In the spirit of its newly rebranded mission to produce “boldly imaginative theatre” and “illuminate the human journey,” Pegasus Theatre opened this weekend Rutherford’s Travels, its World Premiere adaptation of Charles Johnson’s National Book Award-Winning Novel Middle Passage. A story about a newly freed slave who accidentally happens upon a slave ship bound for Africa, Rutherford’s Travels is an entertaining adventure and an impressive feat of adaptation.
Read More
Overall, I found none of the stories compelling dramatically: I don’t understand what LaChiusa is trying to say here by dramatizing these particular stories. Perhaps something about how women have made a difference even in their historically secondary roles, but LaChiusa’s script doesn’t make an entertaining or intellectually stimulating enough case for me to care. Nevertheless, the show’s saving grace is its music and its style: some nice melodies and fine singing (particularly in chorus), and elegant costume and lighting design, by Alexa Weinzierl and Maya Michele Fein, respectively. If that’s enough to get your vote, cast your ballot there.
Read More
The programme is a quartet of one-act plays seldom seen, dating from early in the playwright’s career, and is redolent of his preoccupation with the disintegration of hopes and dreams. The guillotine decends as the poor creatures finally face the shattering truth of their lives. Williams’ masterpiece, A Streetcar Named Desire, comes to mind particularly. In the ironically named At Liberty, and in Hello From Bertha, facets of the early life of Blanche du Bois from Streetcar can be witnessed.
Read More
Fun Home, now playing in a two week run at the Oriental Theatre in Chicago, is a curious Broadway musical on many levels. Ultimately, Fun Home carries a powerful emotional impact as the entire show works much better than any of its parts. I was enchanted mainly by Jeanine Tesori’s ( Caroline, or Change, Shrek The Musical, Thoroughly Modern Millie, and Violet) hauntingly varied score. This memory musical is based on the graphic novel by Alison Bechdel – Fun Home. It won Tony’s for Best Musical, Best Book and Best Score in 2015.
Read More
Sing’ In The Rain is a musical fable filled with rich humor, exaggerated film satire, and, of course, explosive tap numbers that bring goose-bums to tap lovers (like me). This classic film musical works nicely on stage. Young audiences will see a Golden Age musical comedies in its pure form. Who doesn’t love a tap show?
Read More
The Magic Play by Andrew Hinderaker, now in a world premiere at the Goodman Theatre is both a magic show and a drama. Owing to the magic skills with deft acting, Brett Schneider plays a rising young magician who takes the stage hours after his lover-boyfriend has left him. After being extremely impressed by Schneider’s opening card tricks (nicely projected on a large screen), the magician’s acts starts to unravel, illuminating his offstage personal life.
Read More
This 75 minute one -act uses reverse chronology by starting out at the end of the betrayal and going bad in time toward how it all began. Pinter wants to explore the difficulty in maintaining honest relationships with out mates. Loyalty and commitment to family never occurs to these narcissistic heavy drinking intellectuals. Betrayal is a wordy and a tad too redundant as Pinter’s repetitive dialogue hints at how much these characters try to rationalize their behavior. The indirectness of the words masks the pain, doubt and rage inherent in a story of marital betrayal.
Read More
It is New Year’s Eve and Jack and Hannah decide to stay at home to celebrate the new year. They give the staff, including Hannah, the rest of the day off including New Year’s Day. Hannah is given a cash bonus in an envelope just before her husband Harrison (Edward Fraim) arrives to take her home. The two couples have a drink to celebrate the new year. After Margaret and Harrison depart, Hannah discovers that Margaret forgot her bonus envelope. She put the envelope on the drink stand where Margaret will easily find it when she returns to work.
Read More
LEAVINGS explores how a history of trauma impacts generations of African-American families. We meet Mama Bea (RjW Mays), the 111 year old matriarch of a Chicago family while in her final days becomes obsessed with uniting with the white Governor Skinner of Mississippi (Richard Engling) in order to set to rest the spirits that have haunted her family over 180 years. She has evidence that she and the governor are both descended from a nineteenth century slave owner who left the White half of the family with a heritage of privilege and economic security while the Black half with a history of familial separation, segregation and violence. Mama Bae knows that only by uniting the White and Black sides in a ritual of reconciliation can the tortured spirits that haunt the family be put to rest.
Read More
Taking place during the UK miner strike in the 80’s in North Eastern England. A young boy named Billy Elliot (a very talented Cade M. Pearlman), not so well at boxing, accidentally finds himself dancing among a dance class filled with young ladies in tutus. Although, he is the only boy there is something about that class that makes him feel at ease.
Read More