Chicago Theatre Review
Unpack The Secrets
Leroy and Lucy
As the lights come up, we discover an attractive, young woman sitting on a bench, strumming a guitar and singing. It’s unclear where we are, but we know it’s late at night. Soon a handsome young man enters and finds himself captured by the radiance of the lovely lady and her music. The man carries with him a homemade guitar and a harmonica. The heat of the Mississippi Delta and the magic and mystery of the locale all lend a hand to Lucy and Leroy as they unpack the secrets that they’re initially reluctant to share.
Read MoreMeeting the Grim Reaper
Mercy Killing
Once upon a time there was a pretty young woman named Mercy. An amiable and skilled barista, Mercy’s known for her “killer coffee concoctions” at a popular San Francisco cafe. But she is also known around the Tenderloin district by her victims as the Secret Serial Killer around the Tenderloin district. One night, as Mercy is heading home from work, she chances upon a corpse lying near her bus stop. Suddenly another lovely young woman magically appears. She begins checking over the dead man’s vitals and entering the data into her cellphone.
Read MoreAdventure With a Capital A
Pericles
“PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE is among only three of Shakespeare’s plays that are labeled “romantic,” which was a synonym for “adventurous,” back in the day. And this production certainly is, with a capital A. Written around 1608, during Shakespeare’s latter, more prolific years, he created this play in the wake of some of his finest tragedies. Along with TWO NOBLE KINSMEN, the play wasn’t even originally included in Shakespeare’s First Folio, although it’s now accepted among his canon of 36 other plays. During the Bard’s own lifetime, PERICLES was one of the playwright’s most popularly produced plays, although many scholars believe that Shakespeare only composed the second half of it.
Read MoreThe Need For Love and Forgiveness
Bottle Fly
In Jacqueline Goldfiner’s latest play, Ruth and Penny are a recently coupled pair of lesbian lovers. They’ve traveled to Florida’s Everglades to start a business raising bees and selling their special honey. The couple is renting room and board above a ramshackle bar, owned by Rosie and her husband Cal, a hardworking offshore oil rig foreman. They are raising and caring for K, an emotionally disturbed young adult who Rosie and Cal found wandering alone through the swampland. K stutters and can barely speak; but in her beautiful alto, she croons classic love songs from the 30’s and 40’s. Goldfiner’s one-act drama is a sweet story about how we all have a similar need for love and forgiveness.
Read MoreDon’t Feed the Plant
Little Shop of Horrors
Audrey, Seymour, Orin, Mr. Mushnik and all the other crazy characters from this 1982 rock musical horror are back in Chicagoland. And just in time for Halloween, too! Based upon Roger Corman’s low-budget, darkly humorous sci-fi film from 1960, composer Alan Menken (BEAUTY AND THE BEAST,” SISTER ACT) and his longtime writing partner, the late, great playwright/lyricist Howard Ashman, initially created this cult classic for Off-Off-Broadway. But due to its popularity, the musical found its way to Off-Broadway, and then eventually made its way onto the Great White Way in 2003. The musical comedy was also adapted for the silver screen and became a popular 1986 film. A worldwide favorite, wherever and whenever this satirical Motown-style musical is produced, the show is alway a huge hit. Music Theater Works’ Fall production, presented with savvy staging and a topnotch cast by Kyle Dougan, is no exception. But the production does have a few problems.
Read MoreI Wish
Into the Woods
In stories, as in real life, everyone wishes for something better. Sometimes the wishes come true, but not without a cost. There’s always consequences for our actions and a price to pay. As each of us follow our chosen path to fulfill our wishes, we impact those around us. Because, as one of the most beautiful songs from this score reminds us, “No one is alone.” As each of the characters leaves his or her comfort zone and heads into the woods to make a wish come true, risks will be taken to achieve the goals. And after all that happens in this musical, because life goes on, we’re always looking ahead and hoping for something more. So at the end of the show, one of the characters expresses that eternal feeling, “I wish.”
Read MoreMás Dramáticas debuts as part of Destinos 2024 – The 7th Chicago International Latino Theater Festival, produced by the Chicago Latino Theater Alliance (CLATA)
Más Dramáticas, is many things. It’s a Drag cabaret, a love letter, a joyful celebration of camp and telenovelas of the 80s and 90s, and it’s a peek into a culture that loves a good story, with plenty of dramatics. Written and directed by Esteban Pantoja, it is presented by Cabaret Parodia – the only Latine, LGBTQIA+ theater company on Chicago’s south side.
Más Dramáticas is presented as the story of an acting school. The director of the school shares the history of her academy and unveils the talents of five of her most talented students. Each student has an opportunity to present a number, and a scene from a classic telenovela. Each student is chasing her dreams to become a telenovela star, and the most fabulous, most dramatic, actress. What this means practically is that the show is a cabaret of beloved telenovelas from the 80s and 90s, and the cast takes turns acting out their over-the-top theme songs and a few choice, dramatic scenes.
Esteban Pantoja stars as the Director, and acts as the Emcee. The cast is rounded out by three lovely ladies and one dashing man. I’m sorry to say, a cast list was not provided, but happy to report they were all a delight to see onstage. The show is a review of classic novelas, which themselves are a wonderful, campy window into Latin American Culture. Novelas are all larger than life, filled with scandal, love, loss and betrayal. The players of Cabaret Parodia took that tradition and added even more, hence the title: MAS Dramáticas.
The cast embraced their opportunity to emote with extra sequins, enthusiasm and passion. Each theme song and acted out sequence was meticulously, and hilariously recreated, but with a little extra – everything that can be bedazzled, is bedazzled, staring into the middle distance with a woe-is-me posture is required every ten minutes, a make out scene is an over the top tongue-fest and it’s not a real fight till someone’s wig is ripped off. Pantoja is an expert at working a crowd, and the audience ate up every minute, occasionally even participating, or singing along. For the uninitiated, the shows featured are easily found on YouTube:
Rosa Salvaje (Wild Rose)
Dos Mujeres un Camino (Two Women, One Road)
Teresa
María la del Barrio (Maria from the Neighborhood)
Maria Mercedes
La Ursurpafora (The Usurper)
Musical Mentiras (Musical of Lies)
El Extraño Retorno de Adriana Salazar (The Strange Return of Adriana Salazar)
Even if you weren’t lucky enough to catch the show, these campy, hilarious blasts from the past are worth looking up. It’s a testament both to telenovelas and to the cast that the fact that the show was in Spanish wouldn’t stop me from recommending it to an English speaker. The actors all used their bodies, their faces and the music to tell captivating stories, and the physical humor was constant. Drama is a universal language. The only thing this show was missing was a traveling spotlight, so that when the characters entered the audience, they never lost their light for a moment. I’m looking forward to seeing what Cabaret Parodia has to present next.
CLATA produces a citywide, annual festival showcasing local Latine theater artists and companies alongside top artists from the U.S. and Latin America. This year’s festival runs from September 30 through November 17. It features a diverse array of bilingual, Spanish and Latine-themed shows, panels and student performances at marquee venues downtown, at local storefront theaters, and cultural institutions in predominantly Latine neighborhoods throughout Chicago. Be sure to check out what is coming up next at https://clata.org/en/
Highly Recommended
Reviewed by Alina C. Hevia
Presented at the National Museum of Mexican Art, 1852 W.19th St. in Pilsen. Two shows only: October 23 and 24 at 7:00pm. Tickets were $35
Additional information about this and other area productions can be found by visiting www.theatreinchicago.com.
Baby, Let’s Get Good!
Some Like It Hot
After innocently witnessing a Mafia murder, Joe, a saxophone player and his partner, Jerry, a bass player, come up with a risky plan to escape Chicago before they’re rubbed out. The musicians are broke so they need to earn some fast cash to survive. But it’s 1933 and the Depression is on. There are no jobs for instrumentalists— except, perhaps, in an all-girl jazz band that’s about to tour the country, eventually ending up in sunny California. Does this plot sound familiar? Well, as the song says, “Baby, Let’s Get Good!”
Read MoreA Play in Letters
Dear Elizabeth
Beginning in 1947, the intimate thirty-year friendship between two brilliantly talented writers becomes the subject of Sarah Ruhl’s work, “DEAR ELIZABETH: A PLAY IN LETTERS. Adapted in 2012 from Words in the Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop, Ruhl’s play fills in the blanks. The two 20th century literary giants’ epistolary relationship began when American poet Elizabeth Bishop wrote a fan letter to fellow poet and contemporary, Robert Lowell. More than 400 pieces of correspondence connected these two writers over three decades. Their relationship was close and almost romantic, but remained strictly platonic throughout the years. Although the pair never married, they shared a love, along with a profound admiration and respect for each other’s works. Robert wrote to Elizabeth, “I seem to spend my life missing you,” which sums up how close they were until Robert’s death in 1977.
Read MoreA Near Miss
By the Way, Meet Vera Stark
Prolific playwright Lynn Nottage is known for her challenging and often forgotten stories, focusing her works on members of the African-American working class community. She’s also known as the first and only woman to have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama twice. RUINED and SWEAT have earned her that illustrious accolade, followed by such other excellent dramas as INTIMATE APPAREL, MLIMA’S TALE, CRUMBS FROM THE TABLE OF JOY and the book for MJ THE MUSICAL. BY THE WAY, MEET VERA STARK, one of Lynn Nottage’s lesser known plays, is now in an interesting new production by Artistic Home. The production is a rare near miss. And the play itself just doesn’t seem to be in the same league as Ms. Nottage’s other plays.
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