Photo: Michael Brosilow

In 2008, E. Patrick Johnson, currently a professor at Northwestern University, published a book titled “Sweet Tea:  Black Gay Men of the South.” It was an oral-history anthology featuring the multi-generational voices of some seventy black men discussing growing up gay in the South, and if nothing else its very publication was an event in itself. After all, aside from the late Joseph Beam’s seminal 1986 book, “In the Life,” one of the earliest anthologies of gay black male writing, the late Marlon Riggs’ astonishing 1989 documentary film about gay black men, “Tongues Untied” and, on the lighter side, “Noah’s Arc,” a short-lived 2005 cable television series about a group of black gay friends, there hasn’t been much on the subject of homosexuality and black men, let alone those of the South. That immediately made Patrick’s work, like Beam and Riggs’ before his, significant because it sought to provide some desperately needed context to a generation of gay men who had previously not seen their lives reflected or validated in the popular culture.

Johnson has now adapted that book for the stage as a solo performance piece for himself, directed by Daniel Alexander Jones and sponsored by About Face Theatre and Columbia College. Using a dozen or so characters from the book, Johnson has intercut and woven these voices in and around various subjects that include love, sex, death, faith, family, the church and HIV/AIDS. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m a sucker for the sarcastic, phantastic worlds of graphic novelist/screenwriter/author Neil Gaiman. He makes you long for an invitation to his twisted tea party. But Robert Kauzlaric’s too-faithful adaptation of Gaiman’s “Neverwhere” makes us feel like we’ve stayed too long at the ball.

Richard Mayhew (Kauzlaric) is a solid do-gooder living a “normal” life when he stumbles on Door (Katie McLean), unconscious and bleeding on a London sidewalk. He’s drawn into her world and must help her to return to his own. What follows is a convoluted hero’s journey that tests the patience of the most ardent “Sandman” fan.

The ensemble fights hard to keep the energy alive; Chris Hainsworth is a bitchy, dismissive delight as a nobleman who serves Door; Sean Sinitski, Christopher Walsh and Phil Timberlake evil it up nicely. Kauzlaric’s hero is likeable, we root for him. We just wish his quest didn’t take so long. (Lisa Buscani)

At Lifeline Theatre, 6912 North Glenwood, (773)761-4477. Through July 18.

RECOMMENDED

“Aftermath” has many of the qualities that make a good pop record: it’s short, sweet and to the point. Examining the three years leading up to the death of Brian Jones, the founder and original leader of the Rolling Stones, the play encapsulates, in scene and song, moments in Jones’ life that had impacts on the band, and vice versa. We follow Jones from drug arrest, to passionate love affair, to recording session dispute, to palatial hermitage, to death. Tensions arise that pull Jones and the rest of the band farther apart, leaving the latter, especially Mick and Keith, to make harsh yet necessary determinations about the future of the band. This might all seem familiar, with Ronan Marra’s script taking us through the motions of the typical rock-star tragedy, but it’s his direction and the actors’ performances that really make the production sing. Aaron Snook’s portrayal of Jones is particularly effective, though the whole cast bring plenty of verve to their interpretations of their characters and their characters’ music. If there’s any downside to the production, it’s that the music performances tend to have built-in applause moments. By the end, however, you find there’s more than just the songs to clap for. (Neal Ryan Shaw)

Signal Ensemble Theatre at the Raven Theatre West Stage, 157 North Clark, (773)347-1350. Through June 7.

Following the twisted antics of anti-hero Mr. Suit as he traverses the halls of a hospital/asylum for damaged women, Brikenbrak Theatre Project’s production of The Samaritan Syndrome presents a dark examination of the human psyche—intrinsically asking us how often we hurt others (intentionally or unintentionally) while seeking to save ourselves. While the pain inflicted in the show is more often physical than mental, the unspoken metaphor is apt and visceral—and plays well in the starkly intimate confines of the Gorilla Tango Theatre. Unfortunately, the forty-five-minute script doesn’t quite hold up under scrutiny, and the female characters (though ably played by the cast) are written with disappointingly one-dimensional (and overly sexual) strokes. It’s definitely a conversation piece—with a talk-back planned after each show—but the conversation feels a little too surface-level for such disturbing material. (Zach Freeman)

Brikenbrak Theatre Project at Gorilla Tango Theatre, 1919 N. Milwaukee, (773)598-4549. Tuesdays at 8pm through May 25. $12.

Andy Luppas George and cast

RECOMMENDED

There are so many overblown, satiric musicals for people who hate musicals, but “The Drowsy Chaperone” is a musical unabashedly yet satirically written for people who actually love musicals.

It is a bold and curious paradox for Marriott to be staging the show, given that “Man in Chair,” as he is billed in the show and here played by James Harms, begins his unassuming diatribe about theater complaining about performers running down aisles and breaking the fourth wall in a theater whose calling card is doing exactly that.

The audience howled as Harms, unseen in complete darkness, makes these and other wry and real observations—“How long, Elton John, can we continue the charade?” got the biggest laugh, given the current success of “Billy Elliot” downtown—until we hear about an unlikely 1928 show called “The Drowsy Chaperone,” a faux musical, of course, that we begin to hear through the static of an old record. Suddenly, the show comes to life with characters coming down the aisles and into Harm’s mind’s eye, as it were, as a send-up of one of those extravagant and exuberant musicals of the 1920s.

Here, unfortunately, is where the Marriott production falls short in that the characters are treated so outrageously that the approach is decidedly tongue-in-cheek all evening. The beauty of the original production, of course, is that none of the outrageous characters in the fictional show know that they are outrageous, which is what made the original so much fun. Read the rest of this entry »

Frederica von Stade/Photo: Liz Lauren

With all of the hullabaloo concerning mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade’s “farewell” performances in Chicago, it would be wonderful to report that Chicago Opera Theater’s production of Jake Heggie’s “Three Decembers” is a work worthy of the occasion. Alas, such is not the case.

The ninety-minute one-act “opera”—and the term is loosely used—originally written for von Stade and presented as two acts in its 2008 premiere, feels like it goes on forever, traversing as it does three Christmases, each a decade apart. The libretto is excessively chatty and much too respectful of insignificant details of Terrence McNally’s “Some Christmas Letters (and a Couple of Phone Calls)” while providing little in the way of overall development and motivation that would allow us to know and thus care for its three characters: a Broadway diva (von Stade) and her gay son (baritone Matthew Worth) who is losing a partner that we never meet to AIDS as the work opens, and a daughter (soprano Sara Jakubiak), both of whom have been raised with an absentee mother and the well-stoked idealized memory of a dead father.

Is it an opera?  Yes, in the sense that it is through-composed (that is to say, every line is set to music and there is no spoken dialogue apart from music) and that operatically trained voices are employed, though in this case, to considerable disadvantage given that the lead character is a Broadway musical actress, not an opera singer, and therefore it would make much more sense for her to sound something akin to the sound world that her character represents. That also means that voices are more concerned with making beautiful sounds than being clearly understood, which means that short of constantly looking at rapidly fired surtitles instead of the action, such as it is, you will not have a clue as to what is going on here, even though everyone is singing in English. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Eleanor Berman

By Fabrizio O. Almeida

“Angels in America, Part I”: An angel appears accompanied by a flash of light so bright you have to block your eyes. An aural cluster of classical compositions (Stravinsky, Verdi) blasts while the incessant sound of fluttering wings catches up to your heartbeat, an experience akin to the THX Dolby Digital surround sound in a movie theater that vibrates from up and under your chair and into your body.

“Adding Machine”: A visual journey into an expressionistic world of chiaroscuro lighting effects and dark sensibilities.

“Picnic”: You enter the theater and are enveloped in a world of live tree branches and gorgeous green grass.

“Our Town”: A fugue of smells—the aroma of coffee percolating and bacon sizzling—from a kitchen so real you could move in yesterday.

These are David Cromer moments. Read the rest of this entry »

Emma Draves/Photo: Cheryl Mann

Art has a singular power of removing us, if only for an hour or two, from our habits and expectations to imaginary landscapes where we’re challenged, confused, delighted, sometimes angered—where we think in a previously non-existent direction, hammering out new dimensions in our consciousness. When art is at its best, we step away from the experience to view the commonplace differently. Shirley Mordine, founder of the Dance Center at Columbia College and director of Mordine and Co., created the NEXT festival last spring in the spirit of this exploration and addresses the concept directly in her new piece, “I Haven’t Gone There,” premiering at NEXT Fest this weekend. Mordine collaborated with performance artist Bryan Saner of the now-disbanded Goat Island Performance Group, and Mark Messing of spectacle marching band Mucca Pazza to create a theatrical tour through unusual encounters. Read the rest of this entry »

"Crossed"/Photo: Herbert Migdoll

RECOMMENDED

With such regular fare as “The Nutcracker” and “Cinderella,” it’s easy to forget that the Joffrey has built its reputation as a contemporary ballet company, one likely to lead audiences into reconsideration of the increasingly flimsy boundaries between dance’s genres. With “Eclectica,” a three-piece repertory now at the Auditorium, we can report that the conversation between ballet and contemporary dance is healthier than ever at Joffrey.

Opener “Reflections” is signature Joffrey work. This 40-year-old creation of co-founder Gerald Arpino (which, in a nice symmetry, had its world premiere in 1971 at this very same theater, though the company was then decades away from moving to Chicago) is stripped-down, simple beauty—dance at its essence. Just a cello and piano, playing Tchaikovsky’s beautiful “Variations on a Rococo Theme” for Violinocello and Orchestra, op. 33, and dancers conducting a master lesson in why ballet is such a beautiful art form.

But young choreographer Jessica Lang’s world premiere, “Crossed,” is the showstopper. Read the rest of this entry »

Tom Flanigan, Tim Baltz, Beth Melewski, Brendan Jennings, Christina Anthony, Mary Sohn

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If there is one reason to see Second City’s thirty-fourth revue on the e.t.c. stage, his name is Brendan Jennings, one of the newer writer-performers in the cast who makes his presence known with a good-natured mania that is impossible to ignore.

Of the many talents who’ve worked on Second City’s stages in recent years, Jennings seems the most suited for “Saturday Night Live.” Whether that’s in his future is another matter, but Jennings has a lot of qualities that work well on TV. There’s an inherent sweetness to his comedy and, like Will Ferrell, he has enough personal charisma to play it broad—almost too broad—and still keep it interesting.

He doesn’t display much versatility, but he has the loose physicality of a frat-boy party animal, and a real knack for the comedy of humiliation. I will not soon forget his primal scream of rage as he stood dressed in a pair of Daisy Dukes hiked up his butt crack, wailing about his miserable life. Jennings screams like a girl, a trait that is both hilarious and a clever bit of comedy; you are always on his side, no matter how ridiculous and ass-cheek-exposing that side may be. Read the rest of this entry »