Teagle Bougere/Photo: Michael Brosilow

RECOMMENDED

There’s a certain advantage to adapting a masterpiece of literature to the stage: the story and the characters are proven entities, not likely to elicit complaints about plausibility or development. But there is an even bigger disadvantage: not only will audiences inevitably make comparisons, usually unfavorable, to the primary work, but the distillation of a novel the length of Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man” into a three-hour stage play (including two intermissions) will necessitate vast edits that might threaten clarity even if, as is the case here, the dialogue is drawn strictly from Ellison’s text. Contrarily, the risk is equally great that careful adherence to the text will result in a work that, while unquestioned genius on the page, is plodding on the stage.

Fortunately, most of these potential problems have been avoided with Oren Jacoby’s world-premiere adaptation of “Invisible Man,” now playing at Court. Read the rest of this entry »

Darren Criss (#4) with Team StarKid

With our criteria shifted back to artistic accomplishment in theater, dance, comedy and opera this year, our task got infinitely tougher. Because while the number of performing venues grows at a steady rate, the increase in the number of noteworthy artists seems to grow exponentially. For everyone we name on the list below, we had to leave off five, an embarrassment of riches for Chicago. We made a conscious effort to introduce a meaningful number of new faces to the list this year; the necessary absences should not be construed as a loss of worthiness as a consequence. We often find trends when we do the research these lists require; this year we’re starting to see a more meaningful effort to redefine performance itself in the internet age, from the runaway success of StarKids, to the more calculated endeavors of Silk Road. So what defines a “player”? Consider it some complex stew of career achievement, recent “heat” and, in some cases, rising stardom.

Written by Zach Freeman, Brian Hieggelke, Sharon Hoyer and Dennis Polkow

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Photo: Michael Brosilow

RECOMMENDED

As a high-school freshman, studying the works of Homer—dense, dry and infinitely long as they seemed to be—was the last thing I wanted to be doing. Little did I know at the time, or maybe I just forgot, that Homer didn’t so much write down his epic poems “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey” as he did sing them, improvising and tailoring his performances for whatever crowd he was working. Denis O’Hare’s and Lisa Peterson’s one-person show brings the story of the Trojan War closer to this original, much more entertaining mode. Read the rest of this entry »

Alexis J. Rogers and Todd M. Kryger/Photo: Michael Brosilow

RECOMMENDED

Despite the cultural issues and problems engulfing “Porgy and Bess,” and they are myriad, the principal reason it survives is George Gershwin’s sumptuous score. By and large, it is faithfully rendered in this streamlined and minimalist Court Theatre production by a talented group of singing actors who have obviously in each and every case really upped their game to an entirely new level.

Of course, those used to the complete work in full score will have a lot to miss: entire characters, scenarios and musical bits that flesh out Catfish Row are AWOL here. Most of the beloved songs are here, to be sure, although the iconic “Summertime” has been given a lower key in the opening scene and tilted towards its jazz standard polarity rather than rendered as a sumptuous aria.

Such changes are distracting, at first—almost like Aretha Franklin singing Puccini’s “Nessun dorma” or a Handel reconfiguration such as “The Gospel Messiah”—but on its own terms, it does work. Likewise when Bethany Thomas starts her funeral cry of “My Man’s Gone Now,” she does it an octave lower in a restrained, poignant almost Billie Holiday-like manner rather than the all out take-no-prisoners loud lamentation as written. The overture is omitted at the beginning of the work, but somehow mysteriously pops up in the rape scene, albeit at a snail’s pace. Read the rest of this entry »

Amy J. Carle with Lawrence Grimm, Thomas J. Cox, Adrian Danzig and Kevin Douglas/Photo: Michael Brosilow

RECOMMENDED

It’s not a big surprise that the somewhat airy, twee writing style of Sarah Ruhl makes this “Orlando” less verbally piercing than the original Virginia Woolf novel, and the show is nothing if not thematically light, even as it takes on the big questions about romantic love and personal identity. But what Ruhl and director Jessica Thebus, who are longtime collaborators, pull off is somehow entirely fitting for a novel that began as an extended love letter from Woolf to her sometimes lesbian lover. A young nobleman during the Renaissance, Orlando is a favorite of Queen Elizabeth at court; he falls in love with a Russian princess; he travels to Istanbul as a consul, where he wakes up from a centuries-long sleep to find himself a woman in order to face our last three centuries of history. Ruhl is faithful to the epic plot of the story, and if the writing is occasionally insipid, Thebus easily makes up for it with inspired physical theater. A four-man chorus, comprised of 500 Clown’s Adrian Danzig and three of Lookingglass’ most agile performers, breathes life into the show with graceful clowning and exquisite choreographed movements. The technical theater is equally beautiful, with layers of billowing curtains and delicate but powerful lighting design. Overall, the performance is pure romance. (Monica Westin)

At Court Theatre, 5535 South Ellis, (773)753-4472. Through April 10.

Here’s the press release from Court Theatre:

COURT THEATRE ANNOUNCES 2011-12 SEASON

COURT THEATRE’S 57TH SEASON TO FEATURE
TONY KUSHNER’S ANGELS IN AMERICA DIRECTED BY CHARLES NEWELL,
A WORLD PREMIERE ADAPTATION OF RALPH ELLISON’S INVISIBLE MAN DIRECTED BY CHRISTOPHER MCELROEN AND ADAPTATIONS OF WORKS BY ZORA NEALE HURSTON AND HOMER

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Maura Kidwell, Lois Markle, Mary Beth Fisher

“Three Tall Women” is widely understood to be Edward Albee’s most personal play, which he himself referred to as a “kind of exorcism”—it revolves around the somewhat dismal life of a strong, prejudiced, self-interested woman based on Albee’s mother, for whom Albee clearly feels little sympathy. The play portrays the tall woman at three stages in her life: regal, difficult and somewhat demented in old age, bitter in middle age, and optimistic, bright-eyed and confident in youth. Through a surreal, heightened interview among each version of the woman on the oldest’s deathbed, “Three Tall Women” comprises a hard, bleak study of the loss of innocence, the grief of being estranged from family, the endless torture of an unhappy marriage. And it’s often very funny and sometimes very wise about the delusions of youth and unavoidable tragedies of aging. But there’s an element of empathy in the play missing, which results in a lack of real dramatic tension, despite Charles Newell’s direction of the three female actors, Mary Beth Fisher in particular, in remarkably intricate and moving performances. The play is limited to the perspective of a scarred and complex, but to put it bluntly, ultimately a gold-digging, unsympathetic character. While the first half zings with one-liners and occasional moments of profundity, there’s no engine in the second act, no emotional investment that can motor us through an hour of revelations and despair. The production will and should garner positive reviews for its strong performances and beautiful technical theater, but I remain unsold on the play itself. (Monica Westin)

At Court Theatre, 5535 South Ellis, (773)753-4472. Through February 13.

As the economy slowly lifts us back to our feet and we look around, we see a remarkable sight: a performance industry in Chicago that survived the worst recession since the Great Depression wholly intact. Sure, we had a few brushes with death, and no doubt a few very small, very new theater companies threw in the towel, as they do even in good years, but unlike many other cities across the country, we’re in pretty good shape. How good? The League of Chicago Theatres issued a press release last week proclaiming our town as America’s theater leader, with more than 250 professional theaters, including four Regional Tony Award winners, and a combined annual budget of $250 million serving five million audience members. Add in our thriving dance community, a comedy scene that’s the envy of the nation and two world-class opera companies and you’d have to say we’re doing pretty damn good. But neither the economy nor any cultural organization is fully out of the water yet, and the dramatic uncertainty injected into the political sea by Mayor Daley’s decision to call it a day means Chicago’s performance community will need some steady hands at the wheel these next few years. Accordingly, for this edition of The Players, we’ve broadened our horizon and taken a closer-than-ever look at the individuals in charge of the financial fitness of our local institutions. Read the rest of this entry »

Krapp's Last Tape/Photo: Liz Lauren

Top 5 Shows
“The Brother/Sister Plays,” Steppenwolf
“August: Osage County,” Broadway In Chicago
“Hughie”/”Krapp’s Last Tape,” Goodman
“1001,” Collaboraction
“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” Steppenwolf
—Brian Hieggelke

Top 5 Play Revivals
“A Streetcar Named Desire,” Writers’ Theatre
“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” Steppenwolf
“To Kill a Mockingbird,” Steppenwolf Young Adult
“Private Lives,” Chicago Shakespeare Theater
“After the Fall,” Eclipse Theatre
—Dennis Polkow

Top 5 Performances
Brian Dennehy, “Hughie”/”Krapp’s Last Tape,” Goodman
Karen Janes Woditsch, “To Master the Art,” TimeLine
Tracy Letts, “American Buffalo,” Steppenwolf
Amy Morton, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” Steppenwolf
Mary Beth Fisher, “Seagull,” Goodman
—Brian Hieggelke

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Alex Goodrich and Erik Hellman/Photo: Michael Brosilow

A hot mess. If there’s such a thing as Shakespeare lite, “The Comedy of Errors,” with its slapstick physical comedy and absurd plot involving two sets of long-lost twins, is it. So when Sean Graney adapts it into a ninety-minute production, it’s easy to imagine that he’ll take a lot of creative license—and Graney does, getting rid of vast amounts of the original script and replacing it with lines that could have come from contemporary mainstream Hollywood comedies. Unfortunately, and surprisingly given Graney’s past work, the show appeals to the lowest common denominator (read: jokes and songs about blow jobs). Recognizable cultural touchstones include “Norbit,” where the part of a kitchen wench is played by an actor in a fat suit as a hideous man-eater who demands, among other favors, a colonic from one of the manservant twins whose character channels Will Ferrell’s persona so completely that it’s actually distracting. Cross-dressing and quick-changes (six actors play twenty-three characters), the theatrical elements that helped make Graney’s production of “Irma Vep” at the Court last year so funny, here feel like pointless showing off because there’s so little substance left to the production. If only Graney had stuck to the comedy that’s already in Shakespeare rather than inserting lines like “I’m gonna drink the shit out of this Diet Coke”—there’s a pervasive sense of anxiety at making the comedy accessible that’s totally unnecessary and, frankly, insulting to any audience. (Monica Westin)

At the Court Theatre, 5535 South Ellis, (773)753-4472, through October 17.