Reviews Category
Another Jukebox Musical
Jagged Little Pill
The jukebox musical has become a staple of Broadway and London’s West End, but there are two kinds of shows. The first is the biographical musical that details the early years and growth of a particular singer or pop group through their songs. An example of this is the recent National Tour of “Tina: The Tina Turner Musical” or Broadway’s “Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations.” The other kind of jukebox musical is one in which a fictional story is built around the music of several pop singers or groups, as in Broadway’s “&Juliet,” or around the best songs of one particular musician, like the ABBA musical, “Mamma Mia!”
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Humorous and Haunting
The Cherry Orchard
Robert Falls’ brilliant adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s last play, a piece that the playwright insisted was a comedy, is as humorous as it is potent and profound. This production sparkles with levity, lightness and lots of laughs, despite a story that depicts an aristocratic family that’s haunted by change. The civilization they’ve always known is slipping away from them forever, and they don’t know what to do. Coincidentally this is also Mr. Falls’ final production as Artistic Director of the Goodman Theatre, and the master once again guides his large cast, inspiring his actors toward giving stellar performances that add even more spirit and humanity to this classic.
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A Racially Charged Whodunnit
A Soldier’s Play
As the lights slowly begin coming up at the top of the show, we hear a haunting a cappella melody being sung by a shadowy group of figures. We soon come to realize that these are soldiers, lying around their barracks, passing the time. The song begins as a nostalgic, solo ballad, but ends as a rousing group anthem. It puts the audience in the right mood for the whodunit story that’s just as emotionally stirring and where far more is about to happen than initially meets the eye.
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Tomorrow Is a Latter Day
The Book of Mormon
“Hello! My name is Elder Price, and I would like to share with you the most amazing book…” Thus begins the catchy, hilarious opening number from what is decidedly one of the most successful shows in Broadway history. A group of grinning, clean-cut, singing and dancing young missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints open this musical by ringing your doorbell. When audiences first meet these optimistic Mormon teens their earnest appeal, their collective enthusiasm and their sweet innocence will immediately captivate you and never release you until after the curtain call. After all, as Elder Cunningham continually reminds us, “Tomorrow is a Latter Day!”
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A Surreal, Gay Intergalactic Adventure
I Promised Myself to Live Faster
Following a wild and welcoming opening number by a lovely chanteuse, we’re introduced to an Everyman, named Tim. He’s an affable gay young guy who needs a change. Right now, he’s just too overcome by his disappointing love life to even get out of bed. His blankets are strewn with trash, old magazines and empty Chinese restaurant takeout containers. A jovial barkeep suddenly appears out of nowhere, trying to help Tim by curiously directing him to the grungy men’s room. All of a sudden Tim finds himself tumbling through a portal, bound for a surreal, gay intergalactic adventure around the universe.
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A Feminine Focus
The Last Queen of Camelot
The lights dim, cries of battle fill the intimate Edge Theater, swords clash and royalty reigns. In Idle Muse Theatre Company’s world premiere, skillfully adapted and capably directed by Evan M. Jackson, audiences revisit the world of King Arthur, Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere. In this new script, Jackson takes a step back to 14th century Briton, and breathes new, feminine focus into a story that’s become a familiar legend over the centuries.
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Gallows Humor
Dying For It
No mere cry for help, he’s really going to do it. Semyon Semyonovich has decided that there’s nothing left to live for and no one will miss him if he’s gone. Masha, his nagging wife, constantly carps at him and Serafima, his live-in mother-in-law, reminds him that he’s an idiot. Semyon is poor, unemployed, has no prospects of finding work and doesn’t contribute anything to either his home or society. So the depressed man wakes up early one morning and concludes that the world would be better if he’d just kill himself. Sounds really depressing, right? Well, nothing could be further from the truth.
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A Play With Music
The Threepenny Opera
Light the candles, chill the champagne and cut the cake! Unbelievably, Theo Ubique is celebrating it’s 25th anniversary of excellent musical and dramatic productions, while (thankfully) showing no sign of slowing down. Artistic Director extraordinaire, Fred Anzevino, once again dons the director’s cap himself to personally guide this peerless production. And it is, indeed, a stellar, full evening of theatre.
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Women On Top
A Town Called Progress
Promethean Theatre Ensemble’s Spring production seems to be an allegory. It’s a work of art that, beyond the story, can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning of some kind. Often this buried message within it is a moral or an ideal. Like George Orwell’s political satire, Animal Farm, or even the iconic theological allegory by John Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress, Chicago playwright Trina Kakacek’s latest play, now having its world premiere, is an allegory about people striving to establish a Utopian society that allows everyone, particularly women, their personal freedom.
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Lights, Cameras, Action!
The Comedy of Errors
In a stellar career that spans decades, Barbara Gaines, the gifted Artistic Director and founder of Chicago Shakespeare Theater, is retiring. She’s directed this latest offering at CST as her final production at the theater’s home on on Navy Pier. Having helmed nearly 70 productions since 1986, Ms. Gaines has guided 33 of the Bard’s histories, tragedies and comedies during her career. In her directorial swan song, Barbara reunites with her long-time collaborator, Second City veteran, Ron West to create, as she says, this “love letter to theater making.” This creative, comic adaptation of Shakespeare’s earliest and shortest play, the production reimagines the play as a WWII era film.
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