Dianne Walker

RECOMMENDED

Each year, citywide percussive dance organization the Chicago Human Rhythm Project collects ensembles and hoofers to perform with their resident company BAM!, in honor of National Tap Dance Day. This year, the show appropriately moves to the DuSable Museum of African American History and honors the leading women of tap dance, particularly—and quite rightfully—Dianne “Lady Di” Walker. Ms. Walker has served as a mentor to a generation of young dancers and her performance at last year’s Rhythm World concert series was so steeped in gratitude, humor and humanity as to bring myself and my companion at the show to near-tears. CHRP represents the best in creative community building—nurturing, mutual respect and no small amount of fun—and performances like Windy City Rhythms make the audience feel like part of the family. (Sharon Hoyer)

At the DuSable Museum of African American History, 740 East 56th Place, (773)281-1825. May 15 at 5pm. $15-$25.

Emily Yetter and Ciaran Joyce/Photo: Kevin Berne Tinkerbell

RECOMMENDED

Another “Peter Pan?” Been there, done that, to death, in fact: books, plays, television, cartoons, action-adventure flicks, et al. Happily, this is not just another “Peter Pan” but a contemporary and distinctively British take conceived around London’s Kensington Gardens, the setting where J. M. Barrie was first inspired to create the boy who won’t grow up more than a century ago.

“Peter Pan” has always theoretically been a property for both children and adults, but most versions tip far more to kids—Disney animated version, Spielberg’s “Hook”—or to adults, the Mary Martin Broadway and television version, most Baby Boomers’ first encounter with a transgender character.

What makes this threesixty version effective is that it really does work for both children and adults. And not just as the familiar narrative that “Peter Pan” has now been for generations—and everything we know and love from the story is here—but also as an experience of the story since the production’s dazzling effects are so seamlessly incorporated into the familiar tale.

The setting is a state-of-the-art circus-like tent, a more elegant and more atrium-like version of what Cirque du Soleil has put up for their shows here. The tent itself is actually a theater in the round but with the spectacular addition of the “scenery” being 360 degrees around the action and audience with projected, digital moving images. That’s wonderful enough when you’re in the Darlings’ home or on Never Land itself, which really do come across as elaborate three-dimensional settings. But the real attraction is the shifting and moving images so that when Peter, Wendy and the gang start to fly on suspended wires, we see them against the backdrop of moving scenery of the London skyline, and even going through open gates, etc., until there are only clouds and stars. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s the press release from Steppenwolf for Young Adults:

Steppenwolf for Young Adults Announces 2011/12 Season:
The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter &
fml: how Carson McCullers saved my life
Tickets Go On Sale for School Groups & Public Performances Friday, May 13 at 11 am  Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

“Festen,” Danish director Thomas Vinterberg’s 1998 film, captured a family’s pain and denial;  David Eldridge’s translation manages to keep those emotions in the forefront in Steep Theatre’s latest.

Christian (Kevin Stark) comes home for his father’s (Norm Woodel) birthday, joining his indifferent mother (Melissa Riemer), hot-tempered brother (Michael Salinas) and free-spirited sister (Julia Siple). Grieving over the suicide of his twin sister, Christian reveals family secrets during the festivities. But his biggest obstacle isn’t his dark past, but his family’s surreal refusal to acknowledge it.

Jonathan Berry’s staging lends multiple dimensions to Dan Stratton’s open, utilitarian set. Stark is endlessly watchable; he seems literally weighed down by his character’s burden. Salinas’ spoiled, self-centered emotionality is a bit too hair-trigger initially; the script fails to establish his consuming desire to stop his brother and please daddy. But the chilling reveal is Woodel’s nefarious father, whose brutish entitlement makes his children his possessions. (Lisa Buscani)

Steep Theatre Company, 1115 West Berwyn,  (866)811-4111. Through July 10.

Jodi Kingsley, Letitia Guillaud, Caro Servat/Photo: Tyler Core

Something peculiar about the German author Friedrich Schiller’s version of the Joan of Arc story is its sense of the supernatural. Throughout most of the play, Johanna is spoken of as a divinely appointed figure working miracles on the battlefield, but you get the idea that she might just be a really convincing public speaker. Then, in the second half, her betrayal in court is accompanied by a noisome thunder, and later she is able to summon the strength to break from her chains of bondage. Suddenly, she is a superhero. It’s one of the play’s many wrinkles that Strangeloop’s production doesn’t quite get.

The show is a hodgepodge of tones, approaches and levels of talent. The modern-dress attire augmented with period pieces seems like a too on-the-nose choice, while the tie-color as alignment motif is too complicated to follow. Everyone seems to be too keyed into their own linguistic rhythms to really listen to each other. The set, though elegant with its curtain of French and English flags, seems versatile until it causes yet another dragging scene change. I almost want to call it an ambitious failure, but no one actually seems to know what they’re aiming for. (Neal Ryan Shaw)

Strangeloop Theatre at Trap Door Theatre, 1655 West Cortland, (773)757-6689. Through May 29.

Here’s the press release from The Building Stage:

THE BUILDING STAGE ANNOUNCES FOUR PLAY SEASON
OF ORIGINAL WORKS AND ADAPTATIONS
Company’s seventh year marks transition

CHICAGO, IL — The Building Stage proudly announces its 2011-2012 season, showcasing the range of intellectual, visual, and thematic pleasures the company is known for in its unique, original works. After six years of producing on a project-by-project basis, the company is shifting focus and presenting a cohesive season of original creations. The continual performance schedule aims to foster deeper audience engagement with the company and performance space. All four events will take place at The Building Stage, 412 N. Carpenter Street in Chicago’s emerging West Loop neighborhood.  Read the rest of this entry »

Carol Rose, Jessie Fisher, Kelly Davis Wilson, Sadieh Rifai, Jessica Diaz/Photo: Brett Beiner

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It’s hard to remember so much excitement about a theatrical production in such a small space before the show even opened, but this is no small affair. “Grease,” the biggest show to ever come out of Chicago, once owned the  record for Broadway’s longest run and resulted in one of the most successful movie musicals (and soundtracks) in history. But on its way to becoming America’s sweetheart, “Grease” lost its Chicago soul. Until now.

You know it’s an unusual opening night when you have to squeeze past Marilu Henner to leave the show. Her presence in the audience was not coincidental; she’d been an undergrad at the University of Chicago when she was cast in a rinky-dink production of a new musical in the old Kingston Mines Theatre, as the first incarnation of Marty. The rest, as they say, is history. “Grease” was set in Rydell High, a stand-in for the Taft High School of co-creator Jim Jacobs’ youth, and the characters and much of the play’s songs and references were inherently Chicago.  And, befitting the story of hormone-raging high schoolers at the end of the fifties, it was raunchy. Jacobs’ partner in grime Warren Casey is no longer with us, but, at the urging and assistance of American Theater Company artistic director PJ Paparelli, who directs this show, Jacobs reconstructed the now-ubiquitous sanitized and Chicago-free “Grease” back to a reasonable approximation of the show that audiences saw that  fateful night in 1971 when it first opened. With tales of the reconstructed, R-rated and Chicago-centric production seemingly everywhere these past weeks, curiosity was certainly piqued. But would it be more than a mere curiosity? Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Liz Lauren

RECOMMENDED

As the acclaim and popularity of “The King’s Speech” and a billion people reportedly tuning into last week’s royal wedding reminded us, we continue to be fascinated with British royalty despite that ancient institution’s ever-increasing irrelevance to anything to do with the modern world. The contemporary sovereign having been reduced to a mere figurehead, it is the prime minister, as we all know, who wields the actual power in Great Britain, though when a couple of high-profile former prime ministers were left off the guest list of last week’s wedding, it was taken as a royal commentary on their performance. Snub, yes, but in a former age, they would have been taken to the Tower of London and dispatched. Times have changed.

Although “The Madness of George III” is set in the eighteenth century during the reign of the king who, in popular culture, lost the American colonies and then went mad, playwright Alan Bennett uses that scenario to plummet into far deeper issues of the role of power and control in a monarchy. The king, of course, is losing control—or so it would appear—in a time and place that, above all else, puts the highest premium on restraint. Losing your British calm, even if you are the King of England, could have your subjects label you as unfit to rule. Add to that greedy children just waiting in the wings to exploit a royal weakness have their turn at power, and you have fascinating human as well as political intrigue. Read the rest of this entry »

"Bells" rehearsal with Victoria Jaiani/Photo: Herbert Migdoll

RECOMMENDED

The Joffrey follows their winter narrative comedy of errors with a springtime plunge into the psyche. The rising stars in this case are Edwaard Liang, Julia Adam—both of whom have choreographed for the company before—and Yuri Possokhov, who makes his choreographic debut. By coincidence or design, both Liang and Adam explore the world of dreams, the former on a mass scale, the latter on the individual. Liang has been inspired by cultural consciousness before; his beautiful and strange 2008 “Age of Innocence” was about gender hierarchy and repression in the Victorian era. This piece, entitled “Woven Dreams,” is set to string pieces by Ravel, Britten, Galasso and Gorecki and abstractly pursues the collective consciousness. In “Night” Adam is content with following just one dreamer through her subconscious landscape, good and bad. Possokhov splits the dream worlds with “Bells,” a romantic, five-movement piece set to Rachmaninov’s 2nd. (Sharon Hoyer)

At the Auditorium Theatre, 50 East Congress, (800)982-2787. May 4-15, $25-145.

Francis Guinan, Kate Buddeke/Photo: Paul Marchese

RECOMMENDED

Who knew attempted suicide could be so funny? “Rantoul and Die” playwright Mark Roberts’ day job is scribbling TV sitcoms—”The Big Bang Theory,” “Two and a Half Men” and his own recent creation,  “Mike & Molly”—which explains the easy-flowing laughs that make the first act a hilarious if often insensitive romp. (You’ll be aghast at times at what you find funny.) Erin Quigley directs at a crackling pace that lets the actors shine; staging both acts  in ninety minutes without intermission.

American Blues is still rebuilding after leaving its long-term home a couple years back, but if you want to know what it stands for, you’ll see it on display here in this small but comfortable space: kick-ass acting by its ensemble and accomplished friends. Half the cast here is made up of two stalwarts of the Steppenwolf ensemble, Alan Wilder (the sniveling “pussy” Rallis, as Guinan’s Gary aptly calls him, in a role that shows him to be a hell of a trooper as an actor) and Francis Guinan (a personal favorite, here playing a working-class brute with zen); the other half equally stellar American Blues ensemble members Kate Buddeke (the unlikely object of romantic obsession, a hard-as-brick coquette) and Cheryl Graeff (the manically happy manager of the Dairy Queen with an unnatural fondness for cats and, of course, a dark secret).  Frankly, you could listen to these four read the newspaper and be riveted.  Which smooths over the fact that the second act loses comedic steam, playing off twists and “shocking” reveals that the seasoned playgoer will anticipate, having been too often fed a steady diet of journeys into the dark dark belly of the blue-collar beast. (Brian Hieggelke)

At Victory Gardens’ Richard Christiansen Theater, 2433 North Lincoln, (312)871-3000, through May 22.