Metamorphoses
Playwright: Mary Zimmerman, after Ovid. At: Lookingglass Theatre, Water Tower Pumping Stations. Tickets: 1-312-337-0665; www.lookingglasstheater.org; $36-$70. Runs through: Nov. 18
Sunday in the Park with George
Playwright: Stephen Sondheim, James Lapine. At: Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Navy Pier. Tickets: 1-312-595-5600; www.chicagoshakes.com; $48-$78. Runs through: Nov. 4
Doug Hara is better-hung now than he was 10 years ago, but that's what a decade will do. The enemy isn't time but gravity: eventually, everything sags. The wonder is that so many now-middle-aged members of the Lookingglass Ensemble still look good enough to disrobe at all, or at least wear soaking-wet clothes that cling to their curves, but that's the truth of this 10th-anniversary revival of Metamorphoses in which the cast is made up mostly of veterans of the original production, among them Hara as love god Erosclad only in gossamer wings.
With their flair for both comedy and seriousnesswatch Raymond Fox as Midas switch from one to the other on a dimethe company is as nimble and charming as ever and so is the material, inspired by the work of Roman poet Ovid, who drew, in turn, from earlier Greek sources.
Adapter/director Mary Zimmerman uses only a small portion of Ovid's epic work but more than enough to illustrate the theme of transformations (which is what "metamorphoses" means) inspired by love, and often assisted by the gods. Love comes in many forms, of course, and Zimmerman covers sexual love, enduring love, the love of money and incest, among other things, with some tales told in classical style and some with a modern spin. Some end with gratification and others with remorse, some are erotic and others notand so Metamorphoses maintains variety, even though the structure of most of the tales follows a pattern.
This is the Lookingglass show famously performed in and around a swimming poolthus all the bare skin and wet clotheswith the audience on three sides. It's novel and entertaining and just 90 minutes long, and they give people in the first two rows a rain blanket.
Chicago Shakespeare Theater also is presenting a show it's done before, the iconic Stephen Sondheim/James Lapine musical Sunday in the Park with George, directed (again) by Gary Griffin. The first time, however, Griffin staged it in Chicago Shakes' smaller theater, and now it's on the big courtyard stage. It's smart, it's intelligent, it has a superb 11-piece orchestra with wonderful musical direction by Brad Haak, and it has outstanding lead performances by Jason Danieley as the two Georges and Carmen Cusack as Dot/Marie. It's also a solemn show in which Griffin eschews comedy except for the handful of unavoidable built-in laughs, performed on Kevin Depinet's large-scale but austere setting. It's a cool interpretation of the work, which looks at the obsessions of French pointillist painter Georges Seurat (1859-1891) and his fictional 20th-century American great-grandson, also an artist struggling to fulfill himself.
In Act I, Griffin and Danieley create a Seurat who is unkind, ungenerous and unsympathetic even though you understand his compulsions. In Act II, they offeras they musta modern George who is kinder and far more confused than driven. Of course, the Seurat of Act I also has very specific goals and theories while the George of Act II is rather aimless even as he becomes inspiringly hopeful. Ultimately, Act I is about the isolation of the artist and Act II is about an artist reconnecting with his humanity. Perhaps it takes both perspectives to finish the picture.
The spare scenic design is filled out by the expectedly brilliant projections of Mike Tutaj (replacing pointillism with pixels, as someone said at intermission) and the Seurat-inspired costumes of Mara Blumenfeld (also the costume designer for Metamorphoses), whose Act II white-on-white patterned dress for Dot is a stunner.