Jessie Gutierez/Photo: Eileen Ryan

Narratives—we human beings eat them up, seek them out, quite frequently imagine them where they don’t exist. They entertain, they educate, they frame our understanding of the world and ourselves. Jan Bartoszek, director of Hedwig Dances, has been thinking a lot about personal narratives during the company’s twenty-fifth anniversary year. Even the title of her new piece—”Dance of Forgotten Steps”—evokes images of myth and legend, like the title of a young-adult fantasy novel. Bartoszek found inspiration in the personal experiences of Hedwig’s six company members, plus seven additional dancers from the community, who recalled formative moments of their lives on tape for the show.

“The piece is about how important memories form our personal narratives and our identity and, in the subtext, the transitory nature of our lives,” Bartoszek says. “A lot of stories have to do with childhood experiences. My personal remembrances have to do with being out in nature in Northern Michigan with my father. Out in the woods…being it looking for mushrooms or just walking around trees and rivers and lakes—those memories are part of my relationship with him and part of who I am.” Read the rest of this entry »

Penny Slusher and John Mahoney

RECOMMENDED

Sure, it’s no surprise to encounter yet another Irish writer with a statistically unlikely mastery of this language. And it’s certainly no surprise to find John Mahoney playing an Irishman nearing life’s end with an unnaturally natural composure. Nor, for that matter, is it any kind of a revelation to tell you that director BJ Jones is consistent in his ability to assemble top-flight ensembles that he molds into a collective of outstanding quality. Unsurprising all, yes, but not to be taken for granted, especially after far too many nights at the theater that point out how exceptional this all is.

“A Life,” Irish playwright Hugh Leonard’s sequel to his Tony Award-winning play, “Da,” unfolds in a single day in the small town of Dalkey, Ireland, when Desmond Drumm (Mahoney) re-engages with important lifelong friends after a disconcerting visit to the doctor. As this happens, a parallel series of flashbacks feature the same characters nearer life’s beginning, laying the foundation for the interlocking relationships. This is no gothic tragedy; revelations are meaningful and heartbreaking, but for the reasons most of us suffer remorse. Not over great betrayals or horrifying transgressions, but rather over smaller but persistent manifestations of obstinancy of character, of insensitivity to the world right around us. Read the rest of this entry »

Samuel G. Roberson, Jr./Photo: Brett Neiman

“The Lost Boys of Sudan” debuted in 2007  at a children’s theater company in Minneapolis as a play for teenagers, and it doesn’t seem to have been adapted for adult audiences in its new incarnation at Victory Gardens. Despite its subject material, the play is strangely infantilizing, more like a Disney film (with a cow for a narrator) than a theater piece about genocide. The first half of the play follows three of the “lost boys”  as they journey to a refugee camp in Kenya; the second half finds them in a “Pleasantville” version of Fargo, where they slowly assimilate to a reductive representation of American cultural life. Overall, it’s a fundamentally uneven dramatic experience, more like a workshop than a finished production—and the real story keeps getting pushed to the side by endless exposition, pedagogical speeches (such as a simplified view of what colonialism is, by the cow) and the incredibly stilted second half, where a study of Fargo’s niceness and the refugee’s resiliance is only briefly as interesting as the real drama left behind. The language, too, is in need of focus and profound editing; while the three main protagonists (played laudibly by Samuel G. Roberson, Jr, Leslie Ann Shepprad and Namir Smallwood) have a quick, sharp banter amongst themselves, most of the writing is wordy in a bad way, with rhymed verse that gets oppressive quickly and awkward references to Shakespeare. It’s all unnecessary to the story, which is in no need of bells and whisltles to make it moving—nothing is added in theatricalizing the story, and what gets lost is the story that needs to be heard most.  (Monica Westin)

At Victory Gardens Biograph Theater, 2433 N Lincoln, (773)871-3000. Through April 25.

Justin Glaser and Liz Shivener

RECOMMENDED

Theater purists scoff at the notion, but one significant reason for the resurgence of the Broadway musical in recent years has nothing whatsoever to do with the Great White Way itself, but rather, with the resurgence of superb show music in full-length Disney cartoons.

Everything about Alan Menken’s score and songs for “Beauty & the Beast” is theatrical in conception, so much so, in fact, that had it appeared on Broadway without having first been a cartoon, it could have done quite well on its own. The fact that is was a cartoon first, however, meant that there isn’t a child in America who grew up with these songs who doesn’t know them inside and out, an unlikely phenomenon if “Beauty and the Beast” had begun life on Broadway.

Luckily, the songs are quite good, and children being exposed to them in any way, shape or form will only increase their appetite for good show music in the long run. Thus, taking children familiar to the live version of “Beauty and the Beast” can be viewed as an investment in their theater-going future. Read the rest of this entry »

Musical theater is such a collaborative art form that it is rare for all of the elements to be so perfectly aligned to make a show really work on every level.  In the 1990s, that happened twice: with “Rent” and with “Ragtime.”

The brainchild of Canadian producer Garth Drabinsky who had just had a mammoth success restaging “Show Boat” on Broadway and across the world, Drabinsky wanted to mount a new, uniquely “American” musical (only in Canada) and sought the rights to E. L. Doctorow’s popular novel.

Doctorow, who had been burned when he allowed the book to be made into a 1981 Milos Forman film that reduced the threads of the novel to a single character and became a comeback vehicle for retired film star James Cagney, had learned his lesson and would only allow the adaptation if Doctorow himself were given full creative control over every aspect of the production, which to Drabinsky’s everlasting credit, he gave.

The carefully crafted end result was a show that in many ways surpassed Doctorow’s book in its pure heart and emotional power, giving audiences an opportunity to actually feel the struggles, dreams, triumphs and tragedies of three diverse American families through a sensational Stephen Flaherty score that mirrors the music idioms of the early twentieth century. Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

Rohina Malik’s one-woman rumination on racism and religious intolerance, a hit at 16th Street Theater last spring, returns to Victory Gardens. The piece profiles five Muslim women dealing with post- 9/11 fallout. A dress designer refuses to design wedding gowns; a lawyer recounts the loss of a lover; a British rapper indicts her family’s racism; a restaurateur requires her patrons to sit next to strangers; an African-American woman defends her decision to “revert” to Islam and to surrender her head covering to avoid violence. Each monologue reveals a different aspect of Middle Eastern or Muslim culture, from tea recipes to wedding customs.

Director Ann Filmer keeps the pacing brisk; Timothy Spencer’s scenic design showcases beautiful fabrics and intriguing silhouettes. Malik’s opening performance seemed rushed, blowing through opportunities for important pauses. But each well-crafted story offers audiences the opportunity to learn and feel. You can’t ask more of a show than that. (Lisa Buscani)

At Victory Gardens, 2433 North Lincoln, (773)871-3000. Through April 4.

Geoff Davis-El/Photo: N. Warren Winter

Elmer Rice, nee Reizenstein, received the 1929 Pulitzer Prize for his realistic profile of inner-city tenement dwellers. Directors Laurence Bryan and Keely Haddad-Null graft grotesque elements to the occasionally creaky script to dramatize the banal horror of crushing poverty, with mixed results.

The piece opens on a building’s inhabitants exchanging weather complaints as the conversation devolves to speculation about Mrs. Maurrant’s (Rebekka James) affair with the milkman (J.J. McDowell). Her daughter Rose (Melinda Ryba) fends off her married boss (Brian Peccia) while erstwhile would-be-lover Sam (Steve Wisegarver) fumes. The setup doesn’t require the ghostly figures floating through the set, stopping the action and foreshadowing already-detailed disasters.

James lacks the yearning for love and freedom the script is riddled with. Ryba and Wisegarver’s naturalism is refreshing, but they don’t nail the horror of the show’s climax. Though the show’s premiere was delayed, it still needs more time in the oven. (Lisa Buscani)

The National Pastime Theater with Clock Productions, 4139 N. Broadway, (773)327-7077, through May 8.

RECOMMENDED

A few centuries before “Gossip Girl” and “The Hills” glamorized betrayal, lust and coldheartedness, French author Pierre Chroderlos de Laclos published “Les Liaisons Dangereuses,” a searing novel about aristocratic excess. And a few decades ago, playwright Christopher Hampton adapted that novel into an award-winning play and screenplay. Today, Remy Bumppo’s revival of Hampton’s adaptation is as licentious and biting as ever.

Throughout the well-acted production, Mme de Merteuil (the deliciously salacious Rebecca Spence) and Le Vicomte de Valmont (the superbly smooth Nick Sandys) conspire constantly. Whether seeking revenge on a frenemy or merely attempting to advance their own conquests, Spence and Sandys portray equal parts self-loathing, melancholic ennui and a grudging admiration for each other’s moral corruption with a haughty sense of refined ease.

Though one crucial scene feels a bit rushed, director David Darlow has carefully staged this show to allow his actors, and the excellent script, maximum impact, with a few surprisingly bold choices. From bedroom to bedroom—and ultimately to a terrific sword fight—“Les Liaisons Dangereuses” delivers divine depravity and memorable one-liners with the cruelest of intentions. (Zach Freeman)

At Remy Bumppo Theatre, Upstairs Mainstage, Greenhouse Theater, 2257 North Lincoln, (773)404-7336, through May 2.

Mick Napier has directed plenty of shows at Annoyance Theatre, none of which however, have been sketch comedy. This is the same Napier who founded Annoyance Theatre, directed more than fifteen sketch revues at Second City, directed David Sedaris’ “One Woman Shoe” and directed “Exit 57” for Comedy Central. This is why his mates at Annoyance are so excited that Napier is premiering his newest sketch show, “The Swear Jar,” at his home base, so to speak. “It’s very dirty,” half-laughs managing director Tyler Wolff-Ormes. “And he’s definitely taking advantage of the no-holds-barred attitude of Annoyance.” With musical direction by Lisa McQueen and  a cast featuring Vanessa Bayer, Aidy Bryant, Angela Dawe, Colleen Murray, Andrew Peyton, Conner O’ Malley, Brian Wilson and Chris Witaske, Wolff-Ormes expects great things. “I’m really excited about the cast,” he says. “It’s a powerhouse cast.” The show, $15, opens March 27 and runs through May 1. (Peter Cavanaugh)

Heather Wood

RECOMMENDED

In an ambitious departure from the topical, highly contemporary milieu she’s become known for (most recently evidenced in finest form with “The Crowd You’re In With”), Rebecca Gilman’s “A True History of the Johnstown Flood,” now in its world premiere at the Goodman Theatre,  strives, mostly successfully, to reveal layers of truths about the times we live in through the retrospective craft of a giant historic epic.

A touring second-generation “first family of theater,” the Baxters (Cliff Chamberlain as Richard, Heather Wood as Fanny and Stephen Louis Grush as James, all in fine turns) find their lives and careers intersecting with the vast wealth of the Lippincotts, represented in compelling embodiments of noblesse oblige by Janet Ulrich Brooks as the benevolent patron and Lucas Hall as her son, Walter. When the manmade mountain lake that provides recreation for the rich floods and destroys the working-class town of Johnstown below (in reality, killing more than 2,200 people in 1889, the most devastating disaster in U.S. history at the time),  the play takes a definitive shift in tone. The humorous, airy comedy of manners that makes up the first act suddenly becomes a tragedy that overtly echoes the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Read the rest of this entry »