Luke Renn, Laura McClain, Josh Hambrock and Kevin Anderson

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Having had several unsuccessful films in a row and being infamously included on a movie-theater owners’ list of late-1930s movie stars that were considered “box-office poison,” Katharine Hepburn turned to Broadway and her friend and playwright Philip Barry to come up with a stage vehicle to help rescue her sagging career. “The Philadelphia Story” was the end result and, with its lead character having been written expressly for Hepburn, fit her comedic and dramatic strengths like a glove.

The play was a huge success not only in New York, but across a national tour that Hepburn headlined, not only regaining her popularity virtually city by city, but far exceeding it. Hepburn shrewdly financed the play and retained a large percentage of the play rights for herself rather than take a large salary, and just to make sure that when a movie version would be made that she would be the one to star in it, had her boyfriend Howard Hughes buy the movie rights for her, which she sold to MGM, complete with director and co-star approval. Read the rest of this entry »

Thea Lux, Tara Sissom, Brandon Ruiter, Chris Gingrich, Henry Riggs/Photo: Anne Peterson

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Could The New Colony’s “That Sordid Little Story” be one of the best original musicals that Chicago has produced in years? I certainly think so. Because while not everyone may be a fan of bluegrass, the storytelling could use a tad more attention and the set design is a bit of an interesting mess, there is no denying that “That Sordid Little Story” is dramatically gripping, musically soaring and oftentimes emotionally devastating.

If you haven’t heard of The New Colony, they are a barely three-year-old Chicago collective of artists who create their work in the ensemble tradition, nurturing their pieces—or so I’m told—through long periods of creative gestation which has their roots in improvisation, workshop and experimentation.

For their latest, Artistic Director Andrew Hobgood had a story in mind about a young man circa the early 1960s who finds personal resonance in the music and lyrics of a band named That Sordid Little Story. He embarks on an arduous trek across the Deep South in search of the band’s next obscure gig—today he’d simply hook up with them via the band’s Facebook or MySpace pages—and along the way meets an eclectic cast of characters who for better or worse shape his journey and impart something on his quest for meaning. This is the simple, heart-on-its-sleeve story, for which Hobgood recruited two musicians, Chris Gingrich and Henry Riggs, to begin composing songs whose lyrics and musical flavor would fit the ideas and moments that were being fleshed out on paper and in rehearsal. Two dozen songs, three credited writers, nine actors playing twice as many characters and a “live” five-piece band later, and you have “That Sordid Little Story.” Read the rest of this entry »

Brandon Chandler, Rashada Dawan/Photo: Foster Garvin, Jr.

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There is a line in “The Drowsy Chaperone” that asks, “Please, Elton John, must we continue this charade?” referencing the British rocker’s ongoing attempts to write Broadway musicals.

Curiously, that trajectory began indirectly when John was asked to write five songs with lyricist and former Andrew Lloyd Webber partner Tim Rice for Disney’s 1994 animated film “The Lion King.” Those hugely popular songs—John’s best “stage” songs to date even if they had nothing whatsoever to do with the plot of “The Lion King,” such as it was—became part of Julie Taymor’s stunning 1997 Broadway production, due back here next September.

The duo was re-engaged by Disney to score two additional animated films, “The Road to El Dorado,” released in 2000, and “Aida,” which was never made. Based on the Verdi opera as it was adapted for a children’s book by soprano Leontyne Price, the definitive “Aida” of her generation, an “Aida” concept album was recorded in 1998, much as Rice had done with Lloyd Webber for properties such as “Jesus Christ Superstar” and “Evita” before they became stage works.

When the animated version fell through, Disney Theatricals put together a mammoth stage adaptation with Goodman Theatre’s Robert Falls as director and one of three credited co-writers, always the signal of a troubled past. It was that version that previewed in Chicago with Heather Headley (Nala in the Broadway “Lion King”) and Adam Pascal (the original Roger in “Rent”) in late 1999 before hitting Broadway in March of 2000, though not before the elephantine scenery that had so many problems—even infamously injuring Headley and Pascal here in Chicago—was simplified before opening on the Great White Way. That version won four Tony Awards, ran for four years and spawned a national tour that ran for another three years but ironically, never came back to Chicago (Joliet was the closest it came). Read the rest of this entry »

Tom Irwin and Kate Arrington/Photo: Michael Brosilow

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In Bruce Norris’ latest, Bee (Kate Arrington) confronts her blunt future self (Marylouise Burke) and explores her less-than-ideal soon-to-come. Her blowhard boyfriend (Tom Irwin) copes with Bee’s futuristic tales, even as we discover she may not be the most reliable witness.

Arrington appeals as she tries to make the most of a fate she can’t change; Burke’s no-nonsense riffing is pragmatic fun. The standout here is Irwin; he makes us feel for his self-centered sumbitch who thinks he has found love with a younger woman, only to watch her spin out.

Anna Shapiro’s driving direction keeps the timing sharp and the humor crisp. Todd Rosenthal’s airy, geometric set hints at  future possibilities. It’s a bit annoying that Norris asks us to suspend disbelief and accept the sci-fi/fantasy format only to cavalierly derail it, but the trip is worth the detour. (Lisa Buscani)

Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 North Halsted, (312)335-1650, through August 29.

Let me first disclose that I have only seen this middle part of Chelsea M. Marcantel’s self-produced “(a)Symmetry Cycle,” and so do not intend to deliver any sort of commentary on the trilogy as a whole. But in her series of plays focusing on the nature of human relationships through the lens and language of chemistry, Marcantel poses potentially interesting scenarios that alternately make you want to run home to your tenth-grade chemistry textbook or lean in with wonder and bafflement. “Dumbspeak: The Chemistry of Falling Apart” finds Isaac returning after seven years away to reclaim the love of Alice, who had been seeing Peter. Introduce a younger brother and a lesbian couple, all vying for each other’s affections, and you have the stage version of a Chem 101 experiment. The metaphors are convoluted, the words multisyllabic, and the cast, though game, simply too young for their characters’ lab coats. Marcantel cites entropy—which states that heat will not decrease inside of a system, unless it is not isolated—as a central theme to “Dumbspeak,” and in this case heat dissipates along with interest. (Neal Ryan Shaw)

(a)Symmetry Cycle at the Viaduct Theater, 3111 N. Western, (773)296-6024, through July 25.

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“After such a fall as this I shall think nothing of falling down stairs.” So says the precocious Alice (a captivating Lauren Hirte) after an acrobatic representation of falling down the rabbit hole. And after such an Alice as “Lookingglass Alice” I have a feeling I shall think nothing of other Lewis Carroll adaptations.

The deceptively simple opening few minutes quickly explodes into a meta-production that encompasses much of Carroll’s “Through the Looking Glass”—with young Alice encountering a sort of adapted chess game in which she slowly advances towards her goal of becoming a queen. Along the way she meets a familiar cast of characters, remarkably played by only four other actors. The performers are given ample opportunity to display their well-developed acting (and movement) skills. Samuel Taylor’s manic White Knight, Molly Brennan’s psychotic Red Queen, Anthony Fleming III’s wild-eyed March Hare and Doug Hara’s contemplative Humpty Dumpty make the most lasting impression. Read the rest of this entry »

"La Vista de la Vieja Dama"

By Monica Westin

The fifth biennial Latino Theatre Festival at the Goodman, is centerpieced by “The Sins of Sor Juana,” which has been getting mixed reviews, but the real surprises of the festival’s lineup are two performances by Teatro Buendía. The theater company, one of the most highly regarded in Cuba, has never performed in the US before this month. Newcity spoke with Goodman Artistic Associate Henry Godinez, festival curator, about Teatro Buendía’s style, getting the theater into the country, and revolution.

How did you first become familiar with Teatro Buendía?

The company has played all over the world—Africa, Europe, Australia, obviously Central and South America, even the Globe in London. I first saw them in Cuba in 2003, and I had hoped to bring them to the festival back then, but it was just impossible to bring artists from Cuba under the last political administration. This year, with Obama in the White House, we thought we’d try again and we succeeded… they have their visas, and they fly in tomorrow. Read the rest of this entry »

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Even amidst total ruination, sometimes there are still more important things at hand. In Daniel Caffrey’s new play “Extinction Fantasies” for his Tympanic Theatre Company, three pairs of characters from a small town struggle to survive after a deadly plague has wiped out the local population, and the only way out, an old bridge, has been demolished. What emerges is a series of intimate moments between people who have nothing else to lose, yet therefore everything to gain. In “Dark Horse,” two high-school students, both of whose parents are dead, find in each other the strength they need to keep surviving. In “The Deer Callers,” a married couple fights to resolve fidelity issues that haunted their pre-plague life. And in “Fevers” and “Fever Dreams,” a father and daughter share stories as the father draws painfully closer to death. The actors all find plenty of emotional action to play in scenes that are largely conversational, and humor, presumably a necessary ingredient of post-apocalyptic survival, keeps afloat with levity a thoughtful, meandering play. (Neal Ryan Shaw)

Tympanic Theatre Company at The Side Project, 1439 W. Jarvis, (773)442-2882, through July 18.

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 »

Holly Bittinger, Andrew Jessop, Scott Butler/Photo: Christopher Burpee

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Redtwist Theatre has revived Peter Shaffer’s venerable “Equus,” but this 2010 revival is not to be confused with the company’s 2007 revival. In a full-length program note, Artistic Director Michael Colucci, who directs this “Equus,” goes into great detail about the differences between the two productions—from cast and crew to design changes. What this communicates to me—besides the fact that Colucci really, really, really likes this play—is that he and his collaborators have tremendous belief in what they can bring to it. This is a refreshingly bold artistic statement if ever there was one. But it is one Colucci and his collaborators have earned the right to make, for this “Equus” is a very good production of a very good play. It’s not without its challenges, but overall this is an absorbing, arresting and intelligent staging. Read the rest of this entry »