Jan 20
Erin Myers, Rob Fagin, Laura Shatkus and Niall McGinty/Photo: Anthony Aicardi
RECOMMENDED
Before the opening-night performance, 16th Street artistic director Ann Filmer shared with the audience the genesis of her bringing Eric Pfeffinger’s “Accidental Rapture” back to the stage nine years after she’d seen it performed by a tiny theater company in Chicago. She could think of no better time, she said, for a play about the Rapture than in 2012, the year the Mayan calendar predicted the world would meet its apocalypse. And, although she did not mention it, there’s another strong reason to stage this play now: its narrative about the challenges that two groups of Americans—fundamentalist Christians and secular humanists—have in getting along seems more relevant than ever in this election year.
After years of growing farther apart, onetime college partners-in-mischief are reunited when Paul (Niall McGinty) and his wife Amy (Laura Shatkus)—now pretentious professors in Chicago—travel to Philadelphia for the baby shower of Richard (Rob Fagin) and his wife Kim (Erin Myers), the latter being the only member of this cohort who did not attend college together and, to make it worse, is an evangelical Christian who has brought Richard firmly back into the flock he’d deserted in his youth. Read the rest of this entry »
Jan 20
RECOMMENDED
Money can’t buy love, but it can buy the security that makes love a bit easier. Dennis Kelly’s latest traces the decline of a relationship in reverse; his dense, unflinching monologues capture a couple’s struggle to survive.
Burdened by credit card debt, David (Peter Moore) leaves teaching to take a stressful job in sales as his wife Jess (Julia Siple) succumbs slowly to the painful world around her. Their hardship devastates her parents (Molly Reynolds and Jason Michael Lindner) and makes them a target for David’s venal ex (Darci Nalepa). Read the rest of this entry »
Jan 16
Kevin Lambert/Photo: Lucas Gerard
RECOMMENDED
“I do love the office at Christmastime,” exclaims the portly, oppressively exuberant Mr. Bahnson (Rob Grabowski), surveying his bleak cubicular kingdom. He is addressing his subordinate Martin (Kevin Lambert), a corporate Everynerd who manages his repressed anger and boredom by watching horror movies at his desk and secretly writing his own fantasy novel, with himself as swashbuckling hero. Tonight is Martin’s moment of truth, as he learns that he has been accepted into business school and must decide his future.
The Ruckus’ world-premiere presentation of Daniel Caffrey’s “Little Triggers” is a sharp, well-executed and provocative blend of comedy and horror. Combining equal parts Charles Dickens and Rod Serling, Caffrey captures the compartmentalized mentality of middle-class urbanites of a certain age. It is the point when the tug-of-war between dreams and economic realities, imagination and survival, can become so painful that the drab routines and paltry rewards of the day job make it seem like an ongoing Creature Feature. Read the rest of this entry »
Jan 16
Anthony Flemming III/Photo: Sean Williams
RECOMMENDED
Playing out in real time, this ninety-minute show captures an imagined closed-door meeting called by Branch Rickey, the Dodger’s General Manager (played with cigar-chomping gusto by Larry Neumann, Jr.), on the eve of the historic signing of Jackie Robinson (Javon Johnson) to the Dodgers in 1947. Read the rest of this entry »
Jan 16
RECOMMENDED
In a remount of their well-received 2011 improv format, Playground Theater ensemble member K.C. Redheart once again takes the audience through “the entire process of bringing a show to the stage,” breaking the action into three parts: the initial table read, a tech rehearsal and opening night. Working from an audience suggestion of the title of a show that has never been written or produced, the troupe (all sporting blank paper “scripts”) kicks off sitting in a semi-circle with the “director” welcoming his “cast” and letting them introduce themselves. Read the rest of this entry »
Jan 16
Larry Grimm and Danny McCarthy/Photo: Michael Brosilow
RECOMMENDED
A nervous inventor (Larry Grimm) pitches his latest creation to a smarmy business executive (Danny McCarthy) in the confines of a metallic negotiation room that gives off the claustrophobic feeling of an inner chamber in a giant machine (scenic design by John Dalton). It’s a creation he breathlessly claims will change not just the world, but our very perception of the EVERYDAY. Read the rest of this entry »
Jan 15
RECOMMENDED
I hate winter. Sure, no Chicagoan really loves the season, but I truly hate it. So any play that depicts winter in its worst light has a leg up with me—just a caveat.
Cities kind of hate winter, too. The blizzard of 1967 was the worst snowstorm in Chicago history, dumping twenty-three inches on the city, heaviest during rush hour and doing what Billy Sunday could not, that is shutting down the town. “Blizzard ’67,” the intriguing new play by Jon Steinhagen, depicts the impact of that fateful event on one carpool of four co-workers of varying rank and age at a faceless downtown corporation. The play’s framed in a faux-documentary fashion, with the actors occasionally narrating their own transitional voiceovers. Read the rest of this entry »
Dec 22
George Hamilton and Christopher Sieber/Photo: Paul Kolnik
RECOMMENDED
Though the idea of mainstream audiences being even modestly scandalized by drag queens and the depiction of gay characters as loving, funny—well, as human beings is, like, so eighties, I am sad to report that “La Cage Aux Folles” is every bit as relevant today as it was when it debuted on Broadway in 1983. The challenges of achieving social acceptance of a loving long-term gay marriage? Right-wing politicians making hay out of homophobia? Plus ça change.
Read the rest of this entry »
Dec 19
Photo: Carol Rosegg
RECOMMENDED
Only in America could a boy’s desire for a harmful weapon be turned into a charming musical. But it has, and good thing. This production adds a great deal to the story we’ve all seen a gajillion times on TBS.
Ralphie (Clarke Hallum) wants (all together now) an official Red Ryder carbine-action 200-shot range model air rifle, but has to circumvent his parents (solid troupers John Bolton and Rachel Bay Jones) and teacher (cabaret legend Karen Mason), who are certain that he’ll “shoot his eye out.” It’s the epic holiday struggle. Read the rest of this entry »
Dec 11
Logan Vaughn, Yasen Peyankov, Scott Jaeck and Tracy Letts/Photo: Michael Brosilow
RECOMMENDED
In Steppenwolf’s latest, playwright Enda Walsh paints a bleak picture of masculinity and what men must endure in today’s world: the cruelty of time, the savagery of economic survival, the political maneuverings of love.
Fitz (Tracy Letts), Quinn (Yasen Peyankov), Dunne (Scott Jaeck) and Burns (Ian Barford) are the remaining suitors vying for Penelope’s hand. They are running out of time; they’ve all dreamt of Odysseus’ return and their subsequent murders. The suitors work together to woo the queen. Read the rest of this entry »
