It was old-home week at the Bailiwick Theatre Pride Series opening of Angels Into Dust: The New Town Anthology, the works of Jon-Henri Damski brought to life by four enthusiastic actors.
Angels Into Dust, adapted for the stage and directed by Fred Anzevino, starts off with the Chicago City Council resolution of June 4, 1997, just a few months before Damski died. The Council and Mayor Daley paid homage to the work of Damski, who was the first Chicago gay columnist to use both his name and an identifiable photo with his column.
And Damski certainly was an identifiable figure in the community, writing for most of Chicago's gay media over the years, including his last years at Outlines and Nightlines, before he died of cancer in the fall of 1997.
Angels Into Dust features works from 1978 through the 1990s. Damki's insight and witticisms are still relevant—and funny—today. His on-target breaking down of hypocritical policies on gays in the military ( "One Homo Army" ) is just one example of how Damski brought bigger issues down to an understandable level. In some ways, hearing the words out loud, performed by high-energy actors, makes them more accessible.
Damski was not an ivory tower columnist—he loved getting literally down and dirty with all elements of the gay community, telling the everyday stories of real gay people. He didn't have to use the "tricks" of Mike Royko—making up characters—because Damski had his own "tricks" to refer to. And he didn't look to the normal array of gay leaders to find the heart and soul of the community—he looked in the bushes, behind the nailed-shut closet doors, behind the bartenders and disco queens, and into the hearts and minds of people living with AIDS.
Angels Into Dust, admirably spoken and acted by Jim Anderson, Jon Arndt, Marc Jablon and Alfred Kemp, is a passionate and wonderful tribute to Damski and Chicago's gay community—the underground along with the movers and shakers. Don't feel you have to know who the people are to enjoy the play—in fact, you'll feel you know them anyway after the lights come up.
My only quibble with the production is that all four actors are young—certainly younger than when Damski wrote most of these pieces. While the age worked for some of the columns, it would have been nice to have at least one older actor, because Damski himself, while he loved youth, also included the stories of many older gays among his essays on gay life.
This is an absolute don't miss of local gay history, especially during gay and lesbian pride month. Highly recommended.
Runs thru July 2 at Bailiwick Pride Series, ( 773 ) 883-1090.
Naked Will
by rick reed
While I hope it's not common knowledge that I enjoy shamelessly plugging myself, I will do so here. It was with great interest that I looked forward to the Bailiwick Pride Series Production of Naked Will because the play deals with one of my personal and literary heroes: Oscar Wilde. I recently had a novel published, A Face Without a Heart, which is a modern-day version of Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. It's available at amazon.com and other virtual and real bookstores.
But enough about me! Naked Will, I have a sneaking suspicion, will become the centerpiece of this year's Pride Series. Playwright Blair Fell has crafted a literate and witty story about Oscar Wilde going back in time to prove that Shakespeare was gay, or at least had a hearty infatuation with one of his boy players, Will Hughes.
Fell considered Wilde's short story "The Portrait of W.H." and other scholarly sources that put forth the supposition that the Bard was not exclusively heterosexual, in writing his play, but Naked Will is far from academic. Fell's resulting script is a masterpiece of refreshing dialogue, wicked plotting and imagination, worthy, I daresay, of even Mr. Wilde. It's not easy to write dialogue for Oscar Wilde, who penned some of the most cunning, and cutting, verbiage in the English language. But Fell succeeds with aplomb. And Michael Hampton, who portrays Wilde, is first-rate: creating a Wilde as he very well might have been: an impish genius, with a disdain for authority and a love for the sensational.
Director David Zak has done the best work I've ever seen him do with this production. The cast sparkles, the pacing is perfect and the play zips along its hilarious and thought-provoking course with wild intellectual abandon.
Although there wasn't a bad performance in the lot, a couple other actors, in addition to Hampton, were worthy of note: Jillian Pollock-Reeves as Shakespeare's Dark Lady, gives an inspired comic performance, re-imagining this giant figure in literary history as a lusty, cunning and deceptively silly woman. And in his Chicago theater debut, Tony Maietta as Shakespeare is outstanding. I suspect we'll see a lot more of him.
The Pride Series offers Chicagoans a lot of theater from which to choose. Naked Will is one that should not be missed.
Runs through July 2. Call ( 773 ) 883-1090.
Loot
by rick reed
It's been 33 years since gay playwright Joe Orton was murdered by his lover Kenneth Halliwell and yet, in the right hands, his comic genius can still inspire laughter and pathos in a way that's not dated at all. I suppose longevity like this is what separates classics from lesser efforts.
Orton's second play, Loot, currently running at that powerhouse of theatrical talent and inspiration, The Writers' Theatre in Glencoe, is one of those comedies that has the audience laughing so hard that its occasional amateurish moments aren't even noticed. Credit the laughter to Orton's biting wit, savage skewering of the British middle class and his unerring talent for satirical farce. The play is an assault on the funny bone: the jokes coming at breakneck speed, wedged in a darkly comic story that was well ahead of its time when it premiered in London decades ago.
But one can't credit Orton exclusively with the rousing success of this revival. Under Gary Griffin's masterful direction, this Loot cast is one to be reckoned with. Michael Halberstam, the artistic director of the Writers' Theatre, demonstrates his acting chops here in a conniving, energetic performance as a greedy inspector, determined to get to the bottom of the play's convoluted crime. Susan Hart displays a deliciously evil side as a sexy, murdering nurse and William Dickerson, new to the Chicago stage, is on target as a whoring, punk son who has eyes only for his partner in crime, a funeral parlor assistant played by Matthew Brunlow. But it's Dale Benson, as the tormented new widower, who really shines and gives the play its most rousing comedic moments. Benson has an unerring ear for timing and is able to modulate his voice in such a way to make even the weakest jokes roll-on-the-floor hilarious. His is one of the finest comedy performances I've ever seen on a Chicago stage.
Rick Paul has made use of the Writers' Theater's small playing space with his usual economy of style, bringing its British home to comic life and making it a perfect playground for the actors.
Loot is one of those wonderful plays that keeps you so caught up and laughing so hard that it goes by all too fast, almost like a criminal sleight of hand. It would be criminal to miss it.
Loot runs through June 11. Call ( 847 ) 835-5398.