Reviews

By Rohina Malik

Directed by Ann Filmer

Produced by 16th Street Theater, Berwyn

Life Goes On During War

Many playwrights aspire to write a drama that is of vital interest to a theatre-going community’s concerns, contains an appropriate balance of comedy and pathos, depicts compelling, sympathetic characters, and tells a logical story driven by those characters’ desires, which are both unique to themselves and identifiable to the larger community. Those playwrights would do well do learn from Rohina Malik. Yasmina’s Necklace, now in its world premiere at the 16th Street Theater in Berwyn, is a beautifully-crafted love story in which the Middle-Eastern refugee crises and immigrant assimilation anxiety are woven seamlessly into a character drama. Little here is heavy-handed or propagandistic; instead, we see how ordinary people live with enormous challenges. The performance I attended was greeted with great enthusiasm by immigrant and Muslim attendees, but the story is accessible to everyone, and I hope it will inspire other artists.

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By Eugene O’Neill

Directed by Monty Cole

Produced by Oracle Theatre, Chicago

Early O’Neill Restored

As often happens, Oracle has already run out of available tickets for their always-free productions in their tiny storefront space. But fear not, on the night I attended, several people on the waitlist were able to get in. They were glad they did, too. Monty Cole’s all-black male production of Eugene O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape is a wondrous display of kinetic energy in service of creating a brutal, nightmarish proletarian netherworld. Expressionism, that well-worn phrase referring to the exploration of the mind by representing its subjective interpretation of the environment, is comfortable territory for Oracle. This new African-American adaptation brings O’Neill’s 1922 early-career experiment into the contemporary world, fully restoring its vitality, while remaining true to the source.

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