What makes Chicago’s theater world special? We picked up the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly for clues. In the cover story, “CSI” star William Petersen explains his decision to leave his role as one of the top paid actors in television, earning a rumored $600,000 an episode, to move back to Chicago and Chicago theater: “It was too safe for me at this point. So I needed to try and break that, and the way to do that, for me, is the theater.” EW went on to credit Petersen for much of the show’s success, notably bringing a theatrical ensemble philosophy to play in its production. Or consider the runaway success of Steppenwolf’s “August: Osage County,” which transferred to Broadway,  receiving critical acclaim and multiple Tony Awards, not by shaking it up with Broadway “names” but instead by virtually transferring the Steppenwolf production intact, with the addition of lead producer and fellow Chicagoan Steve Traxler. What makes Chicago theater—or for that matter, Chicago dance or any other form of performance practiced on our stages—special? We’d contend it’s the power of the ensemble, the spirit of collaboration that champions artistic risk-taking and subordinates the commercial. And so, in that spirit, the critical ensemble responsible for Newcity’s ongoing stage coverage presents our take on the most influential people on and offstage in Chicago. Read the rest of this entry »

A visually stunning exploration of archetypal journeys. “Kafka on the Shore” follows an old man, damaged as a child in a mysterious accident, who searches blindly but faithfully for a cat and a mysterious stone; and a teenage runaway trying simultaneously to both determine and escape from his place in the world. The show incorporates elements of murder mystery, psychoanalytic theory and magical realism in its explicit mission to explore the boundary between the real world and the unconscious. Ultimately, both the greatest strength and weakness of the story is that none of the riddles are ever solved, and audiences will either be frustrated at all the strands that are left unraveled or else delighted at the open-ended conclusion. Instead, the play, beautifully adapted by Frank Galati from the novel by Haruki Murakami, acts as a kind of kaleidoscope of images and characters who morph, combine, and fall into patters of perfect dream logic. Juxtapositions of pop culture and bizarre sexual motifs provide comic relief and lightness when “Kafka” threatens to drown in its own weight. (Monica Westin)

At Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted, (312)335-1650, September 18 through November 16. Click here for a special 2-for-1 offer for Newcity readers.

Click here to read a feature about this production.

By Valerie Jean Johnson

The work of famed Japanese writer Haruki Murakami has been captivating readers around the globe for decades. Translated into dozens of languages, Murakami’s stories are a delicious blend of dream and reality, the tangible and the ethereal, populated with characters both fantastically bizarre and starkly human. Director Frank Galati, whose stage adaptation of Murakami’s “Kafka on the Shore” opens at Steppenwolf Theatre this week, describes the writer’s world as “a very strange, liminal place somewhere between illusion and reality; highly theatrical, characters larger than life; issues that are historical and geopolitical and psychological…[and] tremendously funny. He has a fabulous sense of humor, a real zest for life, a tremendous interest in the uncanny, the grotesque. And he is a very serious thinker, too, about matters of life and death, mortality, memory, sexuality, dreams. I just love him.”

For Galati—who won a 1990 Tony Award for his adaptation of “The Grapes of Wrath” (which has subsequently been translated into dozens of languages and performed by theater companies around the globe)—bringing literature to the stage has been a lifelong pursuit. And Murakami seems to have a particular hold on the renowned actor, director and writer: “I find [his] world somewhat irresistible,” says Galati. Indeed, Kafka is his second round with the author’s work—his 2006 production “after the quake,” based on Murakami’s short-story collection inspired by the 1995 Tokyo gas attacks, premiered at Steppenwolf to great acclaim, and enjoyed highly successful runs at several regional theaters including Berkeley Repertory.

In contrast to the concise narrative of Murakami’s short stories that make up “quake,” “Kafka” is a 600-page epic tale of  “a young boy’s fateful journey that crosses the boundaries between imagination and reality” that would require a days-long performance to tell in full. This is where the work of the adapter becomes akin to that of the sculptor, the miner: “[This book] has many comedies hidden inside it, and the process is a matter of digging them out and putting them together. Finding the play inside of the novel—its an adventure,” says Galati. “It’s full of fun—strange twists and turns, coincidences, reveals, discoveries and switcharoos. Its an adventure and a coming-of-age novel. Much like [Mann’s] ‘Magic Mountain,’ or ‘Catcher in the Rye’—which Murakami translated into Japanese just before beginning work on ‘Kafka,’ it’s reminiscent of ‘Huckleberry Finn’ and ‘Tom Sawyer’ and ‘Candide.’ And it’s an Oedipal narrative [as well]. All of these are aspects of the large, panoramic epic that Murakami is creating. And one we can recognize ourselves in, as well.”

It is with just such panoramic vision that Galati approaches adaptation, equally engaging his writer’s mind with his director’s eye to develop the initial script. “Because I’m a stage director and an adapter, going back to my early career, I naturally always combined what I was going to do as a director with the adaptation process. You kind of have to know what the stage is going to do in order to deliver a particular story.”

A key ingredient in Galati’s process of transforming novel to play is collaboration. The ensemble of performers, designers and technicians is integral to the development of the work. “Everyone’s collaboration is essential—we are learning how to tell the story together. Their artistry, their inspiration, is absolutely central. It’s the actors who inhabit and project the world. So nothing is more fun than a bunch of theater folks getting together to dig into a juicy script.” Actress Aiko Nakasone, who plays multiple roles in the production (and who also performed in “after the quake”) revels in the sense of adventure found in  “Kafka,” and in working with Galati, who encourages the collaboration of his ensemble in transforming the novel for the stage. “He is a great mind,” says Nakasone, “but he believes that more minds together can bring fuller production. He is so generous in that way.” Nakasone’s praise for Galati is echoed by Jon Michael Hill (a recent addition to the Steppenwolf ensemble), who plays Kafka’s alter ego, Crow: “Everyone adores Frank. He’s got this childlike appetite and sense of play. He is so enthusiastic; it is hard not to be excited, to want to do your best. To step up to that caliber of work.”

Galati and company are confident that Murakami devotees and novices alike will be able to engage in their unique vision of “Kafka on the Shore.” “Any good story makes its own rules and sticks to them. I don’t think you have to be familiar with the Impressionists School in general to appreciate a single painting. I think the story speaks for itself and has its own agenda that I think the audience can follow and understand, and really enjoy.”

At Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted, (312)335-1650, September 18 through November 16. Click here for a special 2-for-1 offer for Newcity readers.

Click here to read our review.

Not your childhood Hans Christian Anderson. Frank Galati’s adaptation, in collaboration with Chicago folk musician Michael Smith and master puppeteer Blair Thomas, returns to Victory Gardens after a successful run last year. Not so much a play as a kind of children’s folk opera, the show walks a fine line between a playful musical retelling and an extravagant spectacle, complete with elaborate puppets and a full band circling the stage. The music that comprises the production is occasionally superb, and several of the musicians are extremely talented, but the songs alone can’t hold the story together, and the narrative in between songs gets neglected with plot taking a back seat to all other dramatic elements. The acting is mostly engaging, often leaning heavily toward camp, with Andrew Keltz and Blair Robertson in energetic if occasionally saccharine lead performances, but on the whole, the dramatic element of the show lags behind its aesthetics. That said, Thomas’ puppetry, Jeff Bauer’s diorama-like set, which artfully interprets original cut-out pictures of Anderson himself, and the costumes/masks are exquisite. (Monica Westin)

At the Victory Gardens Biograph Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln Ave, (773)871-3000. This production is now closed.

“Oedipus Complex” is a show likely to give a theatergoer an insecurity complex of their own, the kind you feel after you’ve left a play wondering if and how you could have been given everything—great venue (The Goodman), great director (Frank Galati), great subject matter (Greek mythology through a Freudian filter)—but a great show. The fundamental problem with “Oedipus Complex” is that the back story to Sigmund Freud, as well as the drama of his struggle to break through and formulate the ideas that would become the basis of his psychoanalytic theories, pales in comparison to the back story of Sophocles’ Oedipus the King and the drama of watching a vainglorious and misguided man come to the realization that he has murdered his father and is sleeping with his mother. To be fair, Galati’s lyrical yet accessible adaptation of Sophocles and exposition on Freud—most of which is crisply articulated by a fourteen-member male Greek chorus—ensures that even the playgoer with little familiarity on both subjects will be quickly brought up to speed. Unfortunately, after ninety minutes there’s nothing particularly fresh or insightful to glean from the Freudian ideas on parade and any enjoyment and engrossment during the modern-dress Oedipus portion is stifled every time the drama of theater must concede to the drama of discourse, of which there is little as evidenced by some of the dozing opening night patrons seated around me. (Fabrizio O. Almeida)

This production is now closed. 

This world-premiere musical adaptation of Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Snow Queen” is so awkwardly amateurish in content and presentation that, given the level of some of the talent involved—including Tony Award-winning director Frank Galati—it offers proof positive that a show can add up to much less than the sum of its “what were they thinking?” parts. Could the famous fairy tale be told in folk-rock style? Perhaps, but for starters, a score is needed that actually tells the story instead of stringing a series of unrelated and unmelodic songs together about how cold it is, that the Snow Queen is coming, coming, coming (yeah, we got it after one chorus) and other tedious insights that we know already before a note is ever sung. It also would help to have the music performed in tune and with instrumentalists who are in sync (the stage drummer hopelessly lags behind the overloud electric bass player) and the attempted pseudo-Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young harmonies sometimes disintegrate into caterwauling. Could the Snow Queen and her magical world be portrayed via puppets? Could be, but a static, expressionless glittery head on top of someone in a white sheet and white rags moving in a robotic fashion is inelegantly impractical and gracelessly goofy. Read the rest of this entry »

It is one thing to have a recognizable style, but for the first act, at least, of Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg’s “The Pirate Queen,” the show feels like it’s following a how-to kit based on the pair’s previous hit, “Les Miserables.” Here, the epic musical (which transfers to Broadway in the spring) portrays the story of the real-life sixteenth-century Irish Chieftain, Grace O’Malley, performed with gusto by Stephanie J. Block, a killer-voiced actress who played Elphaba in the Chicago version of “Wicked” last year. The Irish-themed musical is a rarity, and O’Malley’s tale of proto-feminism—she commanded a fleet of ships; owned huge tracts of land; eventually sailed to England for a tête-à-tête with Queen Elizabeth I—is rich and unique enough to warrant the bombast of a sung-through musical. Broadway could use some of that right now. But too often, shades of “Les Miz” peek through, and not in a good way. Read the rest of this entry »

When Gertrude Stein began writing plays, she realized, “So naturally what I wanted to do in my play was what everybody did not always know nor always tell.” The urge to discover the essential by resolutely following her idiosyncratic inclinations pretty well defines the peculiar genius of Stein. Frank Galati and Stephen Flaherty labor under no such restrictions in their new musical “of Gertrude Stein,” currently at the MCA in partnership with About Face Theatre. From the initial scene, it’s apparent that the creators of “Ragtime” and “Seussical” have no qualms about centering their play on what everyone always knows and always tells. We begin with the older Stein (Cindy Gold) looking back on her younger self (Christine Mild), see her initial encounter with Alice B. Toklas (Jenny Powers), and close at her deathbed. Along the way, the project becomes occasionally more adventurous. The inventively staged “Lyrical Opera Made By Two, To Be Sung,” an opera of Stein’s, conveys briefly in its second scene the oceanic play of meaning and nonsense which undergirds Stein’s writing. For a moment, “Loving Repeating” achieves the suspension of time for which Stein aimed. But then Flaherty’s frequently hackneyed score breaks in with a phony cathouse blues, and we’re back in the general mode of the piece: a musical about Gertrude Stein for people who don’t like Gertrude Stein. When you think about how rarely Stein’s own, brilliantly original theatre pieces get staged, the lost opportunity seems almost criminal. (John Beer) Read the rest of this entry »

For those left cold by most page-to-stage adaptations, bundle up if you intend to see “after the quake,” director Frank Galati’s theatrical reworking (for Steppenwolf) of two short stories—they are combined here, as a story-within-a-story—by the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, who derived his subject matter from the earthquake that leveled Kobe, Japan in 1995. But natural disaster, per se, isn’t what really interests either Murakami or Galati; the focus is in on the seismic shifts of one’s own emotional landscape, which are often set in motion by external forces that can seem as random and incomprehensible as an earthquake—or a hurricane. The problem is, this kind of indirect metaphysical pondering often works better when you’re reading, as opposed to watching. The production, however, is clean and exquisite looking; scenic designer James Schuette has created a playing area that is all right angles and black lacquer, encased in curving steel bands that suggest post-modern shoji screens. (Nina Metz)

This production is now closed.