Chicago Theatre Review
Bob Marley’s Three Little Birds
One Love, One Heart
Bob Marley was one of Jamaica’s most talented and famous singer/songwriters. Of his many much loved songs, “Three Little Birds” is his most popular hit. It’s a cheery and optimistic reggae tune that’s familiar to almost everyone. The song is about three tiny feathered fowl who sit on the vocalist’s windowsill, singing brightly to lift his spirits. The song is often mistakenly thought to be titled “Don’t worry about a thing” or “Every little thing is gonna be alright,” because that refrain is heard so often.
Read MoreAs Sweet As Pie
Waitress
One of the jewels of the 2016 Broadway season, this beautifully uplifting and cathartic musical is as sweet as pie. It’s adapted from the popular 2007 film that starred Keri Russell. What makes this show especially enjoyable is the resplendent, often poetic lyrics and music by Sara Bareilles. Her score is unusually beautiful and haunting, sometimes even humorous. The songs frequently touch hidden emotions that have been buried deep inside. The late Adrienne Shelly’s film screenplay has been faithfully adapted for the stage by Jessie Nelson and makes each character especially unique and memorable.
Read MoreAs Timely As Today
One Party Consent
You know how when you attend a show—any show, these days—it has become obligatory to give the cast a standing ovation? It’s annoying because every theatergoer is forced to rise and applaud when, perhaps, there were aspects of the production that you didn’t feel merited such a stellar response. But I’m here to tell you that every single element of First Floor Theater’s latest production deserves this kind of praise. Omer Abbas Salem’s brilliant ONE PARTY CONSENT is, not only electrifying, but as and timely as today.
Read MoreA Drop Dead Comedy
Clue: Live on Stage!
“I tell you, the murder was committed by Miss Scarlet (or Mrs. Peacock, Mrs. White, Colonel Mustard, Professor Plum or Mr. Green); and it took place in the Ballroom (or the Conservatory, the Kitchen, the Hall, the Billiard Room, the Dining Room, the Library, the Lounge or the Study); and the weapon used was the candlestick (or the lead pipe, the revolver, the rope, the dagger or the wrench).”
Read MoreLooking Back in Angst
Betrayal
What exactly is Betrayal? The dictionary defines it as violating the trust or confidence of someone. American psychologist John Gottman describes it as “a noxious invader” that undermines stable romances and lies at the heart of every failing relationship. As seen in Harold Pinter’s semi-autobiographical one-act, in which the Nobel Prize-winning playwright is looking back at his own life in angst, sees betrayal to include sexual infidelity, commitment, deception, lying, selfishness and breaking promises.
Read MoreTilting at Windmills
Circus Quixote
Lookingglass, one of Chicago’s finest and, probably, the most inventive and creative theatre company in the Windy City, has finally returned. After a pause in operations in 2023 to reorganize and create a new business model, the company is thankfully back and better than ever. The venue also sports a sparkling new look inside the Water Tower Pumping Station. The Theatre now features a spacious, newly reimagined lobby that offers plenty of seating and a variety of coffee and potent potables for purchase. But, best of all, Lookingglass Theatre Company is continuing to produce exciting, inventive and stimulating entertainment. And for its premiere production, the company reopens with CIRCUS QUIXOTE, a show in the style of one of their most popular shows of the past years, LOOKINGGLASS ALICE.
Read MoreAn Autobiographical Drama
The Cave
Sadieh Rafai’s autobiographical drama is laced with humor and plenty of moments from real life. The thing that makes this play so unique is that Rafai depicts a family story about told through the eyes of a young Palestinian-American teenaged girl. Dema, played with extraordinary depth and understanding by Aaliyah Montana, has a lot to cope with, not the least of which is simply surviving puberty.
Read MoreThe Neo-Futurist Theater can tell you HOW TO BE COOL
On the top floor of a building in Andersonville, you’ll find the 37-year-old Neo-Futurist Theater. Founded in 1988, The Neo-Futurist aesthetic demands that everything that transpires in their theater be non-illusory, which is to say that they pretend nothing; actors only play themselves. It makes for an intimate and immediate experience that feels unique. The home of the long-running late night show, The Infinite Wrench, a collection of 2 minute long plays, this production is a “prime time production” directed by Anna Gelman. The theater space itself has an inviting, lived-in feel, there is art and the evidence of the production of art, everywhere. The lobby area outside of the theater looks like a college bar circa the early 2000s. Audience members mingled at tables and chairs, watching video screens set up on either side of the room.
We were invited into the theater once it was time for the show to begin. A long, narrow space, the room was stark: a projection screen was up on one end, with no other embellishment. The show began with writer, performer and Neo-Futurist Ensemble Member Neil Bhandari crawling into the space from behind the screen and lugging the biggest baggage (pun intended) I’ve ever seen.
Neil opens the brisk, hour long show with a narrated video essay on what it is to be cool. Iconic images and characters from the eighties and early nineties carried the audience on a nostalgic wave back to when Harrison Ford, the Goonies and Eddie Murphy were defining cool for American kids. He gets the audience involved in the musings, and together, a definition of “cool” is established. Once we know what we’re talking about, Neil recounts his own childhood desire to be cool, the motivations behind it, and the attempts to achieve it.
He bounces from monologue and dance to live music, costumes are changed on the spot on stage, and he sets up all the props or sets he might need while staying engaged with the audience. What begins as an examination of coolness turns into an exploration of insecurity, identity-building and the lies we tell ourselves as we try to make our way in the world.
Neil embodies much of the cool he describes: he’s funny and smart, he can play guitar and make fun of (and share) his eighth grade poetry with confident self-deprecation. As the hour continues, he also reveals the dark side of building an identity based on what others think of you. What at first seemed a cute kid’s journey into becoming an adult turns into an adult recounting the mistakes of an insecure kid, yearning to be cool. Smart, funny, talented Neil lists the kids who paid a price for his attempts at popularity. He mourns the loss of relationships, the loss of time, the loss of who he thought he could be vs who he was.
The evening is a funny, unexpected, melancholy and thoughtful treatise on what it means when the perception of others is what you chase, because you can’t stand your perception of yourself.
Recommended
Reviewed by Alina C. Hevia
Performances are held at The Neo-Futurist Theater, 5153 N Ashland, Chicago, IL 60640 from February 6th – March 1st on Thursdays/Fridays/Saturdays at 7pm. Tickets are PWYC – $20 and available now for purchase.
Additional information about this and other area productions can be found by visiting www.theatreinchicago.com.
Does a Dream Dry Up?
A Raisin in the Sun
Take a look at the first line of Langston Hughes’ epic poem about the African-American experience, which he entitled Harlem. In the first line he raises the question, “What happens to a dream deferred?” He goes on to answer this question with more questions, including “Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?” Lorraine Hansberry was inspired by Hughes’ picturesque poetry and borrowed the line for the title of her play about an African-American family’s struggle for their right to a dream.
Read MoreAn Embrace of Passion and Hate
Fool for Love
Love and pain go hand in hand in Sam Shepard’s dark, 1983 drama. Sometimes it’s an embrace of passion mixed with hate. May is holed up in a rundown motel in the Mojave Desert when Eddie shows up. Portrayed by handsome Nick Gehlfuss, making his Steppenwolf debut, Eddie’s a good-old-boy, a cowhand turned stuntman, at least for the moment. He and May have a long and turbulent history together. Director Jeremy Herrin’s new production at Steppenwolf is guided with heat and an animalistic fervor that’s present from the very first moment. There’s also a feeling that we’re witnessing their relationship, not from its onset, but from the middle. A lot has happened before this one-act opens and, no doubt, their story will continue long beyond the final curtain. We find ourselves uncomfortably witnessing some kind of lovers’ battle that’s been ongoing for years. In between, we’re given a few sketchy details about the couple’s backstory and some hints as to where this tragic story may be headed down the road.
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