Tom Williams Annual Jeff Equity Awards TimeLine Theatre’s much-extended production of “The History Boys” took top honors in the midsize theatre Play category and walked off with 5 statues, the most of any production honored at the festive ceremony held at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie.
The gusty Promethean Theatre Ensemble shows why they are a young theatre troupe worthy of note with Ed Rutherford’s ambitious and finely imagined stage adaptation of Beagle’s 1968 novel, The Last Unicorn. Director Rutherford’s staging has hints of Mary Zimmerman’s style as story theatre containing use of masks, puppets and highly theatrical movements including songs, physical comedy and narration.
The New Colony theatre company has a marvelous world premiere drama now running at the upstairs at the Royal George theatre. This show is not your run-of-the-mill relationship drama. Not by yards! Calls to Blood is as 80 minute, tightly drawn and well directed (by Andrew Hobgood), relationship drama that starts out with a typical situation. Jacob (Gary Tiedemann) and Alison (Sara Gitenstein) are a perforct married couple of six years. The indeed do love each other, they get along terribly well and life is perfect for them.
The House on Mango Street provides an exploration of neighborhood and community, and the play brackets this with opening and closing songs (sung by the full cast) which trace a Mexican-American family’s journey from renting in familiar Chicago residential areas – from Loomis Ave. to Keeler and Paulina – before they actually buy a house on Mango.
The music was ostensibly difficult but seemed mostly natural in the voices of the singers. The minion of hell seemed sardonically off-key, but it seemed to suit his character. The majority of the music was a thinly layered texture of subtly dissonant melodic fragments.
This uneven production tries too hard to be a farce, to be a keystone cops comedy while also trying to be a espionage thriller and a comedy of manners. The show is much too long and it gets slowed down by long wordy speeches and involved plot explanations.
The hands-down star of this production is in the title role: Polish tenor Piotr Beczala radiates with his character’s ill-begotten youthful vigor but tempers it with moments of vile selfishness reminiscent of his previous life as a suicidal curmudgeon.
Cats is sharp, tightly produced featuring exceptional voices from the deft dancers. It has a vibrant energy that wins us. Cats is a terrific show to take children to experience the wonders of the Broadway musical.
My first visit to Piven Theatre (shame on me) was a pleasant one due to Joyce Piven’s smart production of two of Harold Pinter’s fine one-acts–The Lover and The Collection. Together, Piven and Pinter have produced a fine theatrical event of note!
Hey! Mr. Spaceman! Deconstructs the 1950’s horror flick by juxtaposing teens at a drive-in movie watching a film, and the characters from the film eventually invading their lives.