News & Reviews Category
Violence and Its Aftermath
Cardboard Piano – TimeLine Theatre Company
In small church in northern Uganda, as New Year’s Eve ushers in the new millennium, two young girls prepare to celebrate by secretly exchanging marriage vows in a faux wedding ceremony. Chris is the rebellious daughter of strict, conservative missionary parents; Adiel is a feisty, but romantic African teenager, who’s smitten with her. Their lesbian love, not to mention an unheard of racial relationship, are both taboo and strictly forbidden in Uganda. The couple’s secret union will culminate in a night of sexual romance, before they flee from this repressed country to a city where being gay doesn’t mean persecution and punishment. However, as might be expected, their idyll is about to be violently interrupted.
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The Original American Girls
Little Women, the Musical – Brown Paper Box Co.
This musical is exactly what we need today. Although the show originally opened on Broadway back in 2005, it speaks strongly to what America wants to hear right now. It portrays a loving, tight-knit, resilient family trying, against all odds, to survive during the Civil War. They must endure poor economic conditions, illness, romantic complications and a myriad of trials and tribulations we still face today. The play may be set in the mid-nineteenth century, but it’s a universal story about a community of people who care for each other, and it carries a message that still rings true today.
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Fuente Ovejuna
Fuente Ovejuna – City Lit Theater
In 1476, in the Spanish village of Fuente Ovejuna, the villagers rebelled and killed the military commander using the village as his base. Don’t worry; he really, really had it coming. He harassed, kidnapped, and assaulted the women in the village, treating them as little more than livestock. If someone tried to stop him, he had them tortured. When the King sent an investigator to find out who murdered an official, the townspeople, even under torture, would only say that “Fuente Ovejuna did it.” With no one person he could prove a case against, the king pardoned the town. The play recounting these historical events was written by Lope de Vega in 1612, and this week, an adaptation of that play gets its premiere at City Lit.
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All Flash, No Substance
The Lightning Thief – Broadway in Chicago
The Lightning Thief, based on the young-adult Percy Jackson novels, premiered in a musical adaptation this week at the Oriental Theatre. The story focuses on young Percy Jackson, who discovers that the pantheon of Greek gods is not only real but his father is really Poseidon, the god of the sea. It follows that, as so many teenagers with secret powers have done before him, he and his friends must go on an arduous quest. He must save the life of his mortal mother and get back Zeus’ stolen lightning bolt before it is used to start a war between the gods. So, you know, regular teenager stuff…
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Second Chances
Burning Bluebeard – The Ruffians and The Neo-Futurists
On December 30, 1903, the newly built Iroquois Theatre in downtown Chicago caught fire during a matinee performance of Mr. Blue Beard, a pantomime fairy tale. Over six hundred people were killed. In addition to the fire itself, many people were killed as panicked crowds stampeded the doors, to find them either locked or only able to open in and thus pinned shut by the crowd trying to flee. Originally premiering in 2011 and now remounted each Christmas season, Burning Bluebeard sees the ghosts of the performers trying to finish their doomed show.
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Sondheim’s Most Enchanting Musical
Into the Woods – Music Works Theater
The fulfillment of wishes and their consequences, the pain of growing up, parent and child relationships, learning to accept responsibility and the message that no one is alone: those are the themes that Stephen Sondheim leaves us with by the end of this magical musical. Imagine a world in which many of your favorite childhood fairy tale characters all live in the same neighborhood? Suddenly those familiar stories begin to merge and blend together as Cinderella, her Prince Charming, Little Red Riding Hood, the Big Bad Wolf, Jack and his beanstalk, Rapunzel, her witchy mother and many others, all work together trying to survive their enchanted existence. Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s clever interweaving of these stories propel the familiar characters forward on a journey of growth and self-discovery. The first act is frothy and fanciful but, in an unexpected about-face, the second act offers a darker, more sobering and thought-provoking storyline. The result is simply magical, especially in Music Theater Work’s deliciously delectable production.
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Ni Una Más
La Ruta – Steppenwolf Theatre
I’ve started and discarded at least three drafts of this review. I can’t figure out how to introduce the reader smoothly to my point. So I’m giving up, and I’m just diving in: I’m angry. Outraged. The kind of directionless rage that makes your stomach knot and your face feel hot. And after you see Steppenwolf’s world premiere, La Ruta, which I am telling you now you absolutely must, you will be too.
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Tradition!
Fiddler on the Roof – Broadway in Chicago
This is the evening in the theatre that we most definitely need right now. Given the current climate of this nation, it’s a much-desired story of family, faith and folks making the best of what life throws at them. It’s about life and love and, of course, time-honored traditions. The theatergoer who thinks he knows this show and has already seen “Fiddler…,” one of the world’s best-loved musicals, will be in for a big, pleasant surprise. Settled in Chicago for the next three weeks, this Tony Award-nominated show’s National Tour is a fresh, new staging of this musical classic. So, make no mistake: this is no old chestnut, but a revival that’s as fresh and exciting as the day it was written.
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The Strength of Surrender
Thompson Street Opera Company and Pride Films & Plays – When Adonis Calls
An important contributor to Chicago’s deliciously rambunctiously storefront opera scene, Thompson Street Opera, which focuses on the works of living composers, has given Chicago an important production of When Adonis Calls. A tight, yet leisurely, ninety minutes of opera that leaps from the score of composer Clint Borzoni set to the sexy, philosophical meanderings of “The Naked Poet” Gavin Geoffrey Dillard as curated and shaped by director/choreographer/librettist wunderkind John De Los Santos, the piece is scored for two baritones, two male dancers, a string quartet, and percussion, a heady and distinctive bouquet that the creators use to full benefit.
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An LGBTQ Holiday Tradition for All
Barney the Elf – Pride Films and Plays
There seems to be an increase in holiday plays and musicals that feature an elf as the main character. First, we have the snarky, darkly humorous “Santaland Diaries.” Then there’s the big, splashy, tuneful “Elf, the Musical,” about Buddy, the Elf. “Rudolph the Red Nosed (and Red Hosed) Reindeer” both feature an elf in a main role. But another play with music, that’s become a Chicago holiday tradition, has another elfin North Pole citizen as its leading man.
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