Reviews Category
Hair for the Ages
Hair
Hair burst on the scene in 1968 with music by Galt MacDermot and book and Lyrics by Gerome Ragni and James Rado. It was a groundbreaking show complete with controversial topics, nudity, rock music, hippies, multiracial cast and anti war themes.
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Hero Is My Middle Name
Nickelodeon’s The SpongeBob Musical
Oh, my goodness! An environmental calamity is about to demolish the undersea city of Bikini Bottom and all its inhabitants. Mount Humongous, a subaquatic volcano, is loudly rumbling and hurling boulders at everyone. The probability is certain that it’s going to erupt very soon and take out every living thing in the Pacific Ocean paradise. It seems like everyone has a plan to try to save the citizens of Bikini Bottom: the Mayor has ordered an escape vehicle to transport the entire town to safety; evil Sheldon J. Plankton and his wife Karen the Computer have a nefarious scheme that only promotes their own selfish interests; even the miserly crustacean who owns the Krusty Krab restaurant has cooked up a way to make a profit from the disaster. But it takes an optimistic little guy named SpongeBob SquarePants, working together with his friends Patrick Star and Sandy Cheeks, to literally save the day, because, as he sings “Hero is My Middle Name.”
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Hitchcock Heightens into Hilarity
The 39 Steps
Imagine if someone took the grandaddy of the chase film, a classic Alfred Hitchcock mystery/thriller, and turned it into a laugh-out-loud farce. Well, the result is this play that features nonstop action and parodies the 1935 Hitchcock film. That movie had been adapted (four times, in fact) from a 1915 novel by John Buchan. And while this theatrical script overflows with diabolical murders, criminal intrigue and villainous spies, and is filled with a large cast of colorful characters, the gimmick of this theatrical version is that only four actors play all the roles. Therein lies the source of humor for this Monty Python-like comedy.
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You Make Me Wanna Shout!
Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story
Today, jukebox and biographical musicals make up a large portion of the productions playing on Broadway and the West End, and the public absolutely adores them. Telling the life story of a world-famous celebrity, while liberally peppering it with a playlist of the artist’s most beloved songs, has become a theatrical staple. But back in 1989 this was a new style of musical. Written by Alan James, and supported by Sir Paul McCartney (who owns the rights to the music), brought “Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story” to London’s Victoria Palace Theatre. This toe-tapping, high energy musical story, which eventually transferred to Broadway, depicted the meteoric rise to fame of rock and roll legend Buddy Holly. proving to be an absolute crowd-pleaser, it played for 12 years and began a new trend of theatre called the jukebox musical. That trend continues today with shows like “Jersey Boys,” “Ain’t Too Proud,” “Tina” and “MJ.”
Read MoreMerrily is a Miracle
Merrily We Roll Along
The new production of Stephen Sondheim’s musical Merrily We Roll Along, which just premiered at the Reginald Vaughn Theatre, is a reminder of everything that live theatre is, or should be, all about. In a shoebox-sized black-box space on Thorndale Avenue, the Blank Theatre Company has conjured up a poetic miracle of a musical production, with hardly a wrong note at any moment from beginning to end, and with a wonderful surprise at its conclusion. In a long lifetime of theatre-going, I don’t think I have ever seen a better or more heartfelt small-theatre production, nor even a better musical of any size.
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Tommy, Can You Hear Me?
The Who’s Tommy
The Who’s Tommy started life in 1969 as a concept album, was made into a 1975 movie, and was turned into a Broadway musical in 1992. It tells the story of young Tommy, traumatized by events in his childhood into near catatonia. The only thing that seems to reach him is a chance encounter with a pinball machine as a teenager. He’s a virtuoso and it changes the course of his life. The Broadway show was written by The Who’s Pete Townsend and co-author Des McAnuff. McAnuff comes to Chicago to direct Goodman’s amazing new production.
Read MoreAn Aimless Expedition
Arabia! Arabia!
Arabia! Arabia! is the kind of play that happens when a playwright doesn’t have a clear idea of what he hopes to accomplish and what effect he wants to have on the audience. Presented by The Plagiarists at the Jarvis Square Theatre, Alexander Utz’s world-premiere play, loosely based on an actual historical event, concerns itself with a group of explorers and scientists commissioned by the Danish government to explore the Middle East — “Arabia Felix,” or “Happy Arabia” — in the mid-18th century.
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A Lukewarm Domestic Drama
Another Marriage
Steppenwolf’s world premiere production of ensemble member Kate Arrington’s first play, Another Marriage, is hardly unworthy of Steppenwolf’s well-deserved reputation as America’s greatest ensemble theatre. But neither is it destined to go down in history as one of Steppenwolf’s classic productions — not without some redevelopment and rethinking.
Read MoreYou’ll Want to See Being Seen
Being Seen
The more one thinks about the aptly chosen title of Richard Gustin’s play “Being Seen,” the sadder it seems. The term refers directly to an actor’s audition process; to “be seen” means to receive an audition or a call-back and, from there (one hopes) to receive a part in a movie, play or TV show. But in a broader sense, virtually everyone wants to “be seen,” to be heard, to feel as if they matter to others, to have at least a modicum of confidence that their status as a unique human creation is recognized and respected by some few others of their fellow human beings. This deeply resonant play is about how, in every sense of the word, that basic human desire is denied, disregarded, degraded, derided, and rendered an utterly absurd fantasy by the arrogant and unfeeling forces that surround us and that express interest in us only as a source of money for whatever often-spurious enterprise or object they are attempting to sell us.
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A Second City for Everytown
Second City: Don’t Quit Your Daydream
Second City these days strikes me as a “Chicago institution” not so much in the sense that it’s an annual must-see for native Chicagoans, but rather that it’s an essential stop for out-of-towners on their three-day itineraries, right up there with Lou Malnati’s, Millennium Park and the Art Institute of Chicago.
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