A Wobbly Way Through Time

The Wheel – Steppenwolf

The premise is interesting. On a Spanish farm Rosa (Chaon Cross) is nervously getting ready to her wedding with Tomas (Demetrios Troy), under the mature guidance of her older sister, Beatriz (played by the wonderful Joan Allen). Suddenly their yard is overrun by peasant soldiers readying their makeshift army to defend against the French. This is just the first of many wars Beatriz will survive as she reluctantly takes charge of a young girl, a sickly little boy and a baby. Believing that if she can just reunite the girl with her father and hoping he’ll also take the other two children, Beatriz is sure she will be able to rejoin her sister at home and normalcy will once again be restored. But Beatriz is in for a two-hour, intermission-less journey through turmoil, time and place. She and her young charges will encounter and try to survive the horrors of every major war in history. In the end she will come full circle (hence the wheel metaphor) to where the play began, as if nothing has happened. Was this simply a dream or nightmare? Has stress or physical discomforts done this to her? Is the young girl in her charge magical, as many people seem to think? What is the meaning behind this adventure in a surreal Wonderland of terror?

Kindness of Strangers Dwells in the Suburbs

A Streetcar Named Desire

While miles away from New Orleans, JPAC has staged a very respectable production that brings the heat of Tennessee Williams’ 1948 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama to Cicero. Ask any serious theatre goer for a list of the best American plays and this drama is sure to rank among his favorites. Indeed, next to “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” and “The Glass Menagerie,” “Streetcar…” is probably William’s best-known and most-produced play from a lengthy canon of scripts that continually proves popular with educational, regional and Broadway theatres.

Inspired by the playwright’s own family experiences and motivated by a trend away from melodrama and a rise of naturalism in the theatre, Williams paints a sad portrait of Blanche DuBois, a faded Southern Belle who falls from grace. Blanche travels from her lost family home in Laurel, Mississippi to spend time with her younger, married sister Stella in New Orleans. An addiction to alcohol and a strong preference for culture and civility mask Blanche’s deeply-rooted guilty secrets, as well as her steady descent into mental illness. She arrives at her sister’s shabby, steamy three-room apartment by way of a series of conveyances, most notably the titular streetcar named Desire. There she faces off against Stanley Kowalski, her sister Stella’s coarse, primal-driven husband who suspects that Blanche is hiding more than a few skeletons in that huge trunk she’s hauled with her. Witnessing this fierce battle waged between a woman trying desperately to survive through self-deception and literary-inspired romantic fantasies and a man motivated solely by his basic needs and animal instincts spells tragedy from the beginning.

Play on PigPen

Making the trek up north of Chicago can be a very daunting task for some. In fact, I’ve heard people tell me that anything past Evanston is practically Wisconsin. I am sure there are plenty even who do not dare to venture out of the city limits. However, for those of the adventurous nature, there is a story to be heard and it hails from the north in Glenco at Wrtier’s Theater.

The Old Man and the Old Moon (TOMATOM), written by PigPen Theater Company and produced by Writer’s Theater, is the tale of an old man and his duty to fill the leaking moon back up with light each night as it drips away. The old man’s wife leaves for an adventure and the old man is then forced to follow after his wife around the world. Once the old man finally arrives back home, he is then reminded of a promise he made to his wife on the day they met.

TOMATOM, is very much a classic tale but told in a modern way. With the use of puppetry, shadow puppets, re-imagined objects and music, it seems to me like it is the beginning of a new wave of storytelling, possibly musicals. I feel I can justify calling TOMATOM a musical tale because the music is propelling the story forward. It is more than just a play that has music in it. The music is indicative of what is actually happening in the tale. Ryan Melia, Alex Falberg, Matt Nuernberger, Dan Weschler, Ben Ferguson, Curtis Gillen and Arya Shahi, all members of PigPen Theatre Company, each play a variety of instruments and characters showing much versatility and creativeness to the play. The music has a very Mumford and Sons feel to it. With the use of banjos, violins, irregular percussion pieces set to a driving beat, the music has very much a folk feel to it, which correlates directly to the folk like tale it accompanies. It was like watching a music video to an entire Mumford and Sons album.

Other than some minor flaws with the inconsistency of dialects, TOMATOM is a remarkably entertaining show. From the moment you walk into the theater you are immersed into the world of the play, being surrounded by a beautifully crafted wooden set and mason jar lighting that drops from the ceiling. The play has such a genuine quality to its foundation even the roughest of souls can sit back and let the players take them away into the world they have created.

**Highly Recommended**

Review by Dan Haymes

The Old Man and the Old Moon begins Septmeber 3rd 2013 at Writers Theater
Located 325 Tudor Court in Glenco.

Written by: PigPen Theater Company
Directed By: Stuart Carden and PigPen Theater Company

For more information on The Old Man and the Old Moon and other shows, please visit www.theatreinchicago.com

A Recipe for Following One’s Dream

To Master the Art

Be warned: do not attend this production on an empty stomach! And you don’t have to be a foodie; but, by the end of this exquisite production, you may become one. In a production that teases all the senses, audiences will not only laugh while learning how being an expatriate in 1950’s Paris influenced this famous cook, author and teacher, but will fall hopelessly in love with her, as well. In a remounting of TimeLine Theatre’s 2010 Jeff-nominated play (thanks to the newly-formed Chicago Commercial Collective, whose focus is on producing outstanding, quality area productions with a proven popularity), audiences have another opportunity to discover the woman that was Julia Child, her loving husband Paul, their family and inspirational friends, and how the famous French Chef followed her dream to create her culinary series, Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

It is a Journey Up “The Mountaintop” at Court Theatre

By Lazlo Collins

Highly Recommended

“The Mountaintop” is a well-acted, sometimes surprising, and ultimately moving theater treat. The Court Theatre spares no expense for the Chicago premiere of this emotional mine filled journey of Martin Luther King Jr’s last hours.

Written by actress/writer Katori Hall, “The Mountaintop” delivers the eve of Martin Luther King’s assassination in bold delicious strokes; painting Dr. King in a more accessible light. Of course, Mr. King is an American dignitary, a Nobel Prize winner, and galvanizing political figure, whose virtuous church and family life shaped him as devoted saint. But like all men and women, behind closed doors, life’s day to day tasks can be challenging for those that have been moved toward exceptional lives in the public eye.

A Death Story

Terminus – Interrobang Theatre Project

The lives of A (Christina Hall), B (Michaela Petro) and C (Kevin Barry Crowley) are strung together by a series of monologues, depicting some of the gruesome horrors of death. A is trying to save a former student, who is about to take a life. B has a demon that is about to take her life, but falling in love ends up being her saving grace. C made a deal with the devil and has gained the unfortunate habit of taking a few lives himself.

Mark O’Rowe’s Terminus, is the live depiction of a nightmare. To clarify, not a production, writing or theatrical nightmare, but actual horrifying stories that leave just enough of a creep on your mind, you might need a distraction before the night’s slumber.

Taking a chance on Other People’s Money

Other People’s Money – Shattered Globe

Jerry Sterner’s Other People’s Money opened in New York 24 years ago in 1989. The premise of the pay focuses around buying and selling businesses at the corporate level. To put it simply, a large corporation will target a smaller failing business that has stock going for pennies to the dollar. The corporation will buy that stock, driving the price of the shares up. Once the price of the shares for the smaller business are up, and the corporation holds the majority of the shares, the corporation will sell the failing business for a greater profit. In more recent years, we have seen this business equation with companies such as Yahoo!, Microsoft and Starbucks.

Spamalot is Ham-a-Lot. A Successful Fete’

By Lazlo Collins

Recommended

In this black box version of a big box office musical, this comedy is put to the test in NightBlue’s “Spamalot”.

The scaled down version of “Spamalot” has a big heart, and some great theatrical innovations. The execution of cast members taking on two or three roles is great. The musical numbers fill the small stage at 773 with frenetic dancing. The actors seem to be having a great time throughout the show. It crosses over to the audience in so many ways. Using every inch of the space provided, this show has an intimacy of a comedy club.