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Tom Williams

Julius Caesar

American politicians are sold to us as though they were tubes of toothpaste, and Mr. Munby’s Cesar looks to be no different. But the whole thing feels a touch too ironic, too cheeky, as we soon suspect the image of Cesar—like that of all great American politicians—to be infinitely more impressive than the man himself. Yet if Brutus is to enact a genuine tragedy, then Cesar must be no less than he claims: “…constant as the northern star,/ Of whose true-fix’d and resting quality/ There is no fellow in the firmament.” After all, there is no hero’s dignity in slaying an upstart impostor.

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Music ReviewsOperaReviews
Tom Williams

Die Meistersinger Von Nurnberg

Perhaps what is most appealing about Wagner’s 1868 opera Die Mestersinger, despite the near 4 hour and 45 minute running time, excluding intermission, is the sheer accessibility of the subject matter. Rather than taking old folk tales and German mythological heroes for its theme, the opera tells an all too strikingly relevant story of a Guild of Master-singers—a sort of modern German adaptation of Grecian bards, with music added—and the struggle of an outsider and up-start, in this case the noble Walther von Stolzing, against the insensible artistic establishment.

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ReviewsREVIEWS BYTheatre ReviewsTom Williams
Tom Williams

Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill

I grew up listening to Billie Holiday records so I am quite familiar with her unique blues-oriented distinct jazz singing style. I can state with absolute certainty that Alexis Rogers has Billie Holiday’s style down pat. Add her fabulously realistic acting deftly depicting the pain Billie suffered as she tried to blunt reality with heron and whiskey and Rogers combines her amazing channeling of Holiday’s singing style with a sting of personal stories about the horrors of her life.

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ReviewsREVIEWS BYTheatre ReviewsTom Williams
Tom Williams

Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo

Dispensing with an overt critique of the American foreign policy establishment, BTBZ is about the faces on the ground and their baser instincts for blood, sex, power, and money that threaten to overwhelm them in the aftermath of anarchy. But what, the Tiger asks, might ultimately be said of God’s nature in the face of such wrath and violence? Atheism, in this case, would be the more comforting (if less convincing) position. The darker truth, as BTBZ only intimates, is that God is Himself a warrior—one who, on occasion, demands blood sacrifice.

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ReviewsREVIEWS BYTheatre Reviews
Tom Williams

The Birthday Party

Let’s just say then that there was something reminiscent in this production of Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party, produced by the Steppenwolf Theater Company. The boxcar-like stage. The parallel rows of spectators. The crazy man in the middle, railing against some unperceived horrors, unable to be saved or helped. The play is set in a rundown boarding house, run by Meg and Petey Boles, in some unspecified little English town adjacent to the sea. Stanley Webber, the Boles’ tenant for the past year and a proverbial “washout,” is even at the play’s outset a rudderless boat. But things are about to change for Stanley when two strange men show up to the house looking for board. And, it would appear, looking for Stanley

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ReviewsREVIEWS BYTheatre ReviewsTom Williams
Tom Williams

Sunset Boulevard

n Sunset Boulevard, there are few actual songs mixed with all the recitative, three true songs actually and they are terrific. Christine Sherrill, a fabulous Norma, sings two of the fine numbers: her self-designing song: “With One Look” in which we see both her delusion and her past film style plus her triumph return visit to the Paramount studio – “As If We Never Said Goodbye.” Christine Sherrill not only belts these tunes with deep emotions but she “sells’ Norma’s angst. Experiencing Sherrill delivering these two anthems is worth the trip to Oakbrook. This is a complete tour de force performance by Christine Sherrill.

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