“Family Drama: Two Norwegian Plays” with Akvavit Theatre

Akvavit Theatre has launched its 2019-20 season with a double bill production. Called FAMILY DRAMA: TWO NORWEGIAN PLAYS, the first half of the evening was The Returning directed by Lee Peters and and the second was Goliath directed by Kirstin Franklin. Both scripts have been translated into English, but unfortunately the different acts tackled the heightened syntax, dark humor, and hidden secrets differently. Merely from listening to the words, one could tell that English wasn’t the original language that it was written in; sometimes it was because of literal translations of sentences that should have been adapted to a phrase that is common to the socioeconomic class of the characters saying it, and other times it was unintended double-entendres. This re-interpretation of the oddly formal language was not handled well in the first act The Returning, but was used in an inventive and successful way in the second act, Goliath.

Artistic Challenge or Ego Stroking

Bernhardt/Hamlet – Goodman Theatre

Sarah Bernhardt was the most famous female actor in the entire world. She was a celebrity, a new concept that Madame Sarah created for herself. She was a self-made professional artist who had played every major female character in classic dramatic literature. However, by 1899 Miss Bernhardt, now in her 50’s, had tired of always playing ingenues. She forcefully announces to famed playwright Edmund Rostand, her married lover, that she “will not go back to playing flowers” any more. “I was never a flower. Playing an ingenue was always beneath me. It’s beneath all women.” And, thus, Sarah Bernhardt defends her decision to play Hamlet.

“Equivocation” with Idle Muse Theatre Company

Equivocation by Bill Cain has opened Idle Muse Theatre Company’s 2019-20 season. Directed by Evan Jackson, the story transports us to the aftermath of the failed assassination of King James I during the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. In this alternate history, Lord Robert Cecil has commissioned William “Shagspeare” to write a true account of the incident, but true to the interpretation of the king. Be forewarned, this script is a mental workout, but the cast and crew are all personal trainers of the highest degree, qualified to guide you and push you through this ever twisting and turning tale. 

A Fusion of Culture, History and Athletics

The Great Leap – Steppenwolf Theatre

Saul is a San Francisco basketball coach. A divorced father of a young daughter, his “family” is his team. He loves them, protects them, nurtures them and wants only the best for them. But, more than anything else in life, Saul wants to beat the Chinese basketball team in Beijing. Back in 1971, Saul was sent to China to help polite, good-natured gentleman, Wen Chang, a Communist official, understand the finer points of basketball and assemble his own winning Chinese team. Flash ahead to 1989 and Saul is about to bring his own talented team of American players to Beijing to challenge Wen Chang’s highly competitive team.

Talking with the King

The King’s Speech – Chicago Shakespeare Theatre

The story of how Albert Frederick Arthur George, the second son of King George V, unexpectedly inherited the throne and became King George VI is common knowledge to any Brit or English history buff. But a secret has been revealed that Albert, who was nicknamed Bertie, stuttered so badly that he was constantly teased, both by his father and his older brother, Edward. Bertie was made Duke of York and, as such, didn’t have to speak very much in public, plagued by his crippling speech defect.

Finding Your Home

Peter and the Starcatcher – Citadel Theatre

Seventeen actors pour down the aisles and flood a stage filled with rough wooden scaffolding, draped by sheeting, and backed by Eric Luchen’s array of chotchke-choked shelving. Amidst the chaos and cacophony, each actor takes his or her turn narrating what will ultimately become a unique, story theatre prequel to Sir James M. Barrie’s Peter and Wendy. Employing rapid-fire dialogue, an abbreviated prologue sets the tone for the next two-and-a-half hours. The actors shift between telling the tale and portraying a myriad of  characters in this creative, sometimes funny production by Rick Elice, adapted from the children’s novel by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson. 

Teenage Dream

Mother of the Maid – Northlgiht Theatre

As with the musical “Titanic,” the audience attending Jane Anderson’s latest play knows pretty much how this story about Joan of Arc is going to end. It’s the journey to the tragic climax that makes all the difference. The author of “The Baby Dance” and “Defying Gravity”, applies a unique approach with this  mythic legend. She tells the story from the perspective of Isabelle d’Arc, Joan’s peasant mother. Isabelle pops in and out of the drama, sometimes acting as an omniscient observing narrator, but most often as a concerned mother and farmer’s wife. The dialogue is often anachronistic, sometimes employing present-day mannerisms, contemporary phrases and unexpected four-letter words. The result is the backstory of Saint Joan, told with a modern flair.   

What About Love?

The Color Purple – Drury Lane Theatre

Love’s transformative and healing power can redirect a person’s life. A feeling of positive self-worth can bring an individual full circle, from subservience and hopelessness to independence and confidence. The Color Purple, Alice Walker’s beloved, 1982 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, follows the journey of Celie, a downtrodden young African-American girl, living in rural Georgia during the early to mid-twentieth century. Her story is incredibly inspiring because Celie rose from a depraved childhood to an abusive married life, finally becoming a strong, independent woman, able to stand on her own two feet.

Against-the-Odds Peacemaking

Oslo – Broadway in Chicago

Prior to the world witnessing Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Leader Yasser Arafat coming together in peace on one historic day in 1993, a lot of confidential meetings and secret arrangements had taken place in Oslo, Norway. In playwright J.T. Rogers’ riveting drama, the audience becomes totally immersed in this somewhat fictionalized, yet fact-based backstory, of the events that led up to the Oslo Peace Accords. The end result of this against-the-odds international peacemaking effort became the negotiation of a momentous  peace treaty between Israel and Palestine.

Murder Most Foul

Whose Body? – Lifeline Theatre

Lord Peter Wimsey, featured in eleven detective novels and two sets of short stories, made his literary debut in Dorothy L. Sayers’ best-selling mystery, Whose Body? The British author introduced her amateur sleuth to the world in 1923, shortly after the end of WWI. Lord Peter is an unmarried aristocrat who, upon returning from his military service in the Great War, decides to occupy his abundant leisure time helping to solve crimes. Peter views his new pastime as a game. He fancies himself to be a more modern version of Sherlock Holmes. Together with his friend, Inspector Charles Parker, standing in as his Dr. Watson, the two gentlemen set about to clear the name of a sweet-tempered Englishman accused of murder most foul.