Warped by Barbara Lhota, now playing at Theater Wit, is a smart, realistic, and quite suspenseful mystery. Lhota is a polished writer whose understanding of police procedures, particularly of the Chicago Police Department, gives her creditability. We see the events of the night in question from the point of view of each other four participants as two investigators attempt to unravel the truth.
His hits included “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” “Move It On Over, ” Jambalaya,” and “Hey, Good Lookin.” He was a self-taught singer/composer who started his career on radio at age 14 in 1937.
The creative folks at Porchlight Theatre found a brother team of talents to mount the musical farce penned and first performed by Bob & Jim Walton, Double Trouble. Adrian and Alexander Aguilar play Jimmy and Bobby. The Aguilar’s have the talent, the singing, the dancing, and the comedic ability to engage the audience as they play more than ten characters in an old-fashion musical farce.
we learn about the Chicago Police Chief Francis O ‘Neill with a fine assortment of Irish tunes from those he chronicled. Presented as a fresh, more tuneful 1 hour 15 minute show, each Sunday at 4 pm, folks can enjoy the amazing story of a “music mad” man whose obsession led him to preserve Irish music for all-time. This show needs to become a staple of Chicago theatre.
In keeping with their tradition of producing “in-your-face, gritty Chicago-style theatre,” Profiles Theatre has mounted the Midwest premiere of Rhett Rossi’s In God’s Hat. This is a 90 minute, heart-stopping drama filled with dark humor, reflections on family values, as well as unique perspectives on God and the Bible. We experience the extremes of humanity played out by a group of low-life fringe folks in a flea-back grungy motel somehow in rural New York State.
Conversations on a Homecoming. Set in a dingy pub outside of Galway, Ireland (realistic set design by Mike Mroch), Conversations on a Homecoming is a wordy, often witty, group of conversations among four 30-somethings Irishmen upon the return from New York of Michael (Adam Soule). He left Galway in search of his dream to be an actor in film and stage in America.
Written about a Chicago family trapped in a two-bedroom apartment on the South Side of Chicago, A Raisin in the Sun is one of the finest plays of the 20th Century (it is Number 9 on my list). Based loosely on Hansberry’s own family experience integrating a white Chicago neighborhood, A Raisin in the Sun follows the events of the Younger family as they struggle to get their part of the American dream. This family believes that a better life is just around the corner.
The Color Purple – The Musical is a smart adaptation of Alice Walker’s novel and Stephen Spielberg’s film. The musical found a seamless way to bridge the 40 year span cover here (1909-1949). Filled with powerful voices and musical styles ranging from work songs, blues, gospel, R & B to honky tonk, jazz, be-bop and swing, The Color Purple – The Musical is a toe-tapping sophisticated gem. Eugene Dizon’s reductions worked to give the score a rich flavor despite only eight musicians in the pit.
Despite the fact that this is ostensibly a ‘war drama,’ Moscovitch’s main preoccupation in This Is War is sexuality, and there’s a tenuous connection to be made here between the violence of war and the violence of sex, each of which is capable of ripping people limb from limb. In addition to the central love triangle, Moskovitch also drops a somewhat peripheral gay subtext into the relationship between Hughes and the company medic Chris Anders (Dylan Stuckey), who is himself openly homosexual. But like I said, the connection here between war and sex is tenuous, with one sphere of action failing to comment on or fully reinforce the other. Hence, This Is War ultimately reads more like a salacious melodrama that is only incidentally set at the frontline of battle.
Iscariot is a passion play wherein Guirgis has done his research as he tackles Catholic religious doctrine about the conflict between divine mercy and the personal choices due to human free will. Guirgis wonders why Judas Iscariot was condemned to hell for eternity when other apostles were give forgiveness by Jesus? Judas is on trial to determine if he is eligible for redemption.