A View From The Bridge

Eddie Carbone , a longshoreman, is overly protective and desirous of his 17 year old live-in nice Catherine (Ayssette Munoz). Eddie runs this Sicilian family in the old school manner—as a dictator. His wife Beatrice (Sandra Marquez) tries to council Catherine to follow her heart as she persuades Eddie to let her grow up by taking an office job

Ruined

In their year of one playwright – 2014 – Lynn Nottage, Eclipse Theatre Company, under the creative direction of Aaron Todd Douglas, have mounted a powerful and wonderfully performed version of Ruined, the finest play by the talented Lynn Nottage.

She dramatizing the atrocities committed against women in the long civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Nottage puts her immense research and writing skills to work to create situations and characters aptly depicting the conflicts in East Africa from a women’s perspective.

The President

Their latest work is a madcap screwball comedy by Hungarian playwright Ferenc Molnar who wrote Liliom that was adapted into Carousel the musical. The President (1930) finds the hands-on control freak President Norrison, played with manic aplomb by John Arthur Lewis (doing the finest work of his career here). Norrison is getting ready for a holiday when his ward, Lydia (Michelle M. Oliver) announces that she is pregnant and married to a poor Communist taxi driver named Tony Foot (Travis Delgado)

Principal Principle

Set in the teacher’s lounge, the four teachers deal with a broken copier, a bureaucracy with minimal assets for the teachers and a survival, often cynical, morale of the veteran teachers. This dark comedy focusing on the adjustment of a new teacher conflicted by her determination to helping her students learn with the conflicting system and the advise from her fellow teachers.

The Dance of Death

Edgar and Alice have played their love/hate game for their entire almost 25 year marriage. We never really understand if they truly love on another to if all the animosity between them comes from hate or simply a sophisticated game to keep life interesting for both of these bored folks? As the games escalate, Edgar passes out several time as he apparently is having strokes or is he? Edgar is sickly and dying, or is he? Alice schemes to destroy and/or leave Edgar since she has been suffering his nastiness for too long, or is she?

Dorian

Yet, the over all experience and the impressive atmosphere and the stunning visuals (the changing portraits of Dorian) fueled this unique theatrical experience. Kevin O’Donnell’s techno music worked well with Rapley’s manic choreography.Dorian proves that often the effects of the whole story telling is superior to the parts. Dorian is lush, modern, sexy, and fun

Mud Blue Sky

Mud Blue Sky has the elements of a wonderful show: honest acting; spot-on comic dialogue and loads of heart and compassion. And, of course, more laughs than any other show now playing in Chicago. This show is easily one of the best shows of 2014 – it’s therapy for a cold rainy spring with all those laughs

The Way West

This non-funny comedy, especially sprinkled with several poorly sing cowboy songs, is an unfocused story of a mother and her two daughters who are non empathetic, losers whose every action seem to become more disastrous than the last. Mom is totally oblivious to her circumstances; she is broke, facing bankruptcy with a blaze indifference. She resorts to incoherent anecdotal stories from the wisdom of the pioneer spirit that she spouts as her personal mantra. Together with the wacky songs, these frontier homilies , while trying to be sardonic , only serve to drive audiences further away from caring about the three loser women.