Monthly Archives: October 2011
"Starting Here, Starting Now" at Theo Ubique
By Devlyn Camp
Theo Ubique at No Exit Café is currently presenting a vibrant cabaret performance of Starting Here, Starting Now.
The Richard Maltby, Jr. and David Shire story-song show takes on a 1970s atmosphere, right at home as a show first produced in ’76. The three-person show about various forms of love is set around a single bed where they charmingly disco and try to entreat each other for attention. Hillary Patingre is particularly charming. She’s quite funny and quirky, and completely capturing in her solo “Autumn.” Equally entertaining, Stephanie Herman is a total joy. She’s confident, silly and smart.
The second act is made up of more meaningful solo numbers, still focused around stories and love. The wonderful performances, and fantastic directing by Fred Anzevino, prove that the best kind of theatre is non-spectacle theatre. While no judgment is held against the big glittering Broadway smashes headed into town, the little cabarets like Theo keep us aware of what really matters.
STARTING HERE, STARTING NOW
Theo Ubique at No Exit Café
Now through November 6th
Tickets $25-30, available at theoubique.org
or call (800) 595-4849
Contact critic at devlynmc@yahoo.com
Moby-Dick at Building Stage
By Devlyn Camp
When you step onto the Building Stage to cross to your seat, you’ve stepped onto the Pequod and out to sea with six dueling Ishmaels that tell the tale of Moby Dick and Captain Ahab’s chase for revenge.
The boat is backed by a chalkboard where the facts are written out throughout the show. The audience is in a sort of Moby Dick School, following the story as obsessively as Ishmael studies his strange captain. Above the chalkboard, three percussionists and several drums represent the ocean in fantastic music by Kevin O’Donnell. Proven here, if ever the sea should be an instrument, it would be drums. The musicians are incredibly quick and talented, and their performance is half the fun of the show.
Each cast member portrays all the members of the ship, passing the character with the costume piece. The boats taken out to sea are miniature ships and waves are played by handkerchiefs. This show is high-scale backyard playing with much better acting, and it’s actually rather funny, too. The play is so fun and moving that the language of the novel is hardly noticeable. It’s absolutely captivating.
With the smart directing of Blake Montgomery, the beautiful set, and welcoming, warm people of The Building Stage, this revamp of their 2006 production is a wonderful must-see to put on your calendar immediately.
Also, have you seen their ad? It’s hilarious.
MOBY-DICK
The Building Stage
Now through October 30th
Tickets $22 (Students $12)
available at www.buildingstage.com
or call (312) 491-1369
Contact critic at devlynmc@yahoo.com
Seven Less-Than-Scary Stories at Pastime
By Devlyn Camp
Clock Productions at National Pastime Theater is currently presenting “Seven Scary Stories.” As the title here suggests, this work is far from scary. In fact, they’re barely “stories.” Just “seven” pieces. In an attempt at a Halloween show, the simple, dull script hardly communicates feelings of trepidation or anxiety. The costumes are cheap, the jokes are lame, and the acting is less than average. After a bit, one might think this is an attempt at some kind of camp, like The Evil Dead or Killer Klowns from Outer Space, but it’s somewhere lost in between comedy and drama. The actors’ gumption is, of course, half-baked as they push through such an unsuccessful script by David Denman. There are plot holes, unlearned lines, and frankly, a complete Young Frankenstein rip-off. There comes a point in production when an artist must look at their work, admit it’s not right, and head back to the drawing board. This is that moment.
SEVEN SCARY STORIES
National Pastime Theater
Now through October 31st
Tickets available at www.npt2.com
Contact critic at devlynmc@yahoo.com
The Amish Project at American Theatre Co.
By Devlyn Camp
Sadieh Rifai leads the one-woman show The Amish Project as seven different characters.
She enters in a side door, the outside light streaming ac
ross the blackened stage. She slides her apron on, ties her bonnet, and sets to work on the floor with a large piece of chalk. She’s a little girl drawing and explain her friends and family, the soon-to-be-traumatized victims of a non-fictional schoolhouse shooting from which the play is based. Her chalk childhood is juxtaposed against other characters’ adult issues.
Rifai changes characters so quickly and fluidly with assistance only from beautiful lighting changes. Her monologues are powerful and touching, even rather funny at parts. Various perspectives on the shooting that killed five girls open problems to Amish families that seem to wonder if secluding themselves could ever actually help avoid problems. The characters battle each other over their opinions of how to feel about the man that followed his urges, but also murdered the Amish girls.
Creepy and twisted, yet somehow spiritual, American Theatre Company’s production gets intellectual gears turning.
THE AMISH PROJECT
American Theatre Company
Now through October 23rd
Tickets $35, available at www.atcweb.org
Contact critic at devlynmc@yahoo.com
Burying Miss America at New Leaf Theatre
By Devlyn Camp
A world premiere, Burying Miss America is a one-act play about two siblings who attend the funeral of their mother, Nebraska’s Miss America.
The show is not about theatrics. In fact, it’s quite simple. The only lighting cue is at the top of the show when gorgeous lights brighten in the windows behind the casket. The rest of the set, the theater, is a normal funeral setting. The audience is seated around the sides of the room. I actually thought I had stumbled into a real funeral when entering the theater. The simple setting allows the play to focus on the story.
The beauty queen’s children are very plain, normal people. Her son, Boxer, is a trumpet player living in New York City, and her daughter, Jean, still lives in Nebraska raising her children. Their conversation examines their relationship with each other and with their mother, who may not have been the kindest woman when out of the spotlight. Boxer has returned home for the first time in a while to settle the will, but realizes he has other unsettled problems with his sister. Going home can be an experience that lifts a weight off one’s back, but can also open forgotten emotions.
New Leaf’s newest production is well written and well acted, and a recommended show to catch when you’re down in Lincoln Park.
BURYING MISS AMERICA
New Leaf Theatre
Now through October 29th
Tickets $15-25, available by calling (773) 980-6391
or at newleaftheatre.org
Contact critic at devlynmc@yahoo.com
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