Theatre Reviews

When you mount a National Tour of a show such as Les Miserables with some fresh new elements and orchestrations, you best not alienate those of us who adore the original show. Thankfully, Cameron Mackintosh’s 2011 National Tour keeps the essence of show that has pleased over 60 million people from 42 countries and in 21 languages over a 25 year span! This National Tour, now at the Cadillac Palace Theatre until February 27, has a few new twists, some new rich orchestrations with ample use of video projections in key scenes.

Filled with rich Irish humor and desperate remembrances of their long past teenage trauma involving romance and sex. We meet Breda (Kate Buddeke) the former sexy one; Clara (Laurie Larson), the former jilted one; and Ada (Kirsten Fitzgerald) the never-been-kissed youngest sister. The three are caught in a cycle that has them reliving, over and over, those traumatic events from their teen years in and around the Electric Ballroom.

In a riveting 95 minutes, larger-than-life dilemmas face the three main characters: going public with Hawa’s story may help stop the killing but it may also get her killed; Carlos worries about his personal well being if the government or the rebels find out he is speaking to a journalist. Maryka risks her life to get the story that can save lives.

Neil LaBute’s latest, Reasons to be Pretty, now in a strong staging at Profiles Theatre in a Chicago premiere, is a departure from the downer works LaBute has penned recently. This work is hopeful as it becomes a moral awakening for Greg (Darrell W. Cox), the lead character and narrator. Reasons looks at how 21st Century language doesn’t seem to allow us to communicate our true feeling, often getting us into trouble when we use a term that we find expressive but others find that term/word offensive. Misinterpretation of words and phrases plays large in LaBute’s working class, blue collar relationship drama.