These are Chicago Critics Must See shows. If you are only going to see one show let us recommend one of these great pieces of true Art!
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 MoreIt 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 MoreIt’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?
Read MoreShe teamed up with Hershey Felder who adapted and direct Mona Golabek’s one woman show, The Pianist of Willesden Lane, that utilizes Felder’s combination of storytelling with piano music. In this case, the story told by Golabek is the true story of her mother’s flight from Austria to England and eventually to the USA
Read MoreAlice Still is an important and most pertinent drama that presents the lingering effects of Alzheimer’s on a family, especially a 50something person in their prime of life. It is filled with compassion, humor and humanity with razor-sharp clarity. How the disease affects each family member is plausibly presented
Read MoreEclipse Theatre Company, whose 2013 season will feature the work of English dramatist Alan Ayckbourn, opened this week with the 1985 black comedy, Woman in Mind. The story of a middle class English hausfrau’s descent into madness, the play features Ayckbourn’s characteristic wit and bold flair for experimentation in theatrical form. Still, though director Steve Scott has delivered a successfully atmospheric production, featuring some delightfully cheeky performances by its non-Equity cast, something nonetheless feels lost in translation.
Read MoreNo, Hunter thankfully has more respect for his audience, and he doesn’t shirk from showing how Charlie’s gross obesity is emulative of something equally pained within. Rather than making a martyr or a saint of Charlie (Dale Calandra), suffering at the hands of a society which has tragically failed to understand him—as in the vein of Bernard Pomerance’s 1977 play The Elephant Man—Hunter has wisely opted to pit Charlie against himself and to make of him his own worst enemy.
Read MoreUtilizing David Greig’s streamlined version of the classic 1888 August Strindberg’s Creditors, director Sandy Shinner has cast three expert actors to tell the psychological drama where the power of suggestion can fuel mistrust. Adolph (Gabriel Ruiz) is the younger husband of Tekla (Linda Gillum). he is a painter/sculpture artist who is passive toward his aggressive wife who loves to go out evenings while Adolph works at creating his art.
Read More… the success of this transition is highly dependent on the performance of McCraney’s leading lady. Thankfully, Cheryl Lynn Bruce as the widowed matriarch Shelah is a revelation, keeping well apace with the broad emotional and spiritual arcs that McCraney sets her on over the course of the play and delivering one of the most inspired acts of self-healing you are likely to see on stage. And Tina Landau’s deeply sensitive direction successfully is well-paced and attuned to the unique formal challenges posed by McCraney’s play. And David Gallo and Collette Pollard’s scenic design—which includes the remarkable onstage collapse of Shelah’s home—is as technically dazzling as it is emotionally resonant.
Read MoreThe sustained popularity of Oliver!—loosely based on the classic novel by Charles Dickens (or more likely, David Lean’s 1948 film version)—is largely derived from the virtuosic talents of its composer and lyricist, Lionel Bart, who peppers the rise of Dickens’s iconic workhouse foundling with a rousing score of Old English folk songs, hymns, chorales and dances. From the stirring opening number “Food Glorious Food” to the hauntingly plaintive “Who Will Buy” to the insufferably catchy “Consider Yourself,” Bart’s spirited music continues to move each successive generation of theatergoers fifty years later.
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