RECOMMENDED

Kinda schlocky. Kinda brilliant. Totally fun. That’s “40 Whacks,” the new show from the Annoyance Theatre.  It’s based upon the infamous Lizzie Borden murder case and trial from the late nineteenth century, and this original work, by writer Aggie Hewitt and director Irene Marquette, with musical direction by Lisa McQueen, appropriates something between a melodramatic play and an old-fashioned musical, between the “dark comedy” that the folks at the Annoyance are calling it, and an improvisational romp for which the Annoyance (I think) is known (“40 Whacks” is the first show I’ve seen by this company).

On opening night, Hewitt and Marquette took the stage to deliver the customary thank-yous to collaborators and supporters. What struck me, however, was how charming, down-to-earth and genuinely grateful these artists seemed, the kind of young ladies with whom you could see yourself sharing a drink and a devilishly good and smart conversation. It’s that sense of fun, accessibility and beguilement that allows “40 Whacks” to be so good in spite of itself. Because as a play, the story is perfunctory at best; I don’t think I walked out knowing anything more about Lizzie Borden than I did walking in, something that had been limited to the catchy rhyme, “Lizzie Borden had an axe/And gave her mother forty whacks/When she saw what she had done/She gave her father forty-one.”  There’s an underdeveloped romantic subplot involving Lizzie’s uncle and an Irish maid. And the second act court sequence is less about the actual Lizzie Borden case than it is any famous person who has ever stood trial and walked free thanks to celebrity razzmatazz, media distortion and courtroom theatrics. Read the rest of this entry »

Stuart Ritter and Michael Thomas Downey/Photo: Emily Schwartz

RECOMMENDED

Much like the bit in Reduced Shakespeare’s “Complete Works” that combines all of the Bard’s comedies into one gigantic super-comedy, “Shakespeare’s King Phycus” is a pithy mash-up of the more memorable Tragedies. In this hilarious parody, Hamlet and Juliet are siblings, the former married to the Scottish Macbetty, the latter betrothed to the deformed Gloucester by their father the great King Phycus, whose Queen, Gertrude, has recently been murthered.  Meanwhile, incongruously, Brutus is an Italian ambassador and Romeo a Roman spy. If this seems like a lot to handle, it is—and that’s not even all of it. Yet the ingenuity of Tom Willmorth’s script is well matched by an ensemble of energetic performers and increasingly clever staging by director Ira Amyx. The play’s jabs at Shakespeare and contemporary stage practice (their “authentic” Old Globe set totally misses the mark; Goldenberg and Rosensteen are bad improv performers) are right on the money, but standard Clinton jokes and “Matrix” fights are a bit tired for pop-culture references. Miraculously, the plot somehow comes together, despite its many comedic detours.  Although it does end with a bunch of dead bodies onstage, “Shakespeare’s King Phycus” is no tragedy. (Neal Ryan Shaw)

Strange Tree Group at The Building Stage, 412 N. Carpenter, (773)598-8240, through July 31.

Saren Nofs-Snyer and Cast

Henrik Ibsen’s exposition of society’s hypocrisies rarely made him friends; his controversial examination of infidelity and flawed moral judgment in “Ghosts” was tagged “one of the filthiest things ever written in Scandinavia.”

With the guidance of Reverend Manders (Steve O’Connell),  Helen (Saren Nofs- Snyder) has built an orphanage and dedicated it to the memory of her late husband, a pillar of the community; her son Oswald (Charles Riffenburg) returns for the ceremony and falls in love with the family’s  maid (Florence Ann Romano). Bleak, repressed, Scandinavian tragedy ensues.

The script is fraught with bloated melodrama; unfortunately the performers enhance it further with teary line readings and unsophisticated, puffed-up judgment. The patriarch’s indiscretions are painful; its horrific consequences are not believable. Anders Jacobson’s set makes the most of space and era; Katy Peterson’s lighting design transforms the dysfunctional house into a literal and moral conflagration. It’s the most believable emotion on stage. (Lisa Buscani)

Boho Theatre Ensemble, 7016 N. Glenwood, (866)811-4111, through July 18

Photo: Andrew Collings

This summer, the Neo-Futurists will once again produce their annual staged-reading series of terrible films. This year, “Film Fest IX: The Perils of the Neo-Futurarium,” was put together by Bilal Dardai and Megan Mercier.

“We try not to engage in any overt mockery but really just to show the script for what it is,” Dardai says, explaining that he doesn’t want the performance to be trying too hard but rather just to expose the humor that already exists within the script.

“The fact that it’s the ninth year is a testament to the festival’s success,” he says. “We never just perform the movie verbatim; the point is what we can do with it on stage.” Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

There are so many one-person shows out there that many of us have become numb to the template of one person sharing anecdotes for an hour or two, or even acting his or her heart out in an intense manner for a compact period of time. What distinguishes “Itsoseng” from the usual formulaic solo fare is that it is a sweeping dramatic epic that just happens to be told by a single person. That said, the single person in this case actually takes on the personas of the various characters in the play, sometimes right within the same scene (yes, we’ve seen that before, too) that just happens to be set within the immensely compelling backdrop of South Africa’s post-apartheid era. We have seen that before, too, right here in our country: simply because civil rights legislation is passed or a black man becomes president in America does not mean that racial prejudice goes out the window, and in fact, for some, such events become rallying cries for agendas of white privilege to simply take on new forms. Read the rest of this entry »

Maria A. Ortiz, Andrea Morales, Marilyn Camacho/Photo: Johnny Knight

RECOMMENDED

Teatro Luna shows have always been a sweet yet satisfying soufflé of light comic sketches, penetrating monologues and jubilant musical and choreographic sequences. The long-standing core company of writer/creator/performers was one of the best ensembles I had ever had the privilege of watching: pint-sized spitfire Belinda Cervantes; sultry Yadira Correa, who could effortlessly squeeze sexual suggestiveness out of any line and who commanded the stage with her Amazonian stature; Miranda Gonzalez, another sexy Latina bombshell whose braininess also made her the thinking man’s Sonia Braga; Suzette Mayobre, the prim and proper light-skinned Latina with no accent who could play all of the “she isn’t Latina, is she?” parts and who took over that role once inhabited by original co-artistic director Coya Paz; Tanya Saracho, original co-artistic director, the brains behind the beauty, and the Luna who most turned her struggles with weight and body image issues into some of the group’s best dramatic material; and Maritza Cervantes, who smartly exploited her plus-sized panache and booming voice to great comic and sometimes heartbreaking effect. Read the rest of this entry »

Beth Stelling, Maari Suorsa, Mary Hollis Inboden and Meg Johns in The New Colony Ensemble’s “Five Lesbians Eating a Quiche”/Photo: Saverio Truglia

RECOMMENDED

There are many similarities between “Sketchbook” and IML, the International Mr. Leather celebration.

“Sketchbook” is, of course, Collaboraction’s annual festival of mixed-media theater, music and performance art, a Chicago-flavored and smaller version of the Edinburgh or New York Fringe Festivals. IML is one of the biggest gatherings of leather, fetish and kink lovers from around the world, also a Windy City tradition. “Sketchbook” is celebrating its tenth anniversary in style and has taken over the upstairs theater and lobby of the Chopin Theatre for the next three weeks. IML just celebrated its thirty-second subversive year and commandeered the entire Hyatt Regency Hotel this past Memorial Day weekend. Both events are a peculiar mix of sexy, strange, funny, clever, physically mind-boggling, gross-out and consistently surprising entertainment gathered under one roof. Some sequences are painfully long and awkward to watch:  at IML they involve whips and chains; at Sketchbook it’s the cumbersome and time-draining scene changes. The smell of beer permeates the air at both events, indeed, both experiences become exponentially better the more inebriated you become (for the record, this critic never drinks on the job). There’s a lot of techno and trance music blaring at both events (I’ll be forever thankful to Sketchbook for bringing to my attention a wicked good house version of Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game”).  At both Sketchbook and IML, you’re guaranteed to see things you have never seen before, things you will never see again, and things you hope you never see again. There’s tons of experimentation although the creativity at IML could get you arrested and thrown in jail in some states while at Sketchbook it wins you an NEA grant. You can see people make incredible fools out of themselves at both:  at IML the performers do it for sexual kicks; at Sketchbook they do it for artistic fulfillment. At both, there are some things that make no sense brilliantly; there are some things that just make no sense. Sketchbook has better lighting. IML has better men. Both are terrifically entertaining. Both have moments that are terribly boring. Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

Following hugely successful Broadway efforts such as “Gypsy” and “Funny Girl,” Jule Styne set the Billy Wilder film “Some Like It Hot” to music in a show called “Sugar.” Part of the reason that “Sugar” did not have the success of those earlier shows is that it was unable to secure the rights to the title of the film though, curiously, that has happened twice since: when Tommy Tune did a production on London’s West End and when an elderly Tony Curtis toured with it—including a stop in Chicago—nearly a decade ago (he played the Joe E. Ross character), “Sugar” was redubbed in both cases “Some Like It Hot.”

Whatever you call it, “Sugar” is basically “Some Like It Hot: The Musical,” and that is how director and choreographer Jim Corti has decided to stage it for his Drury Lane Oakbrook production; Corti has the story unfold on a mock soundstage complete with movie spotlights and prop-moving crew members in stenciled jumpsuits (thank goodness, no bulky cameras). It should be said that while this is a distracting element at first, every other aspect of this production is so well-served that the movie trappings can be easily disregarded. Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

For their fourth full-length performance, Matter Dance selects a circus theme, complete with comedian ringleader MCs, a live band and a collection of short dance works in a mishmash of styles—an appropriate concept for a young company that makes accessible, audience-friendly dance their mission. Matter Dance founder and dance therapist Gail Adduci Gogliotti says that the varied performance backgrounds of herself and her two Marquette grad co-founders—one a sketch comedian, one a corporate financier—is a particular strength of the company. The show features a guest performance by members of Chicago Dance Crash—a company that places ballerinas on stage with B-boys, martial artists and modern dancers (and did so three years before the Fox network turned the concept into a game show). It promises to be an entertaining evening no matter your taste. (Sharon Hoyer)

At the Vittum Theater, 1012 North Noble, (773)342-4141. June 17-19, Thu-Fri at 8pm, Sat at 2 & 8pm. $20, $10 children and students.

RECOMMENDED

Dubbed “A Silent Film On Stage” by writer/director Matt Lyle, “The Better Doctor” seamlessly mixes recent healthcare reform headlines with silent-era film sensibilities for impressively entertaining results. The story revolves around a plucky do-gooder named Velma, played with mettle and moxie by Kim Lyle, as she works with a blundering hospital intern, the goofily charming (and afro-tastic) Samuel Zelitch, to procure medical aid for two ailing street urchins. As the spunky duo cross paths with a unibrowed orderly (Jack Birdwell), a mad pharmacist (Erin Orr), and a fancy-dancing attorney (Mike Brunlieb), slapstick comedic gags are merrily executed with precision at every turn. Throughout the show’s sixty-minute running time, live music (keyboard and percussion) keeps the action flying, with occasional dips into recognizable tunes (“Ain’t Misbehavin’,” “Eye of the Tiger” and the theme from “Mission Impossible” to name a few) backing up especially memorable moments. “The Better Doctor” is muckraking comedy theater at its finest and proof that a show where no one on stage speaks a single word can still have a lot to say. (Zach Freeman)

“The Better Doctor” plays at Prop Thtr, 3504 North Elston, silenttheatre.com, through June 26.