THEATER REVIEW
In the Curious Hold
of the Demeter:
Count Orlock
at Sea
Playwright: Jill Summers
At: The Incurable Theater at the
Chicago Cultural Center, 77 E. Randolph
Phone: 312-742-8497; $15
Runs through: Oct. 25
BY MARY SHEN BARNIDGE
F.W. Murnau's classic 1922 silent film, Nosferatu, is a thinly disguised adaptation of Dracula, English novelist Bram Stoker's 1892 thriller. In the screenplay, the undead predator Count Orlock travels from his home in the mountains of eastern Europe to the German city of Bremen ( not London, as in the original novel ) by ship, specifically the Russian schooner Demeter—a journey requiring him to sequester himself in his coffin for the duration of the nine-day voyage. Jill Summers' script for this Incurable Theater production speculates on the Count's thoughts as he keeps his lonely vigil.
The problem is that Summers appears to have done the major part of her speculating over a few too many beers at a campus-frat bar. Her insomniac vampire hero with the cadaverous visage is characterized as a wimpish post-adolescent, his days in isolation devoted to rueful memories of a coddling mother and sexually voracious girlfriends, alleviated only by bouts of insecurity over the condition of his personal hygiene, his uncertain virility ( fortunately, he's remembered to pack some Victoria's Secret catalogs ) , and the slim chances of his finding new love in a new country.
This doesn't mean that his fantasies aren't fun when rendered as visual spectacle. While the count and his paradoxically plebian parents are played by costumed actors, other characters are portrayed by the intricately-crafted puppets that are Incurable Theater's stock-in-trade—a life-sized doll worn by its operator like a coat, for example, or three fashionable damsels comprised of rod-activated arms topped by placard-cutout faces. Silhouette figures on a screen depict the cruel deeds of the ancestral Orlock, Vlad The Impaler—a legacy which, we are given to understand, led to his descendant's flight from the family estate—but any serious moments are quickly dispelled by such comic showstoppers as the sandwich composed of a large flailing-tailed rat imprisoned between two slices of bread.
The antics of a self-absorbed nerd, even one masked as a venerated cinematic icon, grow quickly tedious, however. Even at a running time of only 50 minutes ( including a song-and-dance finale, complete with straw hat and cane ) , nothing can disguise the fundamental ambivalence at the foundations of this frivolously conceived spoof. Too juvenile for adult audiences and too vulgar for children, this brand of teenage-boy humor should find a ready audience among the college crowds increasingly infesting the Loop district.
THEATER REVIEW
The Young
Ladies of …
Playwright: Taylor Mac
At: About Face Theatre at
Hoover-Leppen Theatre, 3656 N. Halsted
Phone: 773-784-8565; $20-$40
Runs through: Oct. 26
BY SCOTT C. MORGAN
It wouldn't be fair to expect About Face Theatre's new artistic director Bonnie Metzger and managing director Rick Dildine to produce a world premiere for their first show. So even if Taylor Mac's The Young Ladies of … arrives largely prepackaged from New York, the revision for its amusing Chicago premiere does let us see one of the country's rising stars of drag performance art.
Taylor Mac's brand of writing and starring in drag-performance art is largely political and caked with loads of glam makeup. ( He also plays the ukulele. ) With The Young Ladies of … , Mac takes a more personal ( though still political ) turn by addressing subversive questions of masculinity, many of them directed at his late Texan father.
Mac seizes on the fact that his father corresponded with dozens of Australian women while he served in the Vietnam War. ( Mac happened upon dozens of letters women sent after his father placed a newspaper ad seeking companionship in Sydney for his R&R stay. )
Mac also weaves Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel into the show, claiming it was his father's favorite movie musical. Mac is appalled at the musical seemingly condoning domestic abuse, yet he longs for its plot device of allowing a dead man to come back to Earth for one day to right the wrongs he caused.
Like the hanging stars in the Carousel film, letters addressed to Mac's dad float above Courtney O'Neill's clever paper-filled set. When the letters rain down on Mac, it's one of the show's funniest moments.
Admitting that his costume is less of his typical radical drag than an idea of one dreamed up by the patriarchy of his father's relatives, Mac goes about exploring society's condoned misogyny as he explicitly questions some of his father's more perplexing actions—the constant belittlement of anything feminine and the emotional lurch he created by giving hope to so many Australian women.
Metzgar does a good job of keeping interest through Mac's constant digressions and annotations throughout the show. Mac would have been even more effective if his energy didn't seem to lag in his many breathy and angrily exasperated sighs.
Mac could also have brushed up his dramaturgy, since there is no mention of the play that inspired Carousel ( Ferenc Molnar's Liliom ) , which has a far less forgiving outcome for its anti-hero abuser than Rodgers and Hammerstein's version known as Billy Bigelow.
But aside from these qualms, The Young Ladies of … is a thoughtful and enjoyable show that should resonate with any gay man who has butch fathers known for their military service, riding motorcycles, or membership in the National Rifle Association ( hey, that's me, too ) .
'Burn Notice' star
coming to
Royal George
Jeffrey Donovan, currently starring in USA Network's TV series Burn Notice, will headline the Chicago Premiere of Don't Dress for Dinner, a comedy of errors written by Boeing-Boeing playwright Marc Camoletti and directed by legendary New York director John Tillinger.
Don't Dress for Dinner will begin performances on the Royal George Theatre Main Stage, 1641 N. Halsted, Friday, Nov. 14, and run through Sunday, Jan. 11, 2009.
Tickets are $49.50-$59.50 ( and start at $45 for preview performances Nov. 14-22 ) . Call 312-988-9000 or visit www.Ticketmaster.com
Lily Tomlin
at Rosemont
Theatre Nov. 1
One of America's queens of comedy, the legendary Lily Tomlin, will take the stage of the Rosemont Theatre, 5400 N. River, Saturday, Nov. 1, at 8 p.m. for 'An Evening of Classic Lily Tomlin.' Tickets are $37.50-$75. Call Ticketmaster at 312-559-1212; visit Ticketmaster outlets or the Rosemont Theatre box office; or visit www.Ticketmaster.com .
