RECOMMENDED

Writer Aaron Sorkin (of “The West Wing” fame) takes up the history of television’s invention, a story filled with espionage, macabre corporate politics and visionary prophets of media’s future. When immigrant-turned-media-mogul David Sarnoff  purloins the invention from Philo Farnsworth, a college-dropout boy genius from the boondocks in Idaho, the conflict is less between Sarnoff and Farnsworth than it is between Farnsworth’s idealism of information sharing and collaboration versus Sarnoff’s corporate interest in intellectual property, and Sarnoff’s own losing battle against advertising in mass media. Both, of course, fail in their idealistic fights, but the story of how they fail, in the context of early to mid-twentieth-century history, is mostly exciting. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Joel Wanek

“I want this to be the nicest storefront theater in town,” Theater Wit artistic director Jeremy Wechsler recently told the Chicago Tribune’s Chris Jones. After taking a look around last week through the remodeled three-theater complex that used to house the Bailiwick, I’d say Wechsler has succeeded, and then some.

The old Bailiwick building had been something of a dump for years. We’re used to that in Chicago. Storefront theaters aren’t meant to be especially comfortable or designed with acoustics in mind. I wouldn’t say that’s part of the charm, but it certainly gives fringe theater a grittiness that feels distinctively Chicago.

Wechsler has gone in an entirely different direction, and I think it’s a real boon to the theater landscape as a whole. (In the fall, Shattered Globe, Stage Left and BoHo will also take up residence.)  Mike Daisey recently railed against theaters that he feels are more concerned with building physical structures than focusing on the art that goes on inside—but plays need to be performed somewhere, and this city is lacking in mid-sized, moderately priced venues to fill the void between rough-and-ready storefronts and pricey downtown real estate. The Theater Wit space should go a long way to remedy that. Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

A strong, stylish adaptation of the Sam Shepard family tragedy about a family wrestling to hold onto their rundown farm and dilapidated house. The family is one that’s deeply embedded in our shared literary memory, and we’ve heard the story many times before: A dreaming lush of a father, broken mother looking for a way out and two children destined to stay stuck in the cycle of marginal poverty (despite asserting that they’re not part of the “starving class”) get taken down by con artists and opportunistic sleazebags who are American archetypes as well. Actors struggle valiantly against the familiarity by approaching it with a bit too much exertion, if anything; but they can’t always quite shake off the play’s fairly predictable and strangely patronizing writing. Director Kyra Lewandowski handily keeps the action as interesting as possible, with a hyper-real naturalism (characters microwave real bacon and piss in the corner of the set) that creates a strongly visceral, if not emotional, depth to the show. The only thing that limits the show is the play itself, and you can’t help but wonder if this decade’s housing crisis actually justifies a remount of Shepard’s story. (Monica Westin)

New Leaf Theatre at the Lincoln Park Cultural Center, 2045 N. Lincoln Park West, (773)516-3546. Through May 22.

RECOMMENDED

Circle Theatre is kicking its heels up, literally, to celebrate its twenty-fifth anniversary with a no-holds-barred production of that odd duck of a musical, “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.” Based on a true incident uncovered in a 1974 Playboy magazine article, the back story concerns a century-old house of ill repute known as the “Chicken Ranch” outside of a small Texas town that had become a larger-than-life, unspoken multi-generational Texas tradition that ultimately succumbed to would-be do-gooders out to expose the truth of what went on there.

Given the increasing conservatism that was sweeping the country in the late 1970s that ultimately led to the election of Ronald Reagan and increasing exposure for larger-than-life televangelism that was as glitzy and painted up with makeup and fake hair as a real-life whorehouse (even the use of that word in a show title in 1978 was controversial and nearly cost the show its backers), the original became a wry commentary on the times that became lost when it became a hugely popular feature-film vehicle four years later for Dolly Parton and Burt Reynolds. Read the rest of this entry »