Choose Your Adventure
Playwright: Beth Cummings
and the Babes With Blades
At: The Babes With Blades at
Strawdog Theatre, 3829 N. Broadway
Phone: 773-273-0440; $15
Runs through: Dec. 17
BY MARY SHEN BARNIDGE
Babes With Blades director Stephanie Repin cut her stage combat teeth doing children's theatre, so the atmosphere of backyard/rec room/playground re-enactments that permeates this imaginative romp for grown-ups should come as no surprise.
The premise: Two hapless shleps ( think Frodo and Sam ) are dispatched by an aged sorceress ( think Obi-Wan Kenobi in Tammy Faye drag ) to retrieve an assortment of gewgaws that will save the world from destruction sparked by a catspat between ancient Egyptian deities Anubis and Bast. In the course of their quest, they will encounter such heroes as Indiana Jones, Captain Kirk, vampire yeti, slick genies, catnip-pushing herbalists and a bevy of disco-dancing beguines. But each time the plot reaches a pivotal moment, the boss lady calls a halt to the action while the audience decides the heroes' next move, in the manner of interactive games such as Dungeons And Dragons.
After a few moments of initial shyness, the opening-weekend crowds joined in with the enthusiasm of fifth-graders at a Saturday matinee. Escalating the excitement is our nannyish hostess, played by performance artist Kelsie Huff, whose swift responses keep the pace brisk, the story advancing and the heckling undisruptive. Also winning our immediate support are Alison Dornheggen and Michele Kline, who invoke adrenaline-pumping thrills with the eye-popping ingenuousness of live-action cartoons.
The scenic effects reflect the juvenile milieu in their palpable phoniness ( crumpled-paper cave walls, cardboard-box-and-tinfoil robots, furry-pompom tribbles ) , as does Tamara Roberts' score of incidental music ( which includes the inevitable Walk Like An Egyptian ) . And while the number of alternative scenes required for this kind of narrative leaves less room for the Babes With Blades' trademark swashbuckling, sanguine action fans should enjoy the three-way match with war-axe, broadsword and kendo sticks by which our valiant comrades repel a fierce ( but not very bright ) tollkeeping troll.
At 90 minutes, the show could still use some tightening, but a dose of silly rough-and-tumble fun would seem the perfect antidote for the pressures of the upcoming holiday season.
Critics' Picks
Fat Pig, Profiles Theatre, through Dec. 17. It's near the end for this well-rendered staging of Neil LaBute's taut play, in which friends sabotage the love of a good-looking guy for a plus-sized woman. Often accused of misogyny, LaBute this time says men are jerks. JA
La Hija de La Llorona, Aguijon Theatre, through Dec. 3. Yes, all Chavela Vargas fans, this is that Llorona, and this well-crafted family drama by novelist-playwright Teresa Dovalpage offers comfort to ghostly weeping women everywhere. In Spanish. MSB
Madame X, AlleyCat Productions at Chicago Center for the Performing Arts, through Dec. 3. For those who enjoy a good cry, this surprisingly engaging musical adaptation of Alexandre Bisson's 1910 hankie-wringer has extended another two weeks. MSB
Moby-Dick, Building Stage, 412 N. Carpenter, closes Dec. 2. This beautifully crafted adaptation richly evokes sea life, but eliminates Melville's deep homo-social subtext to focus on his anti-Christian exploration of good vs. evil. Last days for a yare show. JA
By Abarbanel and Barnidge
Hotel Cassiopeia
Playwright: Charles Mee
At: SITI Company at the Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis
Contact: 773-753-4472; $10-$54
Runs through: Dec. 10
BY CATEY SULLIVAN
With Hotel Cassiopeia, playwright Charles Mee has created a gorgeous, beguiling palace of memories based on the life and art of collagist Joseph Cornell. But this SITI Company production comes with a substantial caveat: Other people's memory palaces aren't always so very interesting to those who've never actually lived in them. Ninety minutes of the non-linear meanderings of somebody else's mind—even if it's the mind of a great artist—will leave some writhing in frustration.
The idea of mind-reading is always tantalizing. Hotel Cassiopeia makes one wonder, though: How much patience do we really have for the inner worlds of others? For this writer, about 30 minutes worth. After that, I needed an anchor to keep me from drifting out of Hotel Cassiopeia.
Cornell spent his life in New York City, where he died in 1972. His day jobs were mundane; his passion lay in collecting the ephemera of the fantastical world—bits of fabric, colored glass, shells, alphabet blocks, watch springs, maps—and enshrining it in collages and wooden boxes. Much of Hotel Cassiopeia's text is devoted to lists of the items that sparkled Cornell's fancy.
The opening monologue is a recitation of the sugary foods he liked to eat, spoken before a massive map of the stars that serves. Those stars—ingeniously lit at various points in the production to highlight specific constellations—offer a whimsical, all-encompassing backdrop that also covers the stage floor. The actors are, quite literally, walking on stars throughout Hotel Cassiopeia. When they exit, the visual is one of people walking in a dream right off the edge of a known universe, into a blackness that could be terrifying or wonderful.
Within the stars, we meet figments and realities of Cornell's world: ballerinas eating chocolate cake, richly empathetic waitresses, his beloved disabled brother Robert, his domineering mother and a trio of bumptious gentlemen who hold forth on all matters existential and practical. They're all figures in a world that's part dreamscape, part reality.
Director and SITI co-founder Anne Bogart shapes Hotel Cassiopeia like a kinetic collage. Images and people move with highly stylized grace on ringing bicycles, through soap bubble prisms and under giant projections of Lauren Bacall in extended classic film clips.
The cohesive ensemble cast centers on Barney O'Hanlon's Joseph, a figure of childlike wonder and palpable innocence. He's our guide through a two-way mirror of Cornell's inner and outer life.
Darron L. West and Brian H. Scott's respective sound and lighting design are in perfect keeping with the transitory, ethereal mood of Hotel Cassiopeia while Neil Patel's set design is surreal with floating silver balls, ballet barres and massive, moveable picture frames.
Theater for the Holidays
BY AMY MATHENY
Give the gift of theater this holiday season!
Could these shows be any bigger or more sensational? Could the talent be any greater than Broadway in Chicago's 2007 productions?
For the lesbian who loves theater, buy tickets to openly lesbian Tony award-winning actress Cherry Jones in the 2005 Tony Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning Doubt, running Jan. 9-28 at the newly restored LaSalle Bank Theatre ( formerly the Shubert ) , 18 W. Monroe.
For the camp lover this holiday, delight him or her with great seats to Legends: A Comedy about Big Stars and Bigger Egos, starring Joan Collins and Linda Evans as they have a Dynasty moment—again. It runs Feb. 20-March 4 at the LaSalle.
And, of course, all the gays love Oprah and musicals, so The Color Purple is the hottest ticket this spring. Don't miss this moving production that is based on Alice Walker's classic novel. It's coming to the Cadillac Palace Theatre, 151 W. Randolph, this April.
Broadway's Greatest Gifts: Carols for a Cure, Volume 8 ( www.broadwaycares.org ) gives a theater lover something to sing about. This two-disc set offers 26 holiday songs performanced by the stars and casts of Wicked, The Color Purple, Momma Mia! and many more. Proceeds benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. Giving never sounded so sweet.
And who can forget WICKED: The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz ( see the Web site www.wickedthemusical.com/chicago ) ? Yes, you've seen it—but no doubt, you know of someone who hasn't. Make that person's day by getting a ticket for that person to see the story of the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good Witch, pre-Dorothy. It's currently running at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts, Oriental Theatre, 24 W. Randolph.
Of course, you can buy a new season subscription and give the gift that keeps on giving. The 2007 season series includes Tony Award winners Jersey Boys; The Light in the Piazza; Dirty Rotten Scoundrels; and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, starring Kathleen Turner and Bill Irwin. It's a perfect gift. Visit the Web site broadwayinchicago.com for details.
Dandelion Wine
Playwright: Ray Bradbury
At: Chicago Children's Theatre at Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted
Phone: 312-335-1650; $15-$30
Through: Dec. 31
BY SCOTT C. MORGAN
'Mommy, where's she going?'
A puzzled little girl asked this question as one character ( doubled-up by two actresses ) symbolically walked up the aisle to an unexplained death during the opening of Dandelion Wine.
Any parent, aunt or uncle should expect more of these questions if they take little tykes to see this wonderfully produced opener to Chicago Children's Theatre's first full-length season. Visiting director Eric Rosen from About Face Theatre doesn't condescend to kids by spelling things directly out in his high-energy and symbol-laden staging.
Strangely enough, you shouldn't see this as a major problem. Most likely, the theatrical acumen Rosen pours into Dandelion Wine will ensure a robust conversation between kids and adults about the play, its wistful themes and its oh-so-inventive staging.
Adapted by Ray Bradbury from his own 1957 novel, Dandelion Wine is deceptively pitched at children. Though the show features kid protagonists and lasts only 70 minutes ( great for short attention spans ) , it is adults who will most likely feel the emotional weight of Bradbury's ruminations on the fleetingness of childhood and life in general.
Set in 1928 in Greentown, Ill., a mysteriously knowledgeable visitor named Bill Forrester ( Sean Cooper ) watches the summer doings of the Spaulding brothers Douglas ( Michael Viruet ) and Tom ( Bubba Weiler ) . Simple pleasures like gathering berries with Dad ( Kirk Anderson ) ; making dandelion wine with Grandpa ( Richard Henzel ) ; hearing ghost stories from Miss Roberta ( Jane Baxter Miller ) and Miss Fern ( Jacqueline Williams ) ; and harboring a crush on the attractive librarian Ann Barclay ( Lesley Bevan ) all take on extra significance under Forrester's watchful eye.
Sci-fi fantasy fans will see right away that Forrester has traveled back in time to see himself growing as Douglas. Kids won't easily grasp this concept, but it's no matter.
With such eye-catching staging that features Chris Binder's beautiful lighting and Tim Decker's projected animations on Geoffrey M. Curley's bleached wood sets, kids should be thoroughly entertained. The homespun underscoring ( played by Brian Leach and the rest of the cast ) and songs ( courtesy of Andrew Pluess, Ben Sussman and Sufjan Stevens ) also helps make Dandelion Wine an aural pleasure as well.
Where Dandelion Wine sours is in Bradbury's adaptation. The whole show whizzes by at such an accelerated pace that many characters and situations blur.
We really don't care about the tragic downfalls of eccentric inventor Leo Auffman ( John Steven Crowley ) and Civil War Colonel Freeleigh ( Leonard Kraft ) because their characters are barely fleshed out. Another truly devastating childhood blow of having a best friend move away never registers any pain since John Huff ( Anthony Sullivan ) has so little interaction with Douglas.
Though it speedily leaves more questions than easy answers, Dandelion Wine is well worth sampling thanks to its strong cast and inventive staging. Though the show's themes will probably go over kids' heads, they'll smack right into the childhood memories of accompanying adults.
Miss Witherspoon
Playwright: Christopher Durang
At: Next Theatre at the Noyes Cultural Arts Center, 927 Noyes, Evanston
Phone: 847-475-1875; $20-$35
Runs through: Dec. 17
BY MARY SHEN BARNIDGE
Miss Witherspoon is a very frightened lady—a selfish, shallow, misanthropic, spiritually isolated Upper West Side snob, to be sure, but a very frightened one, too. So frightened that she committed suicide rather than risk ambush by a piece of falling Skylab shrapnel. So frightened that she refuses to be reincarnated, stubbornly foiling all attempts by the guides of the afterlife to return her to a precarious world. Reborn to parents of privilege, she goads the family dog into attacking her in her cradle. Re-cast as the unwanted offspring of abusive slackers, her first act as a teenager is to overdose on drugs. But the road to knowledge and enlightenment has many corners and, like dedicated social workers, the gods are not easily discouraged.
Since this is a Christopher Durang play, Jesus is portrayed as a fashionably dressed Lena Horne lookalike; Gandalf the wizard makes an onstage appearance ( in patently fake white wig and beard ) ; and the action includes several turns of adults playing babies. But despite our heroine's indignant demands to speak with St. Peter, there is none of Durang's characteristic diatribes ( known in theatre circles as 'Durang's harangues' ) aimed at the Catholic Church. Yes, Miss Witherspoon discourses for a few minutes on the topic of crucifixion and human sacrifice in Christianity, and her envy of the post-mortem oblivion meted to Jews and existentialists makes for a droll theological chuckle, but gradually her despair gives way to a realization of her responsibilities in a universe populated by frightened children squalling in terror from their playpens.
A lazier production could have coasted on the comic-book imagery Durang fans have come to expect. But director Jason Loewith shares the author's weariness with schoolroom-simple mockery, and even with a cast of veteran farceurs led by Linda Kimbrough, eyes sparkling with animal glee beneath Carol Channing bangs, the personalities and performances never spill into sophomoric nattering. Hey, if fabled bad boy Christopher Durang can finally grow up to forge an uplifting plea for harmony, who are we to protest his call for progress beyond infantile iconoclasm toward constructive solutions?
The Real Thing
Playwright: Tom Stoppard
At: Remy Bumppo Theatre Co. at Victory Gardens Greenhouse, 2257 N. Lincoln
Phone: 773-871-3000; $35-$40
Through: Jan. 7
BY SCOTT C. MORGAN
Tom Stoppard has frequently been accused of being too emotionally aloof in his plays. Masterworks like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and Arcadia are celebrated more for their intellectual wordplay and scholarly debate than emotional outbursts.
Stoppard's The Real Thing is an exception, even if the emotions aren't piled on the sleeves. Stoppard's supposedly semi-autobiographical 1982 drama receives a solid rendition by Remy Bumppo Theatre Company, continuing its hit track record with the brainy Brit.
The Real Thing explores how an intellectually defensive British playwright deals with issues of fidelity. He starts off married to a brittle actress named Charlotte, but is secretly carrying on with another actress named Annie ( who happens to be married to an actor friend, Max ) .
Thanks to a misplaced hanky ( in a little tribute to Shakespeare's Othello ) , Henry and Annie's infidelities are exposed. They later marry, but complications arise when Annie champions a third-tier play written by a jailed protester. Annie later becomes involved with a younger actor keen to star in that very play.
Watching Nick Sandys as Henry deliver Stoppard's rapier dry wit is the one of the joys of director James Bohnen's production ( especially when Sandys' Henry expounds his views on why 1960s pop is more sublime than classical music ) . Yet all of Henry's typical defenses fail him when faced with Annie's unforeseen betrayal.
Linda Gillum as Annie just about matches Sandys' performance if it wasn't for her occasionally wayward British accent. This minor quibble is the only thing that lessens her emotionally incisive performance.
The bulk of the play rests on Sandys and Gillum's shoulders, though good supporting work is seen by the other actors in what are practically walk-on roles. Anne Fogarty excels with sarcasm as Henry's first wife Charlotte, while Sean Fortunato does intellectual insecurity quite well as Annie's ex-hubby Max.
Keith D. Gallagher is perfect as the loutish Scottish 'political prisoner' Brodie, though one wishes Kareem L. Bandealy could have been more ardent as Annie's young lover, Billy, and that Rachel Sondag could have registered as more worldly-wise as Henry and Charlotte's 17-year-old daughter Debbie ( who runs off with a fairground organist ) .
In this day and age when fidelity is casually observed in many relationships, The Real Thing shows that adulterous indiscretions can damage even though whose actions don't stick to strict monogamy. Remy Bumppo's The Real Thing is a treat for Anglophiles and any naysayers who find Stoppard too intellectually imposing.
Trueblinka
Playwright: Adam Rapp
At: Collaboraction at Chicago Dramatists, 1105 W. Chicago
Phone: 312-226-9633; $18-$25
Runs through: Dec. 17
By Jonathan Abarbanel
I wish hot-sketch author and director Adam Rapp would write a play I could like instead of merely admire. It's not that his plays are bleak and violent; it's that he doesn't like any of his characters. If he doesn't like them, how can I? Rapp denies his characters love. They either are incapable of loving or unworthy to be loved or both. Even characters of good upbringing and education, such as those in last season's Red Light Winter at Steppenwolf, seethe with neuroses and violence ( always emotional and often physical ) .
Rapp's 2002 play, Trueblinka, is a grim account of a merciless family devoid of love. With puritanical zealotry, Rilthe and Sloan Klieg have repressed their teenaged son and daughter to foster the family business of manufacturing ceramic crucifixes. Their older children have terrible secrets, a daughter hidden in the attic and a son who's an incestuous predator. When the father ( interesting Bill McGough ) is injured in a fall, family rebellion—and its ensuing violence—aren't far behind.
Trueblinka is about religiosity, not true piety or faith. The Kliegs are only vaguely Christian, neither born-again nor Catholic—perhaps Germanic Lutherans fitting their name?—although various churches cited in the play are specifically Catholic ( St. Patrick's, St. Mary's, etc. ) . Mrs. Klieg ( darkly comic and chilling Craige Christensen ) also is a virulent bigot who ( be warned ) spouts anti-Black, anti-Latino and anti-gay slurs.
As literature, Trueblinka is quite different for ultra-realist Rapp, a highly theatrical work employing stylized, even poetic language and physical symbols, from the omnipresent crucifix to the Biblical fiery furnace to a full-size statue of St. Anthony. 'A home is only as strong as its weakest wall, its most rusted pipe,' or 'With daily prayer their bone thickens and fosters the spirit of tolerance,' are among the plays homily-like pronouncements. I admire Rapp's willingness to push his craftsmanship, his technique, the intellectual envelope and, certainly, his willingness to push emotional buttons.
But it seems calculated. Rapp never reveals enough about himself for me to understand his own constant anger and despair. I don't believe for a second that he knows anything about genuine faith. He often pushes emotional buttons just to see what happens. And he doesn't complete his characters' journeys. Trueblinka ends with some ( not all ) of the bad punished and the fates of the good ( if any ) undetermined. The play ends with images of horror that may suit the title—derived from the Nazi Treblinka death camp—but hardly are dramatically satisfying. Rapp's play raises questions for which he has no answers other than 'Don't!'
Still, Collaboraction's admirable staging, acted and directed ( by Anthony Moseley ) with conviction, makes Rapp's controversial and provocative work impossible to dismiss—although it possesses a negative power, if nothing else.
