Photo: Micilin O'Donaghue

The Anatomy Collective, an experimental performance group, is emerging from the underground to bring its current endeavor, “Unintended Structures,” to Chicago’s first Fringe Festival, which kicks off on September 1 for a five-day run (www.chicagofringe.org).

“We’ve been pretty underground for a long time, performing in warehouses, small galleries, hidden spaces,” Stephanie Acosta, Anatomy Collective’s co-founder says. “We thought, what happens if we bring ourselves up to the surface?” The Fringe Fest “seemed like the right avenue.”

The festival is not a juried event; rather each performer or company is put through a controlled lottery. “It’s sort of a wonderfully democratic way of choosing things,” Acosta says. “Particularly for the first Fringe, I liked the potential for madness.” Read the rest of this entry »

Members of 2nd Story (John Wilson, Kim Morris, and Doug Whippo)

RECOMMENDED

Lifeline Theatre and Live Bait Theater offer a smorgasbord of storytelling experiences by presenting the fourteenth-annual Fillet of Solo Festival. Fans of the solo performance medium should have no problem finding something to enjoy at the festival, which performs at a variety of locations in Chicago over the next few weeks.

Last weekend’s offerings included performances by three members of 2nd Story recited stories that, though otherwise disconnected, were told in an interwoven fashion that echoed one another in parts. Following 2nd Story, the storytelling collective Sweat Girls delivered five monologues, under the title “The Sweat Girls are A-Gaga!,” that touched on late motherhood, first-time home-buying and seeing your child off to college, among other topics.

If these performances were any indication, the Fillet of Solo Festival shouldn’t disappoint. The festival has programmed such a wide variety of performers, the only caveat is that even a little research into who is playing on a given night will go a long way. (Neal Ryan Shaw)

The Fillet of Solo Festival (Lifeline Theatre and Live Bait Theater) at Lifeline Theatre, 6912 North Glenwood and The Artistic Home, 3914 North Clark, (773)761-4477. Through August 21.

Malaya Rivera Drew and Dion Mucciacito/Photo: Liz Lauren

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It speaks volumes about the sad state of human affairs when we can describe the story of the repression and destruction of a great, brilliant woman as fairly predictable fare. Predictable perhaps, but still poignant, especially in light of the continuing unabashed cruelty toward women in parts of the Islamic world even today. Perhaps we tsk-tsk these “uncivilized” cultures a bit too much, for it wasn’t long ago that it was Western culture, with the royal court and the Catholic Church at its core, that destroyed many a great woman (and man, for that matter), in the name of God or king.

So even if there is a familiar Joan-like arc to “The Sins of Sor Juana,” now playing at the Goodman, the particulars of the story of this great poet of Mexico are not as widely known. Brilliant, dynamic and beautiful from a young age, Juana Inés de la Cruz was pre-destined for trouble, and in playwright Karen Zacarías’ fairly straightforward imagining of the circumstances of her life, she finds it. Set at the moment when Juana starts to “lose her voice” thanks to the Church’s inability to abide by its promise to let her write, “The Sins” unfolds in a conventional overlapping story line, with an interwoven flashback that explains how Juana came to the Church and, more importantly perhaps, how she found the raw romantic emotions, both conventional and mildly Sapphic, that would manifest so powerfully in her poems. Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

The world of experimental performance can feel quite elusive and tough to navigate in Chicago—lucky for us, accomplished local artists Mark Jeffrey (SAIC faculty) and Sara Schnadt (Department of Cultural Affairs) are working hard to make it a little easier, by curating the bi-annual IN>TIME Performance Series. An eclectic mix of local, national and international artists, this latest installation of IN>TIME includes a much anticipated work-in-progress showing from new local company Every House Has a Door, which is the latest project of Lin Hixson and Matthew Goulish, co-founders of the renowned Goat Island performance group (of which Jeffrey was a member), which disbanded in 2008. Other artists include Angela Ellsworth, presenting “Another Women’s Movement,” a “roaming durational tableau of well-armed frontier women;” SAIC students and emerging local artists Justin Cabrillos and Jessica Hannah, performing work developed through the IN>TIME Incubation series; and, featured international performance group OOUR, from Zagreb, Croatia. So clear your calendar for Saturday night—this is a one-night-only event, not to be missed.

In conversation with the performance series, there will be an artists’ symposium on Friday afternoon, examining professional sustainability for artists. The panel will feature an array of prominent artists and scholars, including Sara Jane Bailes, Roberto Sifuentes, and Tricia Van Eck. (Valerie Jean Johnson)

IN>TIME Performance Series: Saturday, March 27. 6pm-9pm, Chicago Cultural Center. Free. Symposium: Friday, March 26, 1pm-5pm. Chicago Cultural Center, 5th floor, Millennium Park Room. Free (reservations required).

Great Small Works' "Marcovaldo Planets"

By Monica Westin

It’s a big weekend for Seth Bockley. In addition to his highly-anticipated performance promenade “The Twins Would Like to Say” with Dog & Pony opening at Steppenwolf Garage on Sunday, Bockley has curated the impressive lineup of artists at Links Hall’s Toy Theater Festival this weekend.

Bockley champions toy theater for its populist roots in nineteenth-century paper theater, which could be made in anyone’s living room as a precursor to television. The form has morphed from living-room entertainment to a cheap, DIY way of making performance that Bockley loves because it’s “not rarefied art.” We spoke to Bockley about this form he wants to be reclaimed as an everyday act.

Toy theater seems to be an exciting and increasingly popular form lately—I’m thinking of companies like Great Small Works, who I know are going to be part of this show. Why do you think there is such a strong interest in toy theater today? When did you personally become interested in the medium?

I became interested in toy theater, and puppetry more generally, through work with Redmoon back in 2004 during my mentorship with Frank Maugeri, now the artistic director there. I originally was more interested in writing and had no intention, really, of getting involved with puppetry, but through seeing what Frank was able to do with the medium, I became extremely excited and interested in this form of storytelling. So oddly, I had become involved as a writer for puppet theater, which was a strange thing to be, and our collaboration allowed me to see the potential of this form. I see it as a form that can both be in dialogue with and in competition with cinema—working with puppetry is closer to the work of a filmmaker rather than a theater director. One of the many cool things it allows is a way of performing animation—performing film really—by other means. Read the rest of this entry »

Northwestern University’s Theatre and Interpretation Center is currently presenting three productions of its brand new “Masters-in-the-Making” series, which features the work of three third-year MFA student directors. The works include David Greig’s “The American Pilot,” “The Who’s Tommy” and “The Handmaid’s Tale,” adapted from Margaret Atwood’s novel. “The idea is to celebrate the kind of capstone experience of these three young directors,” Artistic Director Henry Godinez says. “We’re putting them together in the same quarter, almost as sort of a festival.” Godinez says the idea of putting the productions together—instead of scattered around the year, as they were in the past—helps them earn attention. “My feeling was that [the productions] would get lost in the midst of the rest of the season,” Godinez says. “I felt like this would be exciting and it would be advantageous to make an event out of it. Of the productions, Godinez says, “All three [directors] have chosen projects that are personal to them. They have a comment to make about the way they view the world in which they live.” The “Masters-in-the-Making” series runs through March 14. (Tom Lynch)

David Cross and Bob Odenkirk

By Andy Seifert

Chicago may be an improv town, but Chicago also likes a little one-on-one action every once in a while, as in the audience versus the entertainer, one guy or gal throwing out his or her material in the hopes that it will produce a moments worth of euphoria in a crowd of onlookers and they can reap all the glory. That’s stand-up comedy for you, and it’s the format that will dominate the “Just for Laughs” Festival, which makes its American debut after twenty-seven years in Canada.

Legitimate Hollywood stars, alt-comedy favorites, Comedy Central stand-bys, Chicago theater troupes, and fresh-looking up-and-comers (yet to be chewed up and spit out by the industry) will converge in the Second City between June 17-21, meaning a ton of talent and a number of borderline personality disorders will be on full display. Spanning twelve venues throughout the city and including a fluid, diverse lineup of about forty shows, the Just for Laughs festival should appeal to a wide range of audiences and, like any festival, has its share of both immensely exciting shows and left-field head-scratchers. Read the rest of this entry »

Blessed Child

By Monica Westin

The second annual Alcyone Festival opens this week, dedicated to celebrating female playwrights and combating their lack of representation on American stages. Newcity spoke with Tony Adams, the artistic director of Halcyon Theater and curator of the festival.

Tell me about the concept for this year’s festival. Is there a through-line or common theme? How will the plays work together?

We’re focused on bringing women writers to light, specifically playing with outdated notions about the plays women write. The idea of the festival has been to undermine the idea that women write small domestic dramas, and we tried to get as far away from that idea as possible. Last year’s festival was inspired by the playwright Lillian Hellman, and we played with the idea of “1000 years up to Lillian Hellman,” producing plays of early female playwrights from that entire span of time. This year’s show will focus on themes as far from domestic drama as possible: terrorism and the cult of martyrdom in different variations. (They take place in locations from Palestine to Bosnia to a non-specific milieu reminiscent of Denmark.) Read the rest of this entry »

"The Day of Knowledge" was first produced as part of Leap Fest 4/Photo: Ryan Ward Thompson

By Monica Westin

Leap Fest, one of the strongest new-play festivals in town for five years running, goes into its sixth incarnation this month. The festival is unique in subject matter, focusing on sociopolitical and overly political plays, which other companies might shy away from, and three Leap Fest plays have gone on to win Jeff Awards, so the odds of seeing one of next year’s Jeff Award-winners is uncannily high. I spoke with Drew Martin, the interim co-artistic director (along with David Alan Moore), about what to expect at Leap Fest 6.

Leap Fest is known as a powerhouse new-play festival, and the Jeff Award record certainly attests to its strength. How do you choose the plays, and what’s exciting to you about the process?

I attribute the Jeff odds to the selection process. The plays we choose are whittled down from hundreds, and we read them over and over and argued about them. We’ve done plays in the past from all over the country and internationally. This year, four of the five playwrights are from Chicago, which isn’t intentional because we don’t target any particular demographic and it does vary from year to year. Read the rest of this entry »

By Valerie Jean Johnson

It was 1920 when Eugene O’Neill was awarded his first Pulitzer Prize for “Beyond the Horizon,” forecasting his place in theater history as one of America’s most important playwrights. Nearly a hundred years later, Chicago’s Goodman Theatre honors and examines the legacy of the “father of American drama” with “A GLOBAL EXPLORATION: Eugene O’Neill in the 21st Century,” a three-month festival (curated by Artistic Director Robert Falls) showcasing productions by some of today’s most innovative and exciting theater companies. At the top of the lineup is the New York City-based Wooster Group, itself a legend of the contemporary American stage, presenting their groundbreaking interpretation of “The Emperor Jones.”

For over three decades, under the direction of Elizabeth LeCompte, the company has been constructing its powerfully unique multimedia performances, including radical reworkings of plays by some of the most lauded playwrights of the historical and contemporary canon: Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Eugene O’Neill. Their highly stylized productions have earned critical acclaim and drawn passionate controversy, perhaps none more so than “Jones,” the rarely produced, controversial, expressionistic tale of Brutus Jones, the tyrannical emperor of an island in the West Indies, on the run from natives in revolt, haunted by the ghosts of both his criminal past and the scars of America’s nefarious racial history. The nucleus of the Group’s explosive production, which premiered in 1993, is Kate Valk, a white woman who takes the stage with her face caked in thick black makeup, assuming the title role. It is a performance that has been praised by critics as “riveting, haunting and altogether astonishing,” a “tour de force” that has challenged racial and gender stereotypes while dazzling, disturbing and defying expectations of audiences around the globe.

Valk’s relationship with O’Neill’s play goes back to her childhood: “I certainly grew up with [it]…Paul Robeson [the stage and screen legend who played Jones in the 1924 revival] was one of my idols and I had seen the film…I had even, as a young girl, seen a ballet version of ‘The Emperor Jones’ so I certainly knew about it, although I hadn’t ever read the actual play.” It wasn’t until much later that Valk encountered the play on the page, when LeCompte presented the idea of producing the play to the Group. “When I first started working with the company they were doing ‘Port Judith,’ and Spalding’s [Gray] party piece was kind of a mad dance… he and Liz had taken and edited a section from ‘Long Day’s Journey into Night,’ so O’Neill was around…we read [‘Jones’], and she [LeCompte] thought that I could play it.”

The Wooster Group’s process draws from a variety of sources—music, film, traditional global theater practices, pop culture—and for this production, the company found a great deal of inspiration in the presentational style of Japanese Noh theater. “We began working with the text from O’Neill and the movement that we loved from the Asian theater forms—not that we studied it at all, it was more a kind of very modern, fast synthesis of all those materials, but it came very intuitively. And it’s all there on the page, like music… It’s written phonetically.”

And on a first reading, O’Neill’s writing style is nearly as startling in its appearance on the page as the story itself—the diction and language immediately and disturbingly evoke the ghosts of American minstrelsy characters. Confronted with the apparition of a prison guard he killed before fleeing to the island, Jones cries out to the dark walls of the surrounding forest “I kills you, you white debil, if it’s de last thing I evah does! Ghost or debil, I kill you agin!” Valk’s Brutus Jones is presented with such magnetic and unrelenting precision that each performance, she admits, is extremely exhausting, and preparing for each remount of the show is a challenge to both mind and body for this seasoned and accomplished actress. “I don’t quite have the same energy I had when I was 35,” Valk says with a chuckle, “but maybe there’s something else I look for. I would say what I lose in youthful robustness I maybe make up for just by experience of all the other kind of performance I’ve done with Liz and the group since then. [The performance] takes a lot of energy and I was a little worried about that until… Scott [Shepard] and Ari [Fliakos], the people that I play with on stage, and I just watched the tape. I’m really looking forward to doing it again.”

Those recordings of past performances are invaluable tools for the Group when remounting works from their thirty-plus year history. “We just watched the tape of the last time we performed it, in Philadelphia a little over a year ago. It’s scored out, and it doesn’t change radically in terms of structure. The singing of the song, of the text, my style, is still very much the same.” But this tour of “Jones” will be the company’s last, says Valk, explaining simply that “there are certain roles you play at certain times of your life.”

But Valk seems more than pleased at the prospect of launching the first of the final performances here in Chicago, a fitting culmination of the fifteen-year journey of “Jones.” “It’s an honor to be part of the O’Neill festival—are you kidding? To have the work seen in that context, I’m thrilled. To be considered part of the modern canon of O’Neill’s work, I’m deeply honored.”

At Goodman Theatre, 170 North Dearborn, (312)443.3800, January 7-11