Top 5 Shows
“A Steady Rain,” Chicago Dramatists
“Another Day in the Empire,” Black Sheep
“Diversey Harbor,” Theatre Seven
“Impress These Apes,” Blewt
“Machos,” Teatro Luna
—Nina Metz
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The standard romantic triangle is more of a pentagram in Philip Barry’s comedy from 1939, better known for its 1940 film version starring Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant and James Stewart. But the play came first, and it holds a certain allure for theater companies like Remy Bumppo, an ensemble that never met a tony accent (or erudite putdown) it didn’t like. With director Shawn Douglas at the helm, the production reaches a level of “perfectly fine,” by which I mean the ghost of the movie lingers like a bad hangover. Put another way, the play’s biggest fault is that it isn’t the film. Erica Elam, especially, is up against steep odds in the Hepburn role as a fashionable Philly socialite heading to the altar for the second time. Her wedding plans hit a snag with the unwelcome arrival of two men: a jaded tabloid reporter (Steve Key in the Stewart role), and her ex-husband (the aptly named Grant Goodman in the Grant role), who still has eyes for milady. Various family members—plus a working gal photog, drolly played by Wendi Weber, the one cast member to fully embrace an acting style true to the period—help to move the story along, but it is hard to become fully invested in any of it. Elam isn’t quite the “young, rich, rapacious female” demanded by the part (she actually comes off as quite the sweetie), and you keep waiting for anyone—the butler, even—to offer a knowing glint that would give this show some zing. Not to mention the matter of the fountain that turns up in the second act (courtesy of scenic designers Jackie and Rick Penrod), which sounds a hell of lot like someone peeing into a toilet for forty-five minutes. (Nina Metz)

At the Victory Gardens Greenhouse, 2257 N. Lincoln, (773)871-3000. This production is now closed. 

RECOMMENDED

Two novelists, married, agree to read each other’s journals when they learn one is terminally ill. Expected complications ensue. Such is the theatrically rich premise for Steven Dietz’s “Fiction,” in its Chicago premiere via Remy Bumppo Theatre. Truth is explored in several layers in Dietz’s witty script—between lovers, spouses, writers, audiences and subjects—with pain often the price of honesty. Dietz takes a morally detached stance, preferring to let the revelations unfold through present-tense flashbacks, leaving much of the interpretation to the actors themselves. The problem is, Dietz has created a bunch of barely likeable characters, self-professed snobs who “hate all the same things” and, in doing so, keeps the audience at an emotional distance uncharacteristic of the subject matter. David Darlow, as Michael Waterman, manages to transcend his character, conveying the blend of sorrow and weariness in his eyes that do not exist on the page. Annabel Armour, as the terminally ill Linda Waterman, delivers a solid if less nuanced performance, while Linda Gillum does the best she can with Abby Drake, a key player in the narrative whose character can generously be described as a cipher. Director Nick Sandy does a fine job of keeping the flashbacks and the assorted monologues clearly understandable (no mean feat), while Linda Buchanan’s simple but effective set allows for the same. Michael Waterman starts out a literary elitist, disdaining writers who craft popular novels; yet his eventual capitulation seems to cause little pain. So too, Dietz’s play, which aspires to finding greater truths about the practice of deception, while raising interesting questions about the fictions of each character’s life story, connects to the head but not the heart, ending up as just another perfectly pleasant night of theater. (Brian Hieggelke)

At the Victory Gardens Greenhouse, 2257 N. Lincoln, (773)871-3000. This production is now closed.

RECOMMENDED

It’s customary these days, when reviewing Shaw, to wax enthusiastic about how remarkably prescient the playwright was. Indeed the title character, an unapologetic self-made business woman in the late nineteenth-century who’s made a fortune off of that oldest of professions could have been written by a twentieth-century feminist. And daughter Vivvie’s judgmental rejection of her mother for having exploited the same corrosive capitalism that Vivvie will now herself pursue in order to maintain her privileged social and financial standings (“I like working and getting paid for it,” she says), and that were initially made possible off this tainted money, smacks of an all-too-familiar contemporary hypocrisy. But mere relevance does not always justify a major revival, nor provide it with satisfactory dramatic oomph, especially when a hundred years have transformed Shaw’s “Mrs. Warren’s Profession” from a well-argued moral drama about prostitution into a well-costumed melodrama about priggishness. Read the rest of this entry »

Its title is also its theme. And yet, ironically, British playwright Nick Dear’s “Power,” a historical play about a young Louis XIV and the beginnings of his ostentatious rise to absolute rule, is missing some of this in a visually sumptuous yet emotionally ineffectual American premiere production by the Remy Bumppo Theatre. Although I’d rather devour my history on the page than be subjected to it on the stage, I’m certainly not averse to a good “chronicle drama,” especially when it features as fascinating a collection of characters and as robust a language as does “Power.” Nonetheless, my indifference to this play is twofold. First, its ideas never progress beyond the obvious. In two dense acts made up of nineteen short scenes, Dear garrulously examines the politics and propriety of Louis IV’s court to conclude that power and conspicuous consumption corrupt and that nobody—not monarch, matriarch or even maid of honor—is immune to this type of corruption. Second, these concerns seem slightly out of touch with the zeitgeist. Yes, I realize that a Houston court will soon rule on one of the biggest cases of white-collar fiscal malfeasance in history, but in these times of religious fundamentalism, anti-immigrant racism and the war in Iraq, it seems to me that immoral and not material excess should be Dear’s idée fixe. Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

While continuously cementing a reputation for producing intellectually and linguistically challenging works, Remy Bumppo is also gaining an Anglophilic rep with a seemingly exclusive pipeline to England’s best theater. A case in point is British playwright Ranjit Bolt’s contemporary adaptation of Molière’s “Tartuffe,” first seen at London’s Royal National Theatre almost four years ago and finally receiving its American premiere here in Chicago. In a production that is ferociously funny, enviably cast and seamlessly directed, this “Tartuffe” proves that Remy Bumppo’s reputation is well-deserved. Translation is the lynchpin of any English-language production of Molière, and Bolt’s octosyllabic, rhyming-couplet modern-sounding text is impressive. As for the famous seduction scene of Orgon’s wife Elmire on the dining-room table by the two-faced title character, not only does it feature one of Bolt’s raunchier rhymes (“And now you’re rushing to the sweet/Before we’ve had the soup and meat.”) but an inspired staging that can best be described as a sexy table tango making full use of the performers’ nimble flexibility. Tartuffe is deliciously unctuous and seems to channel Jimmy Swaggart in his Christ-like poses, Orgon is a self-centered man-child and Dorine is a heavily accented Latina maid straight out of a Spanish telenovela. It’s mirthful and mad. It’s Molière. It’s a must-see. (Fabrizio O. Almeida)

“Tartuffe” plays at Victory Gardens Theater, 2257 North Lincoln, (773)871-3000, though March 5.

RECOMMENDED

Something strange happens when playwrights venture into the realm of math and science. Too much has to be explained, I think, and not enough can be shown. And really, aren’t plays about showing, not telling? Hyper-intellectualism abounds in Tom Stoppard’s “Arcadia,” and wouldn’t you know it, the damn thing is good anyway. Structured as a mystery that toggles between the 19th and 21st centuries, characters from both periods stride through the large front room of an old English estate in Derbyshire. In 1809, a 13-year-old math prodigy, her libidinous tutor and a hack poet, among others, occupy the home. It’s a combustible atmosphere—infidelities are waged, duels are challenged, manicured gardens are torn apart—and in the midst of all this, it seems our young pupil has stumbled upon the basic framework of metaphysics. Fast-forward to the present, where the house is filled with academics and ambitious history buffs who attempt to piece together just what happened and with whom back in 1809. The play’s appeal lies in its sheer interest in ideas. Everyone is in debate-team mode here, and the relationships that evolve (some romantic, some not) all eventually become unglued. It’s like staring at the theatrical equivalent of a lava lamp. Heavy. Very heavy—but not. There are a few casting missteps in director James Bohnen’s production for Remy Bumppo, but there are also some excellent performances as well, including Sean Bradley as the 19th Century Alfie-esque tutor, and Ashley Wood as the understated 21st Century scientist—Wood, it seems, is capable of making his face turn red on command, and it makes one hell of an impact. (Nina Metz)

Remy Bumppo’s “Arcadia” plays at Victory Gardens Theater, 2257 North Lincoln, (773)871-3000, through January 2.

RECOMMENDED

In Edward Albee’s 1966 Pulitzer Prize-winner, “A Delicate Balance,” the drinks come in two varieties: those that are being made and those that are being consumed. It’s saying something when members of the audience for this rock-solid Remy Bumppo production, directed by James Bohnen, can be heard counting the drinks—the brandies, the martinis, the bourbons, the screwdrivers—and yet only one character is actually a self-professed drunk. A domestic drama soaked in battery acid, the play debuted four years after Albee’s other notoriously alcoholic scorcher, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” which opens a week from Saturday in a revival at Court Theatre. Taken together, it is a veritable Albee festival all over again. (Last fall, the Goodman staged a fest highlighting the playwright.) At the center of the story is a middle-aged patrician couple, emotionally withdrawn Tobias (David Darlow, in his most understated and nuanced performance to date) and cool, well-mannered Agnes (Annabel Armour, graceful and quietly strident), whose home is invaded by a series of unwanted guests. Striving to maintain a sense of duty and decorum, they are incapable of throwing anyone out, including their infantile daughter, Julia (Linda Gillum), who is on her way to a fourth divorce, Agnes’s sister Claire (Deanna Dunagan), the most honest person in the house despite her constant inebriation, and family friends Harry and Edna (Joe Van Slyke and Wendy Robie) who have showed up complaining of an mysterious terror in their lives. Crammed together, emotional claustrophobia envelops the whole lot. Soon, everyone’s deep-seated personality flaws are exposed to one and all. They’re not left with much by the end, and all they can do is hope for that moment when “memory takes over and corrects facts, makes it tolerable.” (Nina Metz)

This production is now closed.