News & Reviews Category
Where Is the Money?
The Night of the Hunter
The canon of mysteries and thrillers, scripts written expressly for the theater, has increased in recent years. Sometimes original works, or those adapted from novels and loosely based upon popular films, are typically box office hits. Recent productions of plays like “Deathtrap,” “Sleuth,” “The Pillowman,” “London Road,” “Wait Until Dark,” “Night Watch” and Agatha Christie classics, like “Witness for the Prosecution” and “The Mousetrap,” have become increasingly popular. Even musical thrillers, such as the recent hit Broadway revival of “Sweeney Todd,” the long-running “The Phantom of the Opera,” cult hits like “Little Shop of Horrors” or the dark and bloody “American Psycho” play to sell-out audiences.
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Selling Your Soul to the Devil
Witch
Loosely adapted by Jen Silverman from the Jacobean play, “The Witch of Edmonton,” this prolific and talented playwright also gave us “The Roommate,” the tense two-hander presented by Steppenwolf Theatre, and “The Moors,” seen a while back at A Red Orchid Theatre. In Silverman’s 95-minute supernatural tale they offer a captivating, freshly told and mesmerizing story of six individuals who are all hoping to sell their souls to achieve something. Even the Devil, as cocky and confident as he appears to be, has his own aspirations. Employing contemporary dialogue, complete with 21st century expletives and expressions, audiences can’t help but associate this need to achieve with our current political and social climate. In spite of Rachel Lambert’s authentic 17th century costumes, each character still feels startlingly familiar and au courant.
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A Limited Vista
¡Bernarda!
The new production by Teatro Vista at Steppenwolf’s intimate 1700 Theatre, ¡Bernarda!, is a play by Emilio Williams based on the classic Andalusian drama by Spanish poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca, La Casa de Bernarda Alba.
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If Music Be the Food of Love…
Twelfth Night
The Summer has come and gone, Halloween has passed on and now the cold, wintry winds are blowing. It’s the perfect season for a holiday in the warm Caribbean isles. Guest director Tyrone Phillips, a first-generation Jamaican American and Chicago artist of many talents, has reimagined William Shakespeare’s perfect comedy set on a tropical island. And, taking his cue from the play’s opening line, “If music be the food of love, play on,” Mr. Phillips has filled his spectacularly colorful, comic production with a generous amount of song and dance. And love, don’t forget love, which seems to be everywhere for every single character.
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Being Alive
Company
Happy 35th birthday, Bobbie! The festive celebration will soon be shared by Bobbie’s married friends, all crammed into her tiny Manhattan apartment to throw a surprise party for their single friend. Throughout this wonderfully re-imagined, mellifluous musical, filled with new surprises and laugh-out-loud hilarity, and some heartbreaking sentiment and truths, Bobbie decides that maybe it’s time to make a big change in her life, which she sing in her plaintive, “Marry Me a Little.”
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Un-Poe-etic
Into That Darkness: The Corrosive Hours of Edgar Poe
Into That Darkness: The Corrosive Hours of Edgar Poe is a labor of love one-man passion project written and enacted by Jacob Mundell that brings Edgar Allan Poe to life through dramatizations of his letters and book reviews, as well as a few of his poems.
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Neighboring on Disturbed
Right Now.
For those of you who remember their dreams, you’ve probably had some unsettling dream experiences where you’re talking to, say, your sister, and suddenly, without warning or volition, you realize that she has actually been, all along, an old boss or your high school gym teacher.
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A Ghost Story
Household Spirits
Just in time for Halloween, Theater Wit is presenting a ghost story that’s being advertised as a dark comedy. It’s not. Oh, there’s a ghost, a creepy, life-sized rag doll who mysteriously speaks, and a dysfunctional family of folks who collectively have enough problems to fill three plays. And that, in addition to being well over two-and-a-half hours long, is the biggest problem with Mia McCullough’s latest play. The script is overstuffed with so many topics, issues, ideas and themes that it’s difficult for the audience to fully grasp all of them. But a comedy this isn’t, although there are a few witty lines, unexpected situations and humorous side-eyed glances that provoke a chuckle, now and then. This play is a sad drama about a group of related people, each coping with different difficulties and trying to deal with grief.
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A Romantic Fairy Tale in Tartan
Brigadoon
As the lights dim, the haunting skirl of bagpipes fill the air of Music Theater Works’ magical, magnificent Fall production. A brief blissful and beautiful overture suddenly transports us to the Highlands of Scotland. Performed by musical director Michael McBride’s incredibly talented 8-member offstage orchestra, this symphonic sampler is followed a gorgeous a cappella Prelude, sung by an ethereal chorus that both charms and sets the scene for the romantic fairy tale in tartan that’s about to unfold.
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In Praise of Women
A Little Night Music
Hi ho, the Glamorous Life! It’s here! BrightSide Theatre’s 12th year, collectively entitled A Season of Passion, opens with a bang. Well, perhaps not exactly a bang, but definitely an explosion of glorious music and delightful storytelling, all presented by a cast, orchestra and team of creative artists bursting with talent. Superb and sumptuous, BrightSide’s production of Stephen Sondheim’s glorious, Tony Award-winning musical is absolutely magical.
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