Photo: Jim Newberry

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Cheryl Trykv makes Amy Sedaris seem like a circus clown. Her tales of private eyes, girl Fridays, Palm Springs teen runaways and truck-stop lowlifes are peppered with observations about the world that would make anyone else want to cry, but in Cheryl’s hands they’re gems that just need a little spit shine. At heart she’s a storyteller, and her current performance, a monologue of her greatest hits from 1990 to today (many performed at Milly’s Orchid Show), weaves short stories with personal reflections. Whereas the personal asides are a strange blend of self-deprecation and self-affirmation, the stories, as short fiction, are a fit and imaginative revival of the American pulp genre. Cheryl celebrates the absurdity that passes for everyday life. Each sentence offers an unpredictable turn, but each word is precise. To see and hear her speak them onstage is icing. (Jason Foumberg)

Cheryl Trykv performs at Davenport’s, 1383 N. Milwaukee, June 16, 17, 23 and 24 at 8pm.

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Cirque Shanghai’s annual summer visit to Chicago is a time to round up good friends, bask in the Navy Pier open-air setting and marvel at the suppleness of the human body.  This year—the troupe’s fourth with “Bright Spirit”—offers the same basic physical daredevilry and moments of real wonder, but overall the installment felt shorter in length, lighter in the number of traditional Chinese circus acts, and smaller in total number of performers.  Given the state of the global economy, it makes you wonder:  has the recession affected even grandiose entertainment juggernauts like Cirque Shanghai?  Is less more?  You can decide that last question for yourself, since this unique Chicago circus tradition still deserves to be experienced, but compared to last summer’s ravishing and majestic “Cirque Shanghai: Gold” I’m afraid “Bright Spirit” wins Silver at best. Read the rest of this entry »

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Are there Chicago audiences for gay theater that isn’t easy to swallow?  How about for one-man shows by gay performers  that straddle the line of monologue, performance art and concert?  The night I saw Kevin Thornton’s “Sex, Dreams and Self Control,” in town for only a fist-full of shows, the audience certainly was somewhere else.  In all fairness, the 11:30pm start time on a Thursday evening may have had something to do with it, but this isn’t the first time I’ve seen one man working in this genre threaten to outnumber the audience.  In this case, it really is a shame.  Thornton is engaging and funny and cute as hell as he recounts his journey from aspiring youth minister to rebellious homosexual with only himself, a microphone and a guitar.  His web site compares him to a post-Smiths Morrissey, and in fact there are moments he opens his mouth to sing that you can hear it right away.  The impressive versatility of voice shines brightest when he picks up the tempo, even when he is singing about handjobs after Bible study.  There are a few more chances to catch Thornton this weekend at The BoHo Theatre at Heartland Studios.  Gay audiences, this is our opportunity to prove we will support theater that doesn’t involve naked men, bars or Broadway in Chicago. (William Scott)

At BoHo Theatre at Heartland Studios, 7016 N. Glenwood , (866)811-4111, through May 9.

Photo: Jennifer Korff

RECOMMENDED

This is your last weekend to catch Cupola Bobber’s “Way Out West, the Sea Whispered Me” at Links Hall, and if you’re interested in performance that’s as concerned with wordplay as with image and movement, it’s a show that will offer a lot of food for thought. Focused on the sea, the piece is woven together with threads of different historical moments and psychological affects related to the ocean, from the nostalgia of seaside resort towns to a gloriously bizarre erosion narrative that tells the story of buildings and even towns that have slipped into the sea, and, as a perfect foil, the Depression dust bowl of Kansas. The piece is nearly as intellectually engaged and critically connected as an academic essay. Read the rest of this entry »

If you go to see “The Yellow Wallpaper” out of a love for the groundbreaking short story about postpartum depression (as I did and suspect many audience members will), at least do yourself a favor and arrive half an hour late during intermission, so that you will miss the warm-up: truly cringe-worthy poetry (by a woman who inexplicably takes off her shoes and plays with her scarf while reading lines like “those were the days of cornbread”) and physical theater (a trash-clad woman offers cookies to audience members out of a garbage can lid while singing “fancy” over and over). That said, the relationship between Chicago Danztheatre’s adaptation and the Charlotte Perkins Gilman story is parasitic at best, and a travesty most of the time. Any sense of narrative coherence is one of the many casualties of this production, which mostly consists of a chorus of young women breathing heavily, rubbing themselves against strips of fabric hanging from the ceiling, and crawling around the stage and aisle in their most feline manners (my baffled neighbor wondered if one woman did so to keep us from being able to escape), while the protagonist goes mad Sideshow-Bob style, but without the funny red hair. Overacting and underperforming all around. Not recommended. (Monica Westin)

At Gorilla Tango Theatre, 1919 N Milwaukee, (773)-598-4549. Through October 12.

RECOMMENDED
When it comes to the French-Canadian “Cirque du Soleil” franchise, there are two groups of people: those who drool and give an imprimatur to everything that the ultra chic “Cirque” does, and those who wonder what all the fuss is about, who don’t “get it,” as a “Cirque” lover likes to say. Having seen a couple of early shows, I definitely was a major and rather bored detractor early on, but the last “Cirque” show, “Corteo,” was so compelling a concept that I got hooked. I wondered if “Cirque,” or me, or both, had changed coming into “Kooza,” the latest “Cirque” show. Well, a bit of both. The early “Cirque” shows done here were done in theaters, and “Cirque” loses far too much in that environment. The tent idea really works, and amazingly, it is a tent more comfortable and climate-controlled than most theaters but more to the point, it showcases the acts in spectacular and sharp relief where no one is ever far away from the proceedings. This not only greatly enhances audience involvement—brought to a new level with “Kooza” where members actually become part of the show in some hysterically clever ways—but also means that the performers and the acts themselves are shown to their spatial and three-dimensional advantage. The constant Eurocentric perspective of earlier shows has given way to a looser, often more improvised “jazzy” quality, including the music itself, which has gone from trendy Europop to live cutting-edge jazz-rock that is allowed to dynamically explode during the climax of acts. But most importantly, “Kooza” is continuing the tradition of setting the “Cirque” acts against some sort of overall dramaturgy, which is a healthy development even if at nearly three hours, this show could be more tightly focused a la “Corteo,” which was shorter, but more breathtaking. And while popcorn is a great traditional American circus treat, where’s the cotton candy? (Dennis Polkow)

United Center Parking Lot K, 1901 Madison (at Damen), (800)678-5440. $55-$125. Through August 24.

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I concede: it is as impossible to describe with words as it is to believe with your own eyes the dizzying and dazzling acrobatic acts performed by the colorful and thrilling troupe that is Cirque Shanghai, now back in Chicago at Navy Pier for their third year in a row with “Cirque Shanghai: Gold.” Since this type of entertainment defies a critical act (and not that there’s anything to criticize given its universal appeal, high entertainment factor and perfect running time of sixty-five minutes), I instead offer the reader a random array of (hopefully entertaining) thoughts that struck me throughout the performance: 1) It is estimated that there are 450 million bicycles in China. So why twelve Chinese would have to share one of them is beyond me. But it is amazing to watch them try. 2) Throughout several of “Cirque Shanghai”’s unbelievable contorting, nerve-racking plate-spinning and gravity-defying balancing acts I thought ‘Why, what’s the point?’ After all, just because you can balance a dozen wine glasses filled with water on each limb doesn’t mean you have to. Show-offs. 3) Unlike the American and European circus aesthetic, the Chinese one seems closer to the Moscow State Circus of the Russians: beauty never sacrificed for the wow factor. You’ll see what I mean when two couples glide and slice through the Navy Pier sky suspended only by giant silk ribbons—as beautiful as it is breathtaking. 4) Following her controversial Chinese earthquake comments, actress Sharon Stone will probably lose her East Asia Dior contract and need a new project to endorse. So should a future installment of the Cirque series be subtitled “Shanghai of the Stars,” Stone should consider full participation, because nothing says “I’m sorry” to someone you’ve offended like allowing them to balance you precariously atop a twenty-foot tower of chairs. 5) Remember the glitzy show “Dynasty”? “Cirque Shanghai” featured more sequins than the entire run of that popular 1980s series. More dazzling, however, were the moves. 6) Who knows how much the cost of jet fuel will be by Olympics time. If the athletes here are any indication of what Americans will have to compete against in Beijing, we don’t stand a chance. Let’s concede and help the economy by staying home. You can gather that “Cirque Shanghai: Gold” comes highly recommended. And that you should take not just your family and friends, but a chiropractor you love. Top off the evening with dinner in Chinatown, and you have great dinner theater, not to mention the best summer family entertainment money can buy. (Fabrizio O. Almeida)

At Navy Pier, 600 East Grand, (312)595-7437. Thu-Fri 2pm & 8pm/Sat 2pm & 6pm & 8pm/Sun 2pm & 4pm. $14.50-$29.50. Through September 1.

Walkabout Theatre Company takes its mission to create location-specific theater into the great outdoors this summer, with a city-wide garden tour of “War Garden: An Experiment in Patriotic Agriculture,” produced in conjunction with Neighborspace, “an urban land trust dedicated to preserving community-managed gardens in Chicago,” Led by director/co-creator Seth Bockely, Walkabout’s ensemble has tapped city history for subject matter, exploring the WWI war garden movement through the efforts of a ladies auxiliary organization who find themselves at odds with the antics of real-life Chicago shanty-town confidence man, George W. Streeter. But while the historical backdrop and community-activist ties sound ripe for a rich cultural exploration, the short performance itself (which runs approx. fifty minutes) is fairly silly and juvenile. Perhaps I was misled by the pre-show press and literature, which had me expecting a more thoughtful portrait of communities uniting in peril and “today’s urban agricultural revival,” but I was disappointed by the broadly cartoonish characters and performances—overblown and uncomfortably heavy on the kind of demonstrative mugging one would expect from a children’s sketch-comedy show. (Valerie Jean Johnson)

RECOMMENDED

You can always count on Links Hall to provide intriguing, multifaceted performances that live nowhere near inside the box. I have seen clowns, cartoons and music played on toys take the boards of this little theater that achieves big. The Link-up Artist-in-Residence program at the Hall seems to give voice to big imaginations. This time, 2004 resident Jyl Fehrenkamp is bringing us “Poonie’s Cabaret,” a one-night program she curates and hosts. “Poonie’s Cabaret” features artists working in varied creative realms including dance, music, puppetry, performance art, theater, voguing, freestyle rapping, drag, burlesque, cheerleading, stand-up comedy and more. Artists Kirby Reed, Paige Cunningham, Marc Macaranas, Amanda Timm and Breakbone DanceCo will join Fehrenkamp for the evening named in loving memory of Chicago dancer/choreographer Poonie Dodson. And if that does not sound fun enough, it is all for a great cause. “Cabaret” proceeds support the Duncan Erley Coming Out of the Closet Fund. (William Scott)

“Poonie’s Cabaret” takes place June 9 at Links Hall, 3435 North Sheffield, (773)281-0824, at 8pm. $5.

RECOMMENDED

Theatre Oobleck’s “The Hysterical Alphabet” is a beautifully nuanced mixture of historical treatise, medical discourse and poetic archive, chronicling the sometimes hilarious, often horrifying saga of the “female malady” that is hysteria throughout the centuries. Oobleck has remounted their inspired multimedia presentation at the Chopin Theatre, after premiering last fall in a one-night-only showing at the Gene Siskel Film Center. Terry Kapsalis’s remarkable text, an ABC’s of women and their wily wombs (now available in book form with fantastic drawings by Gina Litherland), is the axis material, but accompanied by Danny Thompson’s stunning video “documentary,” and John Corbett’s gratifying sound design, the sum transforms into something greater than its (private) parts. The three artists enter quietly, without fanfare, and take seats at a long table before a large projection screen. Aided by microphones, a computer/projector, record player and numerous sound folio devises, the performance/lecture takes off, with Kapsalis reading matter-of-factly, almost demurely, her lyrical chronology of ailment, while Thompson frenzy of found and original video images unfurl to the tunes (and crackles, cries and whistles) of Corbett’s manic soundscape. The trio packs an astounding amount of information into little more than an hour’s time—delivering a lesson that is wickedly funny, surprisingly heart-wrenching and not to be missed. (Valerie Jean Johnson)

At the Chopin Theatre, 1543 W. Division, (773)278-1500. This production is now closed.