Nicole Wiesner and Coburn Goss/Photo: Christopher Shinn

Real-life dysfunction sucks. But as New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood recently put it, “What might appall us in reality—the unearthing of duplicity or betrayal—can delight in drama.” Or so you hope.

Which brings us to Christopher Shinn’s “Dying City,” receiving an impeccably designed if starchily executed production at Next Theatre in Evanston. To exist in the world of this play is to be wandering a field of land mines. Not a single relationship here functions as it should. Too bad you don’t believe a minute of it.

A single actor (Coburn Goss) plays identical twin brothers: Peter is the self-involved actor; Craig is the straight-laced military man. A third character, Kelly (played by Nicole Wiesner), is Craig’s wife. She is a therapist by trade, but a lousy tactician when it comes to handling these velvet-gloved manipulators. Both brothers project their pathologies onto this woman as if she were a science experiment. It’s all disguised as love or concern or the desire for connection, and Kelly takes the bait.

Their secrets and lies unfold on a raked stage (Jim Davis is the scenic designer), tipping the actors forward—it’s as if any moment, the characters will tumble over the ledge into an abyss of their own making. It’s a canny visual that suggests there’s more to this production than there really is.

Craig has died in Iraq (we see him in flashbacks) and a year afterwards Peter shows up on Kelly’s doorstep to hand down a reckoning prettied up by his politesse and faux naïf ponderings about who Craig really was.

But the production itself (directed by Jason Loewith) lacks focus and psychological snap. Neither actor, I think, is quite right for their roles; very little here feels true or dangerously close to something resembling life. This more like “life.” But what is this play really about anyway, once you strip away the cat-and-mouse façade? Judging by this production, not much at all. (Nina Metz)

At Next Theatre in the Noyes Cultural Arts Center, 927 Noyes in Evanston, (847)475-1875 ext. 2 or nexttheatre.org. Thu 7:30p; Fri-Sat 8p, Sun 2p. $23-$38. Through March 8.

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 »

Pride has come to Chicago once again. It is time to take to the streets and celebrate the diversity that gives our city so many reasons to be excited. About Face Theatre is one of those reasons. This season the dynamic institution dedicated to the exploration of sexuality and gender issues will have new artistic leadership. Award-winning producer, director and playwright Bonnie Metzgar has taken the helm as artistic director and is excited to continue the company’s dynamic programming. Although Metzgar won’t make it to the parade this year—she is currently traveling Africa with her partner—she did take a few minutes to share a little bit about how she got here and what she is looking forward to as she makes Chicago her home.

How did you get to Chicago and About Face?

I spent the last year traveling around the U.S. for the 365 Festival with Suzan-Lori Parks. We partnered with 600 theaters; fifty-two of them were here in Chicago. Congo Square, Next, Steppenwolf, Goodman, Writers, Hypocrites—I learned fast that, wow, the Chicago theater scene is amazing! Bold artists, bold audiences—that’s my kind of town. So when the opportunity with About Face came up, I jumped at it. About Face has always had a unique place in the American theater as a home for new work that furthers the national dialogue on sexuality and gender.

How do you plan to continue what is great about About Face?

I will continue the commitment to artistic excellence and to developing the voice of our youth. I will expand the tradition of collaboration by continuing to find new ways to reach out to the community. And I will throw really great parties. I am excited and proud to be producing our whole season at the Center on Halsted. The Hoover-Leppen Theater is gorgeous! And having a home in the heart of the LGBTQ community feels right.

What excites you about Chicago?

Chicago is fierce—in its commitment to the arts, its celebration of diversity and in its history of political struggle. So for someone like me who is interested in the messy intersection of art and politics, Chicago is a fascinating place to be in 2008.

The country is changing for the LGBTQ community. What is the role theater can and must play in shaping perceptions and advancing LGBTQ causes?

The country is not changing for us. We are changing the country—by working hard, building bridges, making art that moves us all closer to each other. We need to feel the urgency in each day—as citizens and artists, in our homes, in the streets and in our art—if we dare to believe that another world is possible.

What message do you have for the LGBTQ community as we enter this year’s gay pride celebration?

Our community is in all communities. Reach out. Beyond your comfort zone. And support LGBTQ artists in Chicago during pride and all year round! (William Scott)

Learn more about Bonnie Metzgar and About Face Theatre at aboutfacetheatre.com

Leonard Bernstein’s one-act gem of an opera “Trouble in Tahiti” is so rarely revived that its simply being done will generate interest, and it would be great to report that Next Theatre’s revival is up to the task, but alas, while the principals are able to traverse the satiric “battle of the sexes” in 1950s suburbia dramatic aspects of the work, this is a piece that needs, well, pipes to make it work. Gorgeous arias such as “There is a Garden” need clear tone, clarion sound and flexible vocal technique, not erratic tremolo that camouflages pitch. The work is a mere forty-five minutes long, so what to present alongside of it that can stand up to it has always been an issue. The Next Theatre idea is to show how musical theater has “evolved” since by presenting “world premiere” performances of new songs in the second half by five different composers. The problem is that the songs themselves are presented out of context—are these works from would-be musical theater pieces, song cycles or stand-alones?—and are given mostly over-the-top readings by folks who in some cases, can barely carry a tune, let alone actually sing this stuff. Not that there is much to sing here, as these are mostly lyric-centered novelty pieces and sophomoric songs. Michael Mahler’s “The Rise and Fall of Britney Spears,” for instance, rhymes lines such as “the cops will be at the back door” with “No one want to see your kid raised by a crack whore.” Yikes. And one cardinal rule of satire is that the satirers have to have more talent and wit than the satiree to be effective. The finale, Joshua Schmidt’s bluesy Kander and Ebb-influenced power ballad “The Little American Dream,” at least exhibits some melody, even if it pales alongside of a melodic master such as Leonard Bernstein. Granted, what wouldn’t, but why set up such an inevitable comparison? (Dennis Polkow)

At Next Theatre, 927 Noyes, Evanston, (847)475-1875. This production is now closed. 

The Midwest premiere of Keith Bunin’s “The Busy World is Hushed” at Next Theatre company is the kind of brainy play that will leave half its audience proclaiming it a masterpiece and the other half a work that might be too clever for its own good. After all, when’s the last time you heard a mother dismiss her son with the line, “I refuse to discuss predestination and free will with you again.” In this talky three-hander that dialogue is spoken by Hannah, an Episcopalian minister writing a book on the “lost” Gospels of the bible and struggling to understand her son Thomas’ lack of faith in his life. Thomas, on the other hand, thinks she is a phony woman who uses religion as a crutch in order to deal with the painful memory of her husband’s mysterious drowning. And Brandt is a ghost writer working with Hannah who begins an affair with Thomas and has his own questions of faith and religion to answer for himself, let alone for his new love and parental stand-in. Bunin certainly raises more questions than he ever answers, and the various couplings at hand, examined through the prisms of metaphysics and theology, suggests that this ambitious playwright may have decided to test his Stoppardian skills and write something akin to an “Arcadia”; as seen in the several dramaturgical elements shared by the former with the latter: squabbling intellectuals (“Arcadia”’s lead female is also named Hannah, interestingly enough), abstract and “hot topic” concepts and characters obsessed with uncovering the mysteries from yesterday to answer the questions still burning today. But whereas Stoppard is able to fold his play’s many big ideas into a more thrilling denouement, because of them, you can’t help but feel that most of Bunin’s prolix and self-conscious dialogue, as well as his superfluous theological details (particularly in the first act), are ultimately more distracting than illuminating. (Fabrizio O. Almeida) 

At Next Theatre, 927 Noyes, Evanston, (847)475-1875. This production is now closed. 

The cheeky premise of playwright Ellen McLaughlin’s “Helen” is that this Greek beauty is alive and well and secretly living in Egypt during the Trojan War, waiting to be rescued by her husband the King from an unbearable existence of ennui and bad cable-television programming within her Four Seasons-like hotel room. After ninety-five languorous minutes spent with this dense, cerebral and intermission-less affair, in a plodding and visually undistinguished production by director Andrea J. Dymond for Evanston’s Next Theatre Company, the audience—like Helen—might also be hoping for someone to rescue them. To be fair, it’s impossible to deny the thought-provoking ideas on gender inequality and female beauty with which the play brims, oftentimes gorgeously expressed via the playwright’s trademark poetic dialogue and adeptness for memorable imagery. But if the hallmark of this purposely anachronistic, semi-modern take on the Euripidean original is that Helen is no shallow Barbie doll, but instead a knowing woman coming to terms with her beauty as both power and prison, it’s an idea that is more discussed than it is ever dramatized. Read the rest of this entry »

In 2002, playwright Suzan-Lori Parks set out to write 365 different plays every day for the following year. She succeeded in completing each piece and beginning on November 13 theaters in nearly a dozen cities in the United States—including Chicago—will showcase each play for the duration of the year to follow, ending on November 12, 2007. “[The festival is a] celebration of the creative act of playwriting… and a celebration of the nation’s theater makers. If you’re going to celebrate the dynamism of the theater-making community, it was pretty important that Chicago play a major role,” Jason Loewith, the Chicago organizer for 365 Days/365 Plays, says. While seven of Chicago’s top theaters, including Congo Square Theatre, Goodman Theatre, The Hypocrites, Next Theatre Company, Steppenwolf Theatre, Uma Productions and Writer’s Theatre make up the Chicago “hub” for the project, anyone who is interested in producing a week’s worth of shows that will go on simultaneously with productions around the country can meet with Parks and producer Bonnie Metzgar to learn more about becoming part of 365 Days/365 Plays (visit www.365chicago.org). “[The festival is] designed from a national point of view to  be grassroots and be from a community that collaborates. [Producers] can be anybody who has a history of presenting or producing work. I think that the biggest challenge we face is that we have more than fifty-two companies willing to participate,” Loewith says. 

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The plot sounds like the pitch to a new reality television series: pluck a career-driven and materialistic PR lady boss out of her plush Manhattan digs, throw her in the ghetto and saddle her penniless person with an unexpected pregnancy and drug-possession charge to see if and how she survives. A “Simple Life” it ain’t, and in playwright Lynn Nottage’s hugely entertaining “Fabulation,” Ivy League-educated Undine Barnes-Callas (aka the self-reinvented Sharona Watkins from Brooklyn) is going to learn this the hard way, especially when she’s forced to crash with the working-class family she publicly disowned years ago. Next Theatre’s Chicago premiere of this social satire cum urban morality tale, about the bad things that can happen to those who deny their humble heritage, makes it difficult to resist the charms of Nottage’s deceptively simple script: it snaps with the delicious subversiveness of a head-rolling “sistah,” crackles with spunky dialogue and “pops” with the high-energy performance and comic timing of Jacqueline Williams in the lead role of Undine. Director Jason Loewith’s commendable choice to play up the satirical over the emotional is probably the best way to get past the story’s improbable plot turns and stereotypes, matching the script’s inspired zingers (Undine frets over obtaining celebrities for her “Fallopian Blockage” benefit) with hilarious visual puns including an ostentatious glitter-trimmed Baby Bjorn carrier or a woman behind bars who talks the talk but walks the walk with one missing shoe pump. Read the rest of this entry »

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A seasoned script evaluator quickly learns to discern between plays that are merely good and those that deserve to be produced and seen by an audience. Having read playwright Paula Vogel’s “The Long Christmas Ride Home” three years ago, fresh out of her printer and making the regional rounds, I thought then that it was a play that deserved to be seen. After experiencing Next Theatre’s emotionally taut and deeply felt production, I still do. The play, relating the tale of an emotional and arduous car ride for a family of five on Christmas Eve and the lasting psychological repercussions decades later, is beautiful in its craft: a confluence of traditional Western storytelling and Eastern Japanese Doll theater traditions. From the metallic-sounding pluck of a Japanese stringed-instrument to shadow puppets against striking pastel washes to the ethereal and almost life-sized Bunraku puppets (manipulated by actors and puppeteers) that play the children, the play’s parade of elements serves to evoke and enhance Vogel’s typically sharp dialogue, as well as raise the familiar, dysfunctional domestic play to new therapeutic and contemplative heights. Yet despite these pockets of theatrical ingenuity, and perhaps in deference to the frosty material, director Jason Loewith has audaciously given this dark play an even darker production with a shadowy, antiseptic blue look and a solemn feel that may keep some viewers at arm’s length. It’s not an easy ride to take, but those into the soul’s battered landscape usually are not. (Fabrizio O. Almeida) Read the rest of this entry »

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Anarchist Giovanni Pinelli died in Italian police custody in 1969. Nobel laureate Dario Fo’s play draws upon official police transcripts to expose the ludicrous inconsistencies that they contain. An escaped madman serves as the primary investigator, manipulating various officials into inadvertently confessing their complicity in the anarchist’s death. Next Theatre’s whip-smart production features Defiant Theatre co-founder Joe Foust in this pivotal role, and his frenetic performance perfectly suits Fo’s anarchic script. Foust’s agile slapstick and relentless verbal assault upon the hapless policemen invest Fo’s analysis with a bristling energy. Director Linda Gillum (also a Defiant alum) keeps Foust and the rest of the comically savvy cast in constant motion. Though the remarkable parallels between the Italian case and our contemporary acquiescence to torture and extraordinary rendition are only hinted at, the play’s dark relevance to George Bush’s America remains clear. It also provides a brilliant example of a political theatre that offers stinging critique without becoming preachy. (John Beer)

“Accidental Death of an Anarchist” plays at the Noyes Cultural Arts Center, 927 Noyes Street, Evanston, (847)475-1875 x2, through May 27.