WORLD OF GEORGE BERNARD SHAW FESTIVAL
Shaw Chicago and Oakton Community College
Team up to present a 4-day
WORLD OF GEORGE BERNARD SHAW FESTIVAL
May 20-23.
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Author: Tom Williams
Ploughed Under: An American Songbook
Though on the surface an attempt to resurrect figures lost to our historical memory, barely protruding from just beneath the surface is a kind of artlessly self-conscious, reachingly hip, and morally patronizing piece. Evoking the setup of an indie music concert—largely by stuffing the front tables with eager twenty-somethings sipping Sam Adams and caking the stage in high-octane venue lighting —we can perhaps sympathize with Ploughed Under’s hopes of bringing a kind of chic authenticity to musical theater, even if it doesn’t quite succeed.
Read MoreCollected Stories
The final scenes offer emotional arguments from both as the changing roles in the mentor-protege relationship emerge. Often when the protege learns too well, the mentor either feels useless and not needed anymore. That can be difficult for both. In Collected Stories, Margulies layers trust, loyalty, and mutual need into a complex web of circumstances. Is Ruth paranoid or is Lisa an opportunist? And what if a protege takes literally the advise from the mentor and acts upon that advise, is she exploiting and betraying the mentor? See this play and judge for yourself.
Read MoreThe Lake Effect
This play will grab you and keep you interested throughout as we are surprised by who emerges as the hero and who becomes the villain. All three actors gave fines performances. I was impressed by the nuanced and vulnerable take on Bernard by Mark Smith. The Lake Effect give us insights into Indian American melting pot culture that finds old country values in conflict with the children’s American values.
Read MoreThe Silent Language
Once upon a time, in a studio theater hidden away on Chicago’s Near West Side, a local storefront theatre troop decided to put on a play. Entitled The Silent Language, the little play had come very far and crossed many oceans and was, in fact, rather worn for wear. Yet the storefront troop was quite determined and, like water from a stone, managed to draw from the little play what magic and whimsy they could. Though sad to say, the little play was not as strong as they…
Read MoreNext Fall
Playwright/actor Geoffrey Nauffts’ Next Fall tells the story of two gay men – Luke who believes in God and Adam who is anesthetist. Luke (Mark Jacob Chaitin) is a 20something actor while Adam ( Ryan Hamlin) is a 40something teacher. Luke’s dream is to be a working stage actor while Adam can’t make up his mind as to his life’s work. Despite their different views, their is a spark between them that allows them to coexist and live together. Their relationship is sexual, it is romantic, and it is true love.
Read MoreMaria de Buenos Aires
Austrian conductor Andreas Mitisek’s boldly conceived staging of Astor Piazzolla and Horacio Ferrer’s tango operita, Maria de Buenos Aires—now playing at the Harris Theater—lands like a phantom fist to the gut. Set to the sultry fluidity of the tango nuevo, this free-form adaptation of the original is a fierce piece of social realism which at once aspires to the dimensions of an expressionist myth.
Read MoreMuti and Pollini at the CSO
In some ways, I think, it was an overly ambitious program that might have benefited in terms of consistency by being shorter and/or more focused. The rarely-played but engaging late Beethoven overture that opened the program, The Consecration of the House, gave some suggestions of being under-rehearsed:
Read MoreAnything Goes
It has been years since I’ve been able to enjoy this classic Broadway musical, Anything Goes. With all the blandly inept new musicals coming to Chicago over the last few years, it is a pleasure to see the National Tour of Roundabout Theatre Company’s Anything Goes. This toe-tapping nicely goofy show has all the elements of a wonderful musical.
Read MorePal Joey
It’s hard to imagine, but the Rodgers and Hart musical Pal Joey—now being given a lively production by Porchlight Music Theatre—is over seventy-years-old. In other words, as much time now stands between us and Pal Joey’s debut 1940 production as stood between it and Gilbert and Sullivan’s earliest collaborations. And the fact that Porchlight has even secured exclusive rights from the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization to produce the original version almost begs the question: What, after all this time, does Pal Joey continue to offer?
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