MUST SEE

Before Hamilton arrives at The PrivateBank Theatre this fall, the last new musical to cause a sensation on Broadway, The Book of Mormon, is playing through the summer. Fans of Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s long-running adult cartoon South Park will be familiar with the two’s delight in filling their show with musical and dance numbers, as well as ripping authoritarian religions, and know that Mormonism has a weird, special place in the comic duos’ hearts.

In a production in Jefferson Park’s storefront Gift Theatre, Frank Galati’s adaptation of John Steinbeck’s renowned novel is zoomed in on more closely than ever, with the tiny playing space leaving room for little more than an intense examination of the characters played by a nineteen-member cast.

Mary Jane Kelly is considered by scholars to be the last definite victim of Jack the Ripper, and what few details of her life are known are sketchy and contradictory. In a truly marvelous performance which spans hilarious satire and social commentary to the deepest pain and sorrow, Gail Rastorfer imagines who Kelly might have been, and restores a living face to someone who is remembered only for being a victim.

Thrillers are a tough genre to make work in live theatre, but when they’re as well-written as Ira Levin’s 1978 Deathtrap, and as well-staged as William Osetek’s current production at Drury Lane, they can be as hair-raising and suspenseful as the best movies.