 students and seniors.

I assume Oak Park-born comedienne Kathy Griffin is at least kind of funny. Between her Emmy-award winning reality show, “Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List,” her best-selling book “Official Book Club Selection: A Memoir According to Kathy Griffin,” and her general omnipresence on cable, Griffin has somehow parlayed her giggly giddiness and approximately twenty-seven plastic surgeries into inexplicable appeal. Hey, more power to her, I’m just clearly not in her target demographic (which I gather ranges between sorority sisters and Oxygen channel devotees) so I’ll assume my annoyance with her is just a guy thing. I’ll admit, if you search her rambling storytelling set, you’ll find a touch of satire on the state of gossipy Hollywood. It’s just particularly grating satire. Ah yes, you’re scratching and clawing for any publicity you can grab because you’re a “D-list” celebrity, one of many bottom-of-the-food-chain celebrities who can charge $50+ to see their set. Seriously, $50? I could go see Bob Dylan in a few weeks for that kind of money, and at this zany, upbeat point of his career, he might even be funnier. (Andy Seifert)

October 8-11 at Chicago Theatre, 175 N. State, (312)263-1138. $49.50-$69.50

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Jeffrey Ross strikes me as the type of guy who wakes up at 2pm, peeks out his tour bus, mutters, “Damn, we’re in Chicago already ” then goes about his usual routine: making a good living by mercilessly ripping on people. When I saw him last year at Zanies, he looked disheveled, eyes bloodshot, a disgusting neck beard outlining his chin, basically in the sort of physical state someone would be if their wife just left them. And yet, the whole charade actually enhanced Ross’ insult-ridden set, as if saying, “Yeah, I’m a pathetic schmuck, but if I’m totally owning your ass, then what does that make you?” Currently serving as the New York Friar’s Club “Roastmaster General,” Ross can be frequently seen roasting the pants off of whoever’s the man or woman of honor (usually some loser like Chevy Chase), and while those shows put his biting sarcasm front and center, they don’t show just how sharp and quick Ross is with a live audience. Sure, the dude’s crude, disrespectful and crass—but in an intelligent sort of way. (Andy Seifert)

October 14-15 at Zanies, 1548 N. Wells, (312)337-4027.