Photo: Claire Demos

The biggest revelation of Craig Wright’s “Orange Flower Water” is that it wasn’t written in 1982. Wright, a playwright particularly relevant after the recent Broadway production of his “Grace,” directed by Dexter Bullard and starring Michael Shannon, wrote his emotionally charged evisceration of marriage, infidelity and divorce in 2002. The Chicago premiere took place in the Steppenwolf Garage in 2003. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Michael Brosilow

As Rhea Perlman walks into Lou’s, the kind of neighborhood bar you wind down the holidays at, a warm sensation creeps its way from your toenails to your topmost follicles. Carla is back, and everybody knows your name. But the bar in Bruce Graham’s speck of a play, “Stella and Lou,” doesn’t embrace its patrons quite like Cheers. Maybe it did once upon a bottle, but its glory days are far gone as not-for-fun watering holes like Lou’s aren’t so popular among the young. Youth versus old age is a divide Bruce Graham’s play does not want you to forget. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Lara Goetsch

The hubbub in the men’s restroom at Lincoln Center’s Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater a couple years ago was highly energized. During intermission of J.T. Rogers’ “Blood and Gifts,” a thriller of overseas political intrigue reflecting America’s early role in present-day Middle Eastern affairs, the matinée audience was abuzz with verbal crossfire and indignation.

Some decried the play as anti-American, while others refused to embrace its representation of American arms sales to Afghan fighters in the struggle with the Soviet Union during the 1980s. Despite their misgivings over Rogers’ history, factually uncontroversial as it may be, I was tickled pink to hear a bathroom back-and-forth about the play’s content rather than its quality. “Blood and Gifts” has the piss and vinegar to provoke such fevered responses, being refreshingly aggressive during a playwriting era in which nuances have nuances. Read the rest of this entry »

“The Football Play” at the Den Theatre is like when your attention-deprived five-year-old wants to put on a show in the living room. It’s incoherent and overloaded with misplaced energy. This experimental play conceived by Trent Creswell is loosely structured around the idea that theater is a lot like football. It’s an interesting concept to consider, but often the sketch-comedy style of this piece does not support this, or any argument. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Liz Lauren

There is churchly ambiance to “Henry VIII,” which opened Wednesday night at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. Catholic clergymen clad in red vestments descend the central aisle to the stage in grand and contrived fashion. There’s enough shimmering hung fabric for another papal coronation, and the palpable vibe among the attendees is one of religious obligation—a common drive for Shakespearean theatergoers, believing the Bard to always be of crucial cultural significance, no matter the delivery. That push is even stronger in this particular instance.

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Photo: Matthew Gregory Hollis

RECOMMENDED

One hopes the producers and creative team of the deeply problematic “Big Fish,” which recently completed its pre-Broadway tryout here in Chicago, caught a preview of “Ivywild: The True Tall Tales of Bathhouse John,” a new play by Jay Torrence at the Chopin Theatre, before jetting back to Broadway.

You see, a core problem with the wishy-washy new musical with songs by by Andrew Lippa was that the main character’s tall tales—which give the show all of its theatricality—weren’t so tall; they were puny and mistakenly literal. As realized by Susan Stroman, giants, witches, floods and daffodils were rendered feeble and near-magic-less by the traditional musical theater razzmatazz.
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RECOMMENDED

One of the most diverse dance programs this year will take place in the Loop, on the stage of the Auditorium Theatre. The Movement + Music Showcase is a collection of all new pieces by six Chicago companies and their musical collaborators for one night, one performance only. The six companies—representing a spectrum of styles and traditions—were selected from workshops held at the Auditorium’s Katten/Landau studio; some of the names may be familiar, some perhaps less so: Cerqua Rivera Dance Theatre, Chicago Human Rhythm Project, Kuumba Lynx, Mexican Dance Ensemble, DanceWorks Chicago and Thodos Dance Chicago. Giordano Dance Chicago also gets a special invite. Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

People who live in the kind of twisted families only Tennessee Williams could write must look at Neil Simon families and think, “well, that sounds nice.” While neither type of family is exactly better off, the Jeromes at the center of “Brighton Beach Memoirs” have a plucky sense of optimism. Despite dire circumstances akin to “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “The Glass Menagerie,” the family in this play never projects the bleakness of their situation, and that feels a little unrealistic by comparison. Raven Theatre dusts off this tried-and-true classic to finish out its thirtieth season. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Liz Lauren

The sturdiest moments of “By The Way, Meet Vera Stark,” which opened on Monday night at the Goodman Theatre, have the audience gazing up at the stage, eyes fixated on actress Tamberla Perry, and wondering, What movie have I seen her in? “Imitation of Life,” perhaps? “Gone With The Wind”? You recognize Ms. Stark, played with a keen social intuition by Perry, from somewhere, but can’t quite say from what. Well, playwright Lynn Nottage has got you fooled. Vera Stark is a fictional amalgam of most every under-appreciated African-American starlet of the 1930s; those pathetically resigned to maid roles far beneath their acting talent. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Michael Brosilow

There’s disagreement on exactly what mood House Theatre is trying to achieve within its campfire concert, “Ploughed Under: An American Songbook.” The upstairs theater at the Chopin is configured into a nightclub, atmospherically well-suited to a musty rockabilly gig or the Country Bear Jamboree. From the stage, five long wooden tables reach out like rays of sunlight and the rest of the large space is studded with round tables, each with a burning candle. There is some raked seating in the back, but that’s for me and the other lepers. All in all, it’s a pretty happy room.
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