Monthly Archives: May 2022
Time After Time
The Pavilion – The Artistic Home
As the Narrator takes the audience on a cosmic journey through his poetic description of how the world was created, we’re struck by the simplicity and beauty of each carefully chosen word and phrase. It’s as if this play was forged from the best moments from Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town” and the Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones musical, “The Fantasticks.” In addition to being a PBS kind of moderator for a documentary about the span of time, the role of the Narrator also offers a talented actor the opportunity to create an impressive dramatic achievement.
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Unearthing the Past
Digging Up Dessa – Theatre Above the Law
Dessa is a budding paleontologist. Following a school trip to the natural history museum, is outraged to learn that a wall of photos to the fathers of paleontology is missing one of its founding mothers, Mary Anning, who made several major discoveries, but is more remembered for being the inspiration for the rhyme “She Sells Seashells by the Seashore.” She shares a special connection to her because she is the one female paleontologist in a book she received from her father, who recently passed away. The play unfolds watching Dessa deal with both her loss and the struggle with how the world will see her and other women.
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Attend the Tale
Sweeney Todd – North Riverside Players
In what is becoming a familiar, but happy, refrain in my reviews, another show cut short in 2020 by the pandemic is finally getting its time on the stage. This time, North Riverside Players prove both resilient and ambitious in mounting Stephen Sondheim’s classic Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. A London barber, falsely convicted and imprisoned in Australia has returned in secret to find his family and revenge himself on the corrupt judge who sent him there. Returning to his home, he finds his neighbor, Mrs. Lovett running a failing pie shop. Together they will find a novel, if nauseating, solution to both their problems.
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Grieving Through Observation and Analysis
The Year of Magical Thinking – Remy Bumppo Theatre Company
Anytime the extraordinary Chicago actress Annabel Armour takes the stage, audiences know they’re in for an evening of profound enjoyment and absolute emotional connection. It’s no different in this, her current theatrical performance. In a production that’s the theatrical equivalent of running a 26 mile marathon, Ms Armour emerges as a blue ribbon champion. During the hour and forty-five minutes that passes during this intellectually stimulating, yet poignantly affecting one-woman presentation, Ms Armour completely engages her audience in a slow, methodical chase toward the author’s understanding. It’s one woman’s objective means of grieving through observation and analysis.
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A Scientist and an Artist Walk Into a Bar…
Picasso At the Lapin Agile – Citadel Theatre
One evening in 1904 a young Albert Einstein, a youthful Pablo Picasso and a mysterious Visitor from the Future meet by chance at the Lapin Agile (the Nimble Rabbit) a small bar in bohemian Montmartre, Paris. There they exchange views about science, art and sex. Filled with a mixture of funny, unexpected one-liners, Steve Martin’s surrealistic 1993 one-act comedy, which had its premiere at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre, went on to play in Los Angeles and New York. It’s a mixture of comedy, insightful theories, bawdy humor, quirky characters and a contemplation of the relationship between art and science.
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Band On the Run
Last Hermanos – A Red Orchid Theatre
Miguel and Julio are two estranged brothers who’ve been reunited while on the run, trying to reach the Mexican border. This is America, set in the distant future, and there’s an ongoing war raging on between Caucasians and the Latinx population. Danger and terror are everywhere and it especially lurks in the darkness and between the shadows. Trust is a fragile commodity, even between family members, and most definitely between members of the two cultures.
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No Fairy Tale Romance
All’s Well That Ends Well – Chicago Shakespeare Theatre
Helen, for some inexplicable reason, is in love with Bertram. For over two hours he calls her names, spurns her affection and even goes so far as to tell Helen she’s inferior and far below him. Then Bertram runs off to France where he’ll be under the tutelage of the French King and become an officer in their army. Helen’s determined to have her fairy tale happily-ever-after ending, so she confesses her love to Bertram’s mother, the Countess of Rossillion, and begs her to give Helen her blessing and send her off to France, as well.
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The Word of Your Body
Spring Awakening – Porchlight Music Theatre
In late 19th century Germany adults ruled their children with an iron hand while turning their backs on how teenagers coped with the puzzlement of puberty. Victorian society repressed their sexuality and, in particular, ignored the physical and emotional changes taking place within their kids. But questions about where babies come from, the strange changes occurring in their bodies and the unfamiliar feelings and desires surging through their minds continue to preoccupy the adolescents, even today. The characters in this musical simply explode, bursting with angst and yearning. Their songs are plaintive and mournful, or filled with fury and frustration, and danced with turbulent energy to a contemporary, folk-rock score that contrasts significantly with the the composed and cool turn-of-the-century book scenes.
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