Top 5 Shows

“Caroline, or Change,” Court Theatre

“A House with No Walls,” Timeline Theatre

“The Glass Menagerie,” Steppenwolf Theatre

“No Darkness Round My Stone,” Trap Door Theatre

“The Birthday Party,” Signal Theater

—Monica Westin

Top 5 Shows

“Jon,” Collaboraction

“A Very Merry Unauthorized Children’s Scientology Pageant,” A Red Orchid

“Be More Chill,” Griffin Theatre

“Men of Tortuga,” Profiles

“Picked Up,” Neo-Futurists

—Nina Metz

Top 5 Theatrical Experiences

“Caroline, or Change,” Court Theatre

“Columnibus,” Raven Theatre

“As You Like It,” Writers’ Theatre

“The Comedy of Errors,” Chicago Shakespeare Theater

“Romeo y Julieta” (Staged Reading), Chicago Shakespeare Theater/Shakespeare in Español

—Fabrizio O. Almeida

Top 5 Guilty Pleasures

“Jarred: A Hoodoo Comedy” by Tanya Saracho, Teatro Luna

“Speech and Debate” by Stephen Karam, ATC

“Dead Man’s Cell Phone” by Sarah Ruhl, Steppenwolf

“The Little Dog Laughed” by Douglas Carter Beane, About Face Theatre

“After Ashley” by Gina Gionfriddo, Stage Left Theatre

—Fabrizio O. Almeida

Top 5 New Plays

“Kita y Fernanda” by Tanya Saracho, 16^th Street Theater

“The U.N. Inspector” by David Farr and James Sherman, Next Theatre

“Dead Man’s Cell Phone” by Sarah Ruhl, Steppenwolf Theatre

“Our Enemies: Lively Scenes of Love and Combat” by Yussef El Guindi, Silk Road Theatre Project

“Superior Donuts” by Tracy Letts, Steppenwolf Theatre

—Fabrizio O. Almeida

Top 5 Revivals

“The Maids,” Writers’ Theatre

“The Lion in Winter,” Writers’ Theatre

“Requiem for a Heavyweight,” Shattered Globe

“Plaza Suite,” Eclipse Theatre Company

“The Birthday Party,” Signal Ensemble Theatre

—Fabrizio O. Almeida

Top 5 Play Revivals

“Our Town,” Hypocrites

“The Lion in Winter,” Writers Theatre

“Requiem for a Heavyweight,” Shattered Globe

“Journey’s End,” Griffin

“M Butterfly,” BoHo

—Dennis Polkow

Top 5 Memorable Productions by a Smaller Theatre Troupe

“Multi-Purpose Doom,” Sandbox Theatre Project

“The Further Adventures of Hedda Gabler,” Dog & Pony

“Termen Vox Machina,” Oracle Productions

“On My Parents’ 100^th Wedding Anniversary,” Side Project

“The Last Days of Judas Iscariot” (original mounting), Gift Theatre

—Fabrizio O. Almeida

Top 5 Directors

Ann Filmer for “Kita y Fernanda,” 16^th Street Theater

Charles Newell for “Caroline, or Change,” Court Theatre

Sean Graney for “Edward II,” Chicago Shakespeare Theater

William Brown for “As You Like It,” Writers’ Theatre

Greg Kolack for “Columbinus,” Raven Theatre

—Fabrizio O. Almeida

Top 5 Musicals

“Caroline, or Change,” Court Theatre

“Grey Gardens,” Northlight Theatre

“Tell Me On A Sunday,” Bailiwick Theater

“The Full Monty,” Marriott Lincolnshire Theatre

“All Shook Up,” Marriott Lincolnshire Theatre

—Fabrizio O. Almeida

Top 5 New Musicals

“Caroline, or Change,” Court Theatre

“Grey Gardens,” Northlight Theatre

“Songs for a New World,” Porchlight

“The Ballad of Emmett Till,” Goodman Theatre

“I Am Who I Am: The Story of Teddy Pendergrass,” Black Ensemble Theater

—Dennis Polkow

Top 5 Musical Revivals

“Tell Me on a Sunday,” Bailiwick Theater

“Sweet Charity,” Drury Lane Oakbrook

“1776,” Signal Ensemble

“Jacques Brel’s Lonesome Lovers of the Night,” Theo Ubique

“Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” Circle Theatre

—Dennis Polkow

Top 5 Worst Musicals

“Shout! The Mod Musical,” Drury Lane Water Tower

“Avenue Q,” Broadway in Chicago

“Dirty Dancing,” Broadway in Chicago

“Russian on the Side,” Royal George Theater

“Gutenberg! The Musical,” Royal George Theater

—Dennis Polkow

Top 5 Worst Musicals

“Dirty Dancing,” Broadway in Chicago

“The Kid from Brooklyn,” Mercury Theater

“Gutenberg! The Musical!,” Royal George Theatre

“Jekyll & Hyde—The Musical,” Bohemian Theatre Ensemble

“Sweeney Todd,” Broadway in Chicago

—Fabrizio O. Almeida

Top 5 Operas

“Manon,” Lyric Opera

“The Abduction From the Seraglio,” Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Ravinia

“Lulu,” Lyric Opera

“Porgy and Bess,” Lyric Opera (second cast)

“Don Giovanni,” Chicago Opera Theater

—Dennis Polkow

Top 5 Productions of Shakespeare

“As You Like It,” Writers Theatre

“Comedy of Errors,” Chicago Shakespeare

“Much Ado About Nothing,” First Folio

“Merchant of Venice,” Boho

“Twelfth Night,” City Lit

—Dennis Polkow

Top 5 Touring Shows

“Saint Joan,” Shaw Festival Canada, Chicago Shakespeare

“Cirque du Soleil: Kooza,” United Center

“The Drowsy Chaperone,” Broadway in Chicago

“My Fair Lady,” National Theatre London, Broadway in Chicago

“Jesus Christ Superstar,” Broadway in Chicago

—Dennis Polkow

Top 5 Holiday Shows

“The Christmas Schooner,” Bailiwick Theater

“A Dublin Carol,” Steppenwolf Theatre

“A Christmas Carol,” Writers Theatre

“Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular,” Rosemont Theatre

“The Seafarer,” Steppenwolf Theatre

—Dennis Polkow

Top 5 Comedy Shows

“Impress These Apes,” Blewt!

“Shatter,” Pat O’Brien’s solo show at Second City e.t.c.

“Steve and Jordan, Respectively” i.O. Theater

“Brother, Can You Spare Some Change?” Second City e.t.c.

“PennyBear: A Collection of Miniature Plays and Curious Diversions,” Apollo Theater Studio

—Nina Metz

Top 5 Female Performances

Janet Ulrich Brooks, “Golda’s Balcony,” Pegasus Players

Christina Anthony, “Brother, Can You Spare Some Change?” Second City e.t.c.

Erin Barlow, “Red Angel,” LiveWire

Sarah Goeden, “13 Dead Husbands,” Sansculottes Theater

Rachel Quinn, “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” Circle Theatre

—Nina Metz

Top 5 Male Performances

David Cromer, “Our Town,” The Hypocrites

Usman Ally, “Celebrity Row,” American Theater Company

Steve Wilson, “Red Angel,” LiveWire

Edward Thomas-Herrera, “The Last Days of Beast,” Live Bait’s Fillet of Solo Festival

Daniel Behrendt, “Beggars in the House of Plenty,” Mary-Arrchie

—Nina Metz

Top 5 Out-of-the-Box Performances

“Inner Space,” Joffrey Ballet’s American Moderns

“Walking Mad,” Hubbard Street Dance Winter Series

“The Young Ladies Of…,” About Face Theatre

“Dr. Egg and the Man With No Ear,” Redmoon Theater

“One on One,” Hubbard Street Dance Winter Series

—William Rogers

Top 5 Dance Shows by Chicago Companies

“The Sky Hangs Down Too Close,” Lucky Plush Productions

“Nuevo Folk,” Luna Negra Dance Theater

“De-Evolution of Mudwoman,” Breakbone DanceCo

“Vintage Modern,” Same Planet Different World Dance

“American Moderns,” Joffrey Ballet

—Sharon Hoyer

Top 5 Overrated Productions

“Dave DaVinci Saves the Universe,” House Theatre

“Dirty Dancing,” Broadway in Chicago

“Shining City,” Goodman Theatre

“The Glass Menagerie,” Shattered Globe Theatre

“Scenes from the Big Picture,” Seanachai Theatre

—Fabrizio O. Almeida

Top 5 Theatrical Disappointments

“Dirty Dancing,” Broadway in Chicago

“Les Miserables,” Marriott Lincolnshire Theatre

“Yohen,” Silk Road Theatre Project

“Richard III,” Strawdog Theatre

“Macbeth,” Greasy Joan & Co.

—Fabrizio O. Almeida

 

RECOMMENDED

“Your stock broker wants to say ‘hello’ before he jumps out the window,” relates Ito the housekeeper (Ghuon “Max” Chung) in “Mame.” The time is 1929 but this 1966 Broadway gem is being served up in an elaborate and colorful production at Drury Lane Oakbrook that hardly reflects the fact that lean times are making a comeback. But if times are tough, Auntie Mame and her colorful cohorts are the perfect antidote: “Life is a banquet, but most poor sons of bitches are starving to death.”

A wealthy and eccentric woman who loses everything in the crash, Mame (Barbara Robertson, although Kat Taylor takes over the role after November 16) teaches us that with enough imagination, improvisation, curiosity and optimism that there is so much more to living life than mere money. Any day is a holiday to Mame (“It’s Today”), and even Christmas can be created from scratch on demand (“We Need a Little Christmas”). It’s a lesson that she attempts to teach her nephew Patrick (Liam Byrnes and later in life, Ryan Reilly), who comes to her a well-off but sheltered and attention-starved orphan who ends up engaged to a society girl whose family worries about “the right kind of people” moving in to their restricted Connecticut community. Mame gives them all a much-needed trip to the woodshed without becoming confrontational or preachy, another valuable lesson for our era of ultra-polarized politics.

Robertson makes a splendid Mame, bringing the needed comedy and pathos to the role, and singing those wonderful Jerry Herman songs supported by a rousing mini-Big Band. And though you could quibble that veteran Chicago character actress Arlene Robertson (no relation) doesn’t exactly fit the mold of “the first lady of the American theater” Vera Charles, her wry delivery, singing ability and comic timing rescue the performance. Director William Osetek has restored some cutting-edge lines from the non-musical version of the play and brings home the message of tolerance while raising suburban eyebrows by having Mame and Vera hysterically plant a huge kiss on one another when they meet Patrick’s bigoted in-laws. Both Patricks are impressive, but Byrnes’ performance as young Patrick is a standout with his superb singing and the acting trajectory he has to make with the character.

Drury Lane Oakbrook has settled in as the best regional theater in the area consistently doing musicals and some of the gems that begin there are starting to make their way to Drury Lane Water Tower Place and are as good as—and in some cases better—than far more expensive musicals currently playing downtown. (Dennis Polkow)

At Drury Lane Oakbrook, 100 Drury Lane, Oakbrook Terrace, (630)530-0111. $28-$32.Through December 21,

Start with a perfect score (Richard Rodgers), perfect lyrics (Lorenz Hart), perfect source material (William Shakespeare) and a perfect book (George Abbott) and then eviscerate all of the above and you get an idea of what to expect from David Bell’s “new adaptation” of 1938’s “The Boys From Syracuse” that is currently playing at Drury Lane Oakbrook. This Rodgers & Hart show is one of a mere handful that really are perfect specimens of the American musical theater (Cole Porter’s “Kiss Me Kate” and Bernstein’s “West Side Story,” also based on Shakespeare, are also on just about everyone’s short list) so you would think that anyone who wanted to “revise” such a show would have to be major supporter of, say, “Coke II.” Fast forward completely past one of the best overtures in any show and what you get are doo-wop harmonies, pseudo-Satie piano music and over-the-top caricatures that make “Road to Morocco” movies look sophisticated. Much of the original score has been gutted, as has the entire Act I climax. Yes, you do get some of the show’s classic standards such as “Falling in Love With Love,” which is literally shrieked instead of sung, and a truncated “This Can’t Be Love.” Chorus scenes and the show’s swing era ethos have been replaced with pop-gospel-revival arrangements and “American Idol” conventions. It is hard to remember the last time that such a great work has been so thoroughly disrespected and misrepresented and we can only hope that some area presenter who could actually deliver the goods on this one will do so soon. Meanwhile, far better to check out the full recording of a concert version of the work with all of the trimmings made a decade ago by New York City Center’s “Encores!” series where at least “Boys” can be heard as it was meant to be heard. (Dennis Polkow)

At Drury Lane Theatre Oakbrook, 100 Drury Lane, Oakbrook Terrace, (630)530-0111. $28-$33. Through September 28.

RECOMMENDED

It’s impossible not to wonder if “Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story” would have been written had the eponymous rock-and-roller not died such a tragic and premature death in a plane crash nearly fifty years ago. Because, as Drury Lane Oakbrook Theatre’s production of co-authors Alan Janes and Rob Bettison’s 1989 musical bio-drama proves, Holly’s death seems to have been the dramatic highlight of an otherwise un-dramatic life and musical career: Holly gets dropped by his label; Holly resists musical assimilation; Holly has an acrimonious split with his longtime band; Holly marries a Hispanic woman. All in all, pretty tame stuff faced by any artist rockin’ and rollin’ during a period when that genre was considered, as a memorable line from the play reminds us, “a communicable disease.” And although I can’t speak from a place of musical authority as might a rock critic or journalist, the play’s twenty-something sampling of Holly’s undeniably feel-good and toe-tapping songs nonetheless suggests at best a canon of music characterized by pleasant melodies and anodyne lyrics. Nothing wrong with that, and quite frankly it’s a lot more than today’s top-40 offers, but for the non-baby-boomer free of nostalgia it’s difficult to see—or hear—what the groundbreaking sound and influence is. Things aren’t helped by the fact that the musical gives us nothing of Holly’s formative years—indeed, how did a white kid from Lubbock, Texas, start playing and develop his sound? That this revival gets as much entertainment mileage as it does is a credit not only to director Tammy Mader’s polished production but also to actor Justin Berkobien’s exuberant performance in the title role. If the real Buddy Holly could have been described as possessing “the sex appeal of a telephone pole” that’s certainly not the case with Berkobien, a great-looking actor who looks like Clark Kent incarnate—tousled brown hair, blue eyes and a Midwestern Boy Scout’s charming eagerness-to-please. Along with the confident presentation of Holly’s songbook, as well as the play’s period authenticity, he’s the best thing in this entertaining if dramatically lightweight piece of Holly hagiography. (Fabrizio O. Almeida) 

At Drury Lane Oakbrook Theatre, 100 Drury Lane, Oakbrook Terrace.  Thu 1:30pm & 8pm/Fri 8pm/Sat 5pm & 8:30pm/Sun 2pm & 6pm/Wed 1:30pm. $22-$41.50. Through Jul 27.

Given recent headlines I think anyone would appreciate a performance of “Sweet Charity.” In addition to its positive and perky portrayal of prostitution—on second thought, this may not be the show for a certain ex-governor and his family—this classic Broadway musical features the feel good song to perseverance and optimism in the face of uncertainty and disappointment, “There’s Gotta Be Something Better Than This,” a great number whose title alone could be the mantra for most Americans just about now. Sadly, it was also the phrase that kept repeating itself through my head during most of this entertaining yet unexciting revival, presented by Drury Lane Theatre Oakbrook, helmed by musical theater vet Jim Corti and with original Bob Fosse musical staging and choreography recreated by Mitzi Hamilton. Corti, in a rich musical-theater career, was a dancer for Bob Fosse back in the day when that really meant something, and he’ll always get my respect for having danced his way across America in a national tour of “Dancin’,” Mr. Fosse’s quintessential tribute to terpsichorean joy. (And for you musical-theater buffs I might add that in this same “Dancin’” company Corti strutted his stuff alongside another Chicago musical theater dance vet, Marc Robin, whose choreographic work is regularly showcased at rival Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire.) Hamilton, on the other hand, while having danced for Fosse as well, is more famous for being a “Bennett” dancer, as in Michael Bennett, the mastermind behind “A Chorus Line” who famously based one of his character’s stories on Hamilton’s life. She’s also one of the few individuals with permission from Fosse’s estate to reproduce his steps, so you can imagine my disappointment when those failed to sizzle, despite the presence of these two old-school Broadway dance giants. I’m going to get technical here, but the ladies’ popcorn jumps in “There’s Gotta Be Something…” should have been sharper, monkey hands down in part one of the “Frug” needed to be more staccato, gospel claps in “Rhythm of Life” more jubilant and the calypso runs crisper. And there’s a reason the second movement of the “Frug” is subtitled “The Heavyweight.” And yet, the shadow-boxing lacked “punch” and strong bells were almost entirely unheard. The orchestra is a large part of the problem. My companion for the performance, whose ear for music is as sharp as my eyes are for movement, agreed and uttered such phrases as “lack of strong syncopation,” “timid tempo” and “dragging drummer.” I can’t articulate it any better than that though I will add that it also effected the impact of Cy Coleman’s great, brassy score. Like other elements in “Sweet Charity,” it can only hope to reach the level of sensational when played sensationally. (Fabrizio O. Almeida)

At Drury Lane Oakbrook, 100 Oakbrook Terrace. This production is now closed. 

RECOMMENDED

Neil Simon’s “The Goodbye Girl” began life as a 1977 movie prequel to an abandoned Simon project called “Bogart Slept Here” that was devised to showcase the extraordinary chemistry between Marsha Mason and Richard Dreyfuss (Dreyfuss won an Oscar for his performance).  Shrewd playwright Simon had wanted to turn the successful film into a play, but it took more than a decade and a half for that to happen, brought about by composer Marvin Hamlisch’s desire to turn the property into a musical following his own huge success with “A Chorus Line.”  Simon held out for casting control and it wasn’t until Bernadette Peters and, believe it or not, Martin Short in his Broadway debut became involved—with a tryout right here in Chicago that fired the show’s original director and revised the work considerably—that the show finally made it to the Great White Way where it was a huge success. Enter Marriott Lincolnshire, which had lyricist David Zippel come in to direct a remount and revise the work further, add nearly another decade and a half and Chicago director Gary Griffin’s choosing it as his homecoming return vehicle to Drury Lane Oakbrook following his own huge successes on Broadway, reuniting Griffin with Susan Moniz, who had starred in several previous Drury Lane Griffin-directed shows.  The end result is a fascinating collaboration that is the most streamlined version of the show to date, but there are some bumps along the way.  The material, with its outdated references to “Knot’s Landing” and even a Richard Simmons parody that would be a groaner even back when the exuberant exercise guru was a part of pop culture, is hopelessly outdated, to say nothing of its really old-fashioned “love and marriage” ethos, comes off like a period piece now. The relationships are well in tact here, particularly mother and daughter and the tension between the leads, but we never buy that they fall in love, more that they have become a “Three’s Company” trio.  The songs and dances are well served, though, and the production values and cast are exceptionally strong.  (Dennis Polkow)

 

RECOMMENDED

In case there was any doubt about what kind of future Drury Lane Oakbrook would have following the death of Drury Lane patriarch and founder Tony DeSantis last summer and the subsequent death of his daughter Diane van Lente, a third generation has taken over with Kyle DeSantis at the helm who clearly wants to send a message: Drury Lane is back, bigger and better than ever before. Bringing in veteran Broadway director Jim Corti to stage the Broadway adaptation of the 1944 Judy Garland vehicle “Meet Me in St. Louis,” all of the stops have been pulled out for this extraordinary production, which is on the par with any Broadway touring production that you could see downtown, for a fraction of the cost. That said, this is a show that you aren’t likely to see downtown anytime soon, with its quaint nod to family life a century ago and a score filled with hits of the day as well as the three legendary original songs penned for the movie by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane—“The Boy Next Door,” “The Trolley Song” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”—along with additional numbers the team wrote for the Broadway version, some of which have inexplicably been cut for this version, including the best scene in the movie and the show, the Halloween scene. Jessie Muller and Justin Berkobien make for stunning leads and sing up a storm and have great onstage chemistry, but every family member is superbly cast. The lavish costumes, choreography, sets and musical direction—complete with the luxury of an onstage orchestra—help make this a very special experience and given the opportunity to see and hear the original context for the poignant “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” make this the ideal holiday show. (Dennis Polkow)

At Drury Lane Oakbrook Theatre, 100 Drury Lane, Oakbrook Terrace, (630)530-0111. This production is now closed.

By Dennis Polkow

How did a white guy from Rockford end up directing the biggest all-black musical ever to hit Broadway? “It’s a question I get a lot,” admits a grinning Gary Griffin, relaxing in the upstairs library at Chicago Shakespeare Theater after an afternoon rehearsal for Stephen Sondheim’s “Passion,” which begins previewing October 2, “usually along with, ‘What is Oprah really like?’”  

The irony is that Griffin’s involvement with “The Color Purple: The Musical,” which closes a nearly six-month Chicago run at the Cadillac Palace Theatre on September 30 before heading off to San Francisco, actually predates Oprah Winfrey’s by a couple of years. “It was in this very room that [producer] Scott Sanders met with me when I was here directing [Sondheim’s] ‘Sunday in the Park with George’ back in 2002. At that point, there were only a handful of songs and a different book writer, but there was an authenticity there that I really liked.”

Griffin admits that some of his colleagues are surprised to see him back home in Chicago after directing such a big show that is still running on Broadway and wonder why he hasn’t packed up and moved to the Big Apple. “I’m a Chicagoan,” says Griffin in a very matter of fact manner, “and while I do have a New York apartment for all of the work I do there, I still have the same place I had in Andersonville for the past fourteen years. This is still—and will always be—home. And for me, the reward is in what you do. I learned as a young director not to do anything in the theater for the money. Of course, you have to make a living, but the challenges are too great to do anything that you don’t love doing.”

Griffin has been criticized by some for bringing some New York talent to Chicago for “Passion,” when plenty of Chicago talent was on hand. “The irony is that I brought my musical director, for instance, from New York because I wanted him to see how a Chicago production is done,” Griffin says. “There is much more focus on the work here and much less of the pressure and gossip that surrounds everything you do in New York.”

Griffin got the theater bug by coming to Chicago from Rockford to see shows “as soon I could drive,” he recalls. Two memories particularly stand out for him: “My senior year in high school, which was 1978, I saw ‘A Chorus Line’ at the Shubert three times. It spoke to me so powerfully about theater and the struggles of the individual in the theater world. A show like that does what any great show does—it makes you feel less alone by dramatizing a particular struggle that is universal. And then, coming to Steppenwolf productions, particularly ‘Balm in Gilead,’ which knocked my socks off.”  

Although Griffin did play a member of the Jets in a high school production of “West Side Story,” he admits that it was the backstage stuff that fascinated him more than appearing onstage himself, which motivated him to major in theater at Illinois State University. “I had heard that all of the Steppenwolf folks had attended ISU, so that was enough for me. I headed off with the intention of directing shows.”
Upon graduation, Griffin moved to Chicago and began directing “some really small-time stuff that nobody saw, just a few friends and family members” before he began directing shows for Pegasus Players and Apple Tree Theater in Highland Park. His real break came when late Drury Lane impresario Tony DeSantis hired him to be the artistic director of Drury Lane Oakbrook in 1993 and suddenly Griffin was in the position of directing several shows a year. “That was an amazing experience,” he says, “not only because I got to do a number of shows I had always wanted to do but never had, but also because I learned so much about how shows were structured and put together. And Tony was a theater producer in the old David Merrick mold, so I learned how to please a crowd and how to take care of an audience, which is an invaluable thing to know and is one of the main reasons that I get along well with commercial producers.”

And what is Griffin’s take on “Passion,” one of the least-performed shows of the Sondheim canon? “Sometimes with Sondheim,” he says, “it just takes time. It’s a great show, but it’s newer and we don’t know it as well. I fell in love with it doing a couple of numbers from it for last year’s ‘Sondheim in the Park’ in Millennium Park, enough to want to do it, and immediately thought that the space at Chicago Shakespeare is so ideal for it, because it not only reveals the intimacy of the work, but the work’s structure is more transparent because we are able to set up a simultaneously vertical instead of a horizontal stage.”

Griffin has chosen former “Saturday Night Live” comedienne and former “Wicked” star Ana Gasteyer to star as the mysterious Fosca, having worked with her on a couple of musical workshops in New York before she donned the green makeup here in Chicago for “Wicked.”

“She is a remarkable performer,” says Griffin, “who not only can sing up a storm, but she brings such depth to a text. It is amazing how someone who has a comic sensibility can discover hidden corners even in a ‘serious’ work that the rest of us would simply miss.”   

“The Passion” runs at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, 800 East Grand, (312)595-5600, through November 11.

“I like monogrammed shirts as much as next guy,” says a jealous, rival reporter at the Daily Planet. “But that? You don’t see J. Edgar Hoover flying down out of the sky.” This Superman indeed has the big red and yellow “S,” the red boots, padded blue tights, the red cape and even flies around a bit (on wires suspended from metal clips on the sides of his yellow belt that leaves his red briefs in a bunched-upped wedgie with bulges left in all the wrong places when he lands). But that’s the least of his problems. This is a Superman that sings his innermost feelings for us, which ironically, is one all-too-human talent that the guy with superpowers cannot seem to pull off. How did this happen? The year was 1966, and with the campy pop-art Adam West “Batman” the biggest thing on television, somehow it seemed a good idea (too many bad mushrooms?) and even landed some good reviews before audience indifference killed it off. The score, such as it is, penned by the team that had brought us—yikes—“Bye, Bye Birdie,” attempts to lampoon 1960s kitsch through the filter of 1940s musical comedy, but has little understanding of either one. Indeed, the costumes, choreography and chorus numbers come right out of the go-go party scenes from “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In.” (Dennis Polkow)

Drury Lane Oakbrook, 100 Drury Lane Road, Oakbrook Terrace, (630) 530-0111. Thu 1:30pm & 8pm/ Fri 8:30pm/ Sat 5pm & 8:30pm/ Sun 2pm & 6pm/ Wed 1:30pm. $25-$50. Through July 29.

There’s as much distance between now and when this show was created more than two decades ago as there is between its creation and the time in which it takes place, which is the mid-1960s, all of which is a sobering thought. Add to that the fact that this show played for years at the Royal George and has had countless productions and incarnations, and you can see that this is one of those shows that audiences of a certain disposition have a real nostalgia for and can never see too often. Loosely using the premise of a post-death concert of a four-member vocal group as its set up, “Forever Plaid” is essentially a revue show of 1950s and sixties cover tunes that represent the mainstream, middle-class, middle-of-the road taste of that era that is the opposite of the more marginal Motown and British Invasion material now so indelibly associated with those times. For those who lived through this era and found style in gaudy tuxedos, tantalizing cuisine in TV dinners, entertainment in television ventriloquists and twirling plates, artistic merit in accordions playing “Lady of Spain” and bland, expressionless four-part harmonizations of pop ditties that wore their heart on their sleeve, this show really is like a time capsule that is frightening in how much it brings to mind that vast wasteland that passed as culture in a former era. Read the rest of this entry »