Chamber music like Fugitive Songs demands an intimate setting like the Heartland Studio. The charming young cast members are all fit to share the hopeful, nervous atmosphere of exploration and self-discovery with each other, and by extension, an appreciative audience. And they sound good doing it.
Read MoreMusic by Alan Menkin Lyrics by Glenn Slater Book by Cheri Steinkellner and Bill Steinkellner Directed by Don Stephenson Music
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In fact, it is the contrast between Fiona’s expressionistic lies about her son and the harshness with which she describes his disappearance that make the end of the play so effective. The play’s text is enough for us to smell Tristan. Yee has shown herself to be an interesting writer, and it’s heartening to see the National New Play Development assisting her development. In a Word’s subject matter is grim, but the delivery is palatable, and it provides a lot to think about.
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One of the most anticipated, bizarre, and audacious works in the American theatrical landscape finally makes its debut at the Goodman after years of development. 2666, adapted from the posthumously published novel by Roberto Bolaño, is a five-and-a-half-hour long epic narrative which, like the Chilean author’s novel, radically changes styles with each act. Goodman artistic director Bob Falls took on this project with the sort of expansive vision which can only be driven by limitless ambition and admiration for his source, and yet, even he brought in a co-writer and director, the first time working at the Goodman that Falls had done so. Even with the administration’s support, 2666 required a million-dollar grant from an actor-turned-monk-turned-Powerball winner to finally be produced. The result is a work of such complexity and scope that it is daunting to even describe. But it is one the theatre scene is ready for.
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It’s remarkable how Joseph nearly plays two characters: the younger, brasher, and older, wiser Sancho, and how he is equally convincing and magnetic as each. The real Charles Ignatius Sancho was hobbled in his acting career by a speech impediment which Joseph chose to interpret as a lisp; but in Joseph’s mouth, it’s an extraordinary tool for conveying subtlety as well as emphasis, wit as well as poignancy. In a time when Europe is agonizing over multiculturalism, Joseph wrote this play in part to demonstrate that London has already been a multicultural society for hundreds of years. For Americans, the story is a reminder of the importance of the right to vote, and the dignity intrinsic in exercising it.
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Baker uses all her familiar tools—the realistically written conversations that are mostly silences and inanities, the small, impoverished New England setting, the idiosyncratic characters—to depict the grueling process of peoples’ humanity being ground out of them. Think the Sprecher sisters’ Clockwatchers, but with sticky floors. The Flick’s Chicago premiere at Steppenwolf, under the direction of Dexter Bullard, is long and feels longer. It seems that to understand soul-crushing grind of the cinema-staff’s lives, we must be put through an abbreviated version of the same process.
Read MoreBy Scott Wolman Directed by Scott Westerman At The Artistic Home, Chicago Darkly comic, small town “who-don-it” filled with terrific
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Far From Heaven checks off the full list of 50s social evils, but at this point of removal, without dynamic characters and dialogue, it’s hard to care a whole lot. Fans of the movie may still enjoy it, though, and fans of this kind of music will admire Smart’s voice.
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A common fear among young artists is that their survival jobs could wind up overtaking their aspirations. The irony is that a survival job doesn’t even have to be degrading to cause this kind of anxiety; it could even be something that, for other people, would seem highly desirable. Take, for example, the case of Alonzo Fields, the subject of James Still’s one-man play Looking Over the President’s Shoulder. Born in 1900 in the all-black town of Lyles Station, Indiana, this classically trained opera singer practically fell into the job of chief butler at the White House for twenty years.
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Roundabout revived their production in 2014, and now, the national tour is providing American theatre-goers with another chance to see this landmark in its full glory. But despite its reputation for brashness (and possibly because of some issue with monitors and other sound equipment at opening), this seems to be an unusually contemplative Cabaret.
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