Cabaret

CabaretMusic ReviewsREVIEWS

Jacques Brel’s Lonesome Losers of the Night – 2017

Sitting at the back of No Exit Café, hearing the play of the piano within the dim room as the singers breathed life into sentiments older than myself, I caught a glimpse of an old world that was once new and fresh—a world, one imagines, in which the patrons of this “shabby waterfront bar” made love to their glasses as passionately as they made love to their women—as passionately as they rode and communed w

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CabaretREVIEWSTheatre ReviewsTom Williams

The Winner…of our Discontent

In their 105the revue, the new management at The Second City has presented their six creator/performers a mixed bag of sketch comedy titles: The Winner…of our Discontent which asks if its broken, should we fix it? With post-election drama filled with rich comic possibilities, I was amazed at the lack of biting comedy in the group’s sketch bits about the election?. True there were some funny bits like the Cubs bat boy bit and the three guys watering the lawn but there were also several bits that just didn’t produce laughs.

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CabaretMusic ReviewsMUST SEEREVIEWSTom Williams

Let Me Entertain You: Jule Styne’s Greatest Hits

Tunes from Funny Girl (lyrics by Bob Merrill) with like know shows that produced songs that became standards, this songfest produces one tuneful song after another. we remember songs like “The Party’s Over,” ” Don’t Rain on My Parade,” I’ve Heard That Song Before,” “It’s Been A Long Time,” “Saturday Night Is the Loneliest Night of the Week, “It’s Magic, ” “Time After Time,” and “Make Someone Happy” and “People” are among the wonderful tunes that not only were sung expertly but presented with their meaning or spirit.

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CabaretMUST SEEREVIEWS

Second City e.t.c.’s 40th Revue – A Red Line Runs Through It

Safe to say, the scope of topics played upon is wide enough that if you live in America and have Internet or cable, you’ll be heartily entertained.

This was only my second foray into Chicago’s sketch-comedy scene, but it’s not hard to see why The Second City is so highly regarded: the energy never lagged, the jokes always landed for someone (particularly the guy across the aisle from me), and the agit-prop nimbly toed the line between discomfort and comedy. I can’t imagine sketch comedy gets any better than this.

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