Monthly Archives: February 2020
Queen of Disco
Summer: The Donna Summer Musical – Broadway in Chicago
They sound like a good idea on paper, and there have been dozens bouncing around Broadway and on National Tours over the years, but the jukebox musical isn’t much more than a concert with some narrative. There are two formats in this style of musical theatre. There’s the show that creates an original story and characters, but instead of using new music to further the plot, the songs of one or more artists are featured instead. This idea began in the 1980s, with shows like “Return to the Forbidden Planet;” then “Mamma Mia!” in the 1990’s, became a theatrical pop cult classic, despite the strained attempt to incorporate ABBA’s music into a bizarre, convoluted plot. The original story form of jukebox musical flourished in the twenty-first century with musicals like “All Shook Up,” “Rock of Ages,” “Escape to Margaritaville” and the excellent, new “Jagged Little Pill.”
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Seemingly a Work in Progress
Roan @ the Gates – American Blues Theatre
In playwright Christina Telesca Gorman’s one-act feels like the beginning of a contemporary, timely story ripped from today’s news. But the main problems is that it doesn’t feel like she’s finished writing it. It’s like a work in progress that could possibly be exciting if it went somewhere and had a satisfying ending. As it now plays…it doesn’t.
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Becoming Her Own Person
A Doll’s House – Raven Theatre
Henrik Ibsen’s groundbreaking, 19th century drama was, in its 1879 Danish premiere, considered shocking and controversial. The play was based on the life of his friend, Laura Kieler, and depicts how Victorian women lacked opportunities for personal fulfillment in a male-dominated world. Although times have changed significantly, equality among the sexes is still an issue everywhere, which makes this production in 2020 especially timely. In Ibsen’s play audiences witness a vital young woman becoming her own person.
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Much More
The Fantasticks – Citadel Theatre
Nearing the conclusion of their seventeenth season, a fantastic achievement of its own, one of Chicago’s most reliable suburban theatres presents a gorgeous production of an American musical theatre classic. This little gem premiered at Greenwich Village’s tiny Sullivan Street Theater back in 1960. It went on, not only to become the world’s longest-running musical (playing 42 years and logging in a staggering 17,162 performances), but to become the most widely-produced musical in the world. With its intimate tone, pure poetic story, a gorgeous, lush score (demanding only a piano, harp, perhaps a bass and some percussion accompaniment), an eight-member cast and very modest technical requirements, this musical is a favorite among professional, regional and educational theatres, alike.
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A Musical Bonbon
Emma – Chicago Shakespeare Theatre
In an age when social media has usurped our lives, it’s refreshing to visit a time when people actually spoke to each other, and with eloquence, too. As in all her stories, Jane Austen’s fourth novel is an 1815 comedy of manners, set in Georgian-Regency England. The title character, however, is unlike Austen’s other heroines in that Emma is pretty, smart and rich, but also strong-minded, overindulged and rather full of herself. Because a woman’s goal and main occupation at that time focused on landing a good husband, Emma is also unlike her peers. While she fancies herself an accomplished matchmaker for other young women, Emma isn’t particularly interested in marriage herself. As one of the self-entitled, she finds meddling in other people’s lives far more fun and fulfilling than minding her own business.
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The Way We Were
Boys in the Band – Windy City Playhouse
During the repressive 1960’s a gay man was forced to become very secretive about everything. Being “in the closet” was how most homosexuals survived being hassled or, quite often, brutally attacked for what was perceived as a perverted life style. A small percentage of men braved all the hostility and met their peers at the few underground gay bars and bath houses located primarily in certain large cities. Mart Crowley wrote his groundbreaking drama in response to the prevalent oppressive social attitude of that time. The lives of every homosexual was threatened daily with violence and unfair laws. Gay men continually were the brunt of heterosexual jokes, degradation anger and, although claiming to not be an activist, Crowley felt the need to expose this oppressing milieu to the world through the theatre.
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It’s All Fun and Games
Adaptation – Theatre Above the Law
Theatre Above the Law is opening its fourth season with a revival of Elaine May’s Adaptation, a play that sets the choices and compromises we all have to make over the course of our lives as a brightly colored, chaotic game show.
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6th Annual Chicago Musical Theatre Festival
Chicago Musical Theatre Festival – Underscore Theatre
The Chicago Musical Theatre Festival returns to Underscore Theatre for the sixth year with a slate of eight shows, with stories ranging from time travel to Moby Dick.
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A Gershwin-ner of a Show
An American in Paris – Drury Lane
Five years ago this highly-anticipated stage version of the 1951 Gene Kelly/Leslie Caron musical film classic burst upon Broadway. After playing Paris, New York and the West End, and launching a two-year National Tour that played Chicago, we finally have our own regional production. It is truly magnificent. It’s elegant, romantic, gorgeously produced and beautifully danced and sung. For anyone who adores those classic movie musicals and big, old-fashioned, splashy theatrical productions, this is the show for you.
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Somebody’s Watching You
Bug – Steppenwolf Theatre
In a foul, frowzy hotel, two lost souls find one another, but that’s only the beginning. Agnes lives in these two fetid rooms while she works at the nearby strip club. The phone rings and rings, but Agnes refuses to answer it because she’s fairly certain that someone’s watching her. And that someone is Jerry, her violent ex husband, who was sent to prison, but may have finagled his way out in an early release. But there are others watching the occupants of the grimy little motel room.
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