Photo: Jane Nicholl Sahlins

By Dennis Polkow

“If Aristophanes were alive today,” says an elderly but still twinkling Bernard Sahlins, “he would be on cable television.”  It may a seem a long way from the satirical ancient Greek playwright to the Second City some two-and-a-half millennia later, but Sahlins, a founder of Chicago’s legendary comedy troupe who is directing a production of “Lysistrata” this weekend, puts the timeframe in perspective: “Long before Second City, when I was directing ‘straight’ plays, including the Greek tragedies, Claudia Cassidy [then Chicago Tribune critic] wrote that I had directed the worst production in 2,000 years.”  Well, she ought to know.

Sahlins says that he has always been interested in Greek drama, a love that was in part fostered by his time studying the classics at the University of Chicago, where he graduated in 1943.  “A University of Chicago education was once described as ‘Casting imaginary pearls before real swine.’ But don’t use that.

“You know, the high point of Greek drama only lasted for about eighty-six years. The period of Sophocles, Euripides, Aeschylus and Aristophanes passed quickly and then there was nothing except street theater until the Middle Ages and the development of church plays. The era of the playwright, the individual dramatist, did not emerge again until the Renaissance and the phenomenon of the playwright as we think of it is a fairly modern phenomenon that really fully came about in the nineteenth century.” Read the rest of this entry »

For the past five years, the Space/Movement Project has been making dance as a collaborative group without sole leadership. Their current project, “Safety in Numbers,” was performed last year as a collection of individual pieces, but has since been revised, amended and edited into a singe work by multiple authors. After a run-through of the revised piece, all the members of SP/MP sat down to talk with me about the show. The flow of their conversation—the swells of excitement over shared ideas, the still moments of individual reflection—provided both a glimpse into their creative dynamic and a fair representation of the considerable rewards of rigorous collaboration.

“It’s amazing how you can tell when something works and when it doesn’t,” said member Larisa Eastman. “Group intuition is really powerful. And we’ve been learning to edit ourselves; there’s a lot of ego check.”

“I don’t think there’s a lot of ego here,” replied Chloe Nisbett, who’d just re-entered the room. Chloe had ducked out to change, presumably because she hadn’t contributed any of the initial choreography, but joined the group later on. Megan Schneeberger remarked on the importance of adding fresh blood to the project. Read the rest of this entry »

The Decline of Ballooning

RECOMMENDED

This gorgeous pairing of unlikely musicals was a highlight of this year’s Rhinofest. B.T. Scott’s “Decline of Ballooning” is the stronger of the two, an abstract, delicate piece about the pained relationship between two aerial photographers. The story’s diagesis, which necessitates some staging as improbable as “Lear,” is broken up by disjoined interjections by Cupola Bobber’s Tyler Myers and a pianist playing surreal and Brechtian songs written by Scott and Sam Wagster. The overall effect is more lyrical and understated than one might imagine a play involving people falling from airplanes and receiving invasive surgery onstage could be. Devin King’s “Madame X Paints Haydn Red” is less coherent but just as striking at times; King monologues about Haydn being “sort of a dick, like Frank Zappa” in his music, the story of the two skulls in Haydn’s tomb, the history of vinyl, and the lost art of phrenology while collaborator Sean O’Connell and he create a sort of ambient music opera. The only problem here is that the music is technically boring and often tedious, especially sections that seem to meditate on the sound of rewinding. (Monica Westin)

Caitlin Chuckta/Photo: Anne Petersen

RECOMMENDED

A good chunk of my youth was spent at summer camp, and I loved the intense relationships that formed over a matter of days. It always felt like you were going to be BEST FRIENDS FOR EVER!!!

A goofy but intensely gossipy slumber-party culture permeates summer camp. For all its unobscured nature and forestation, camp always felt like a strangely hermetic environment, but to this day I’d rather swim in a lake than the ocean. I’d also rather watch “Wet Hot American Summer” than just about anything else starring Michael Showalter and Michael Ian Black.

I never went to Jesus camp, but judging by the atmosphere captured in “11:11”—the high-spirited, genuinely funny comedy from The New Colony currently occupying the upstairs studio at the Victory Gardens Biograph—apparently it’s not that different from any other camp.  Camp is camp.

The counselors here may drop references to God and Jesus the way I used to obsess over care packages. But when it comes to the all-over “camp” vibe, playwrights Evan Linder and Tara Sissom (working with director Meg Johns and an excellent cast) have it nailed. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: John Taflan

RECOMMENDED

“Wilson Wants It All,” the newest show from House Theatre of Chicago, directed and conceived by Michael Rohd and written by Rohd and Phillip C. Klapperich, may not take the whole shebang, but it damn well comes close. Set thirty years in the future in a seven-party America on the brink of a civil war over reproductive rights, “Wilson” tells the story of a reluctant Hope, the daughter of a slain senator who has been endowed with the… well hope of a divided people.  Another young woman, Ruth, looks remarkably similar to Hope and is just as discontent with her life.  The two switch places and with the help of the titular political advisor, the new Hope makes a run for office.  Part “Minority Report,” part “The West Wing,” and entirely House, “Wilson” is a feat of storytelling, an engaging ride that employs theatrical magic and inventive staging to create a world that breathes and flourishes. Though slightly too long, the play never drags for more than a minute and Rohd has created moments that defy time altogether with montages, slowmos and transitions that are cinematic in scope. And the sound design of Michael Griggs is worth the price of admission. His soundscape nods to the present but feels like the future, and in this case it is the bedrock that House’s signature magic is built on. (William Scott)

At the Chopin Theater, 1543 W. Division, (773)251-2195. Through March 27.

RECOMMENDED

Imagine a small Chicago theater company choosing to do something that even a major opera company such as Lyric Opera wouldn’t dare think of doing in such uncertain economic times: put on a complete Wagner “Ring” cycle.

The “Ring” is the short name for Richard Wagner’s four-part epic “The Ring of the Nibelungs” cycle of music dramas which consists of the individual works “The Rhine Gold,” “The Valkyrie,” “Siegfried” and “Twilight of the Gods.” The “Ring” has no parallel, and is the most ambitious stage work ever written, occupying the mind of its creator for more than twenty-five years.

Logging in at some nineteen hours of performance time performed across four separate evenings, the theatrical demands of the “Ring” were such that Wagner designed and built his own theater outside of the small Bavarian town of Bayreuth that could properly meet its unique demands, a city whose principal industry remains its Wagner performances and its ongoing reputation as a Wagnerian shrine.  (The waiting list for tickets there is some eight years ahead.)   Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s the press release from the Goodman:

MARY ZIMMERMAN REIMAGINES BERNSTEIN’S CANDIDE IN A MAJOR FALL MUSICAL EVENT;
ROBERT FALLS RE-EXAMINES CHEKHOV’S THE SEAGULL; PLUS NEW WORKS BY SARAH RUHL,
REGINA TAYLOR AND THOMAS BRADSHAW HEADLINE GOODMAN THEATRE’S 2010/2011 SEASON

***THE GOODMAN CELEBRATES A DECADE OF ACHIEVEMENTS AS ANCHOR OF THE NORTH LOOP

THEATRE DISTRICT, STARTING WITH A SEPT. 27 EVENT AT THE ART INSTITUTE’S MODERN WING*** Read the rest of this entry »

James Anthony Zoccoli/Photo: Christopher "DJ Evil Vince" May

RECOMMENDED

Probably most appropriate for high-school audiences, James Anthony Zoccoli’s one-man show presents his childhood of racial identity confusion in a combination of monologue, stand-up and family slideshow, with some fly-for-a-white-boy dance moves that keep the show dynamic—and a DJ off to the side spinning tracks that complement the story cleverly. Spanning from age seven, when his mother married a black man who raised him, to Obama’s election, Zoccoli’s account offers a sincere and sometimes awkwardly honest look at the performance of race from the little-explored point of view of a white boy “raised black” (whatever that means, and Zoccoli doesn’t seem quite sure himself). It’s a shame that he doesn’t bring more complexity to the perspective—there are some really funny and insightful lines here, but they get lost in simplistic, occasionally smarmy civics lessons. But Zoccoli’s a gifted storyteller and born entertainer, and if his lecture on the originations of the word “caucasion” and human life in Africa are cringe-inducing, they’re quickly forgotten during his spot-on impressions of his family and pop culture figures of the eighties. (Monica Westin)

At DCA Studio Theater, Chicago Cultural Center, 77 E Randolph (312)742- 8497. Through February 22.

By Valerie Jean Johnson

It’s 9:30pm on a Saturday night and the cast of the Building Stage’s “Ring Cycle,” their six-hour adaptation of Wagner’s epic, four-part opera cycle, “The Ring of the Nibelung,” has just taken a curtain call following their third preview showing. The audience has been here since three o’clock this afternoon (I can only imagine the company arrived at least a couple hours earlier than that), and yet no one seems in a hurry to exit this West Loop theater—small clusters of people are still lingering, greeting the cast and crew as they emerge from backstage. The atmosphere is celebratory as directors Blake Montgomery and Joanie Schultz make their way through the house. If they’re exhausted, you’d never know it—on the contrary, they seem energetic, joyful and eager for the final week of work ahead before their official opening on February 13. So close to their work being done, the obvious question is where did they begin?

According to Montgomery, “We asked ourselves ‘what’s the craziest thing we could do?’” And though said with a laugh, there’s no question that he means it. In the nearly five years since Montgomery founded the company, The Building Stage has made a name for itself by creating innovative new works based on existing sources from literature, film and other media, as well as original material. Both having an interest in Wagner’s opera, the Norse mythology on which it is based, and long-form theater performance, Montgomery and Schultz agreed that transforming the cycle into a non-operatic theater production was just the kind of challenge the Building Stage was ready for. Read the rest of this entry »

Mauro Villanueva and Victoria Jaiani/Photo: Herbert Migdoll

RECOMMENDED

The Joffrey Ballet stays true to Sir Frederick Ashton’s definitive version of the world’s best-known fairy tale with plenty of frills and spectacle, including a life-sized pumpkin coach. The wicked stepsisters, played by men, lend a slapstick edge to the saccharine tale. Wendy Ellis Somes, a former dancer with the Royal Ballet, staged this production for the Joffrey, ensuring the piece, already familiar to the Joffrey, resonates with the grace and charm of the original, first produced in 1948, restaged in ‘65. Score by Prokofiev, splendorous sets—this one is for lovers of the classics. (Sharon Hoyer)

At the Auditorium Theatre, 50 E Congress Pkwy, (800)982-2787. February 17-28, $25-145.