Tom Williams

The winner of 10 Tony’s including Best Musical, Billy Elliot arrives for an extended sit-down run at Chicago’s Oriental Theatre. There has been much hype about this show and, as is the case so often, it doesn’t quite live up to my expectations. I must say, that Billy Elliot has so much going for it that it is “critic-proof.”

Corrie ten Boom (Lia Mortensen), her sister, the saintly Betsie ten Boom (Cynthia Judge) and their father, Casper ten Boom (Dennis Kelly) have a large house/watch repair show. The ten Boom’s are devote Christians from the Dutch Reform Church. They are also fierce Dutch patriots who quickly became members of the Dutch Resistance.

The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas features a nice blend of adult humor, sweet country ballads and rip-roaring high energy dance tunes that make for a pleasing light-weight Broadway musical. Kevin Bellie, as usual, mounts several large ensemble dance tunes where he has his dancers moving deftly on his small stage.

Combining Rogers’ folksy, down-home kitchen-sink humor with satire of national politics and a message of hope, the presentation plays like a 1934 live Rogers’ radio show with McKillip displaying the rope tricks as Will’s trade mark.

The amazingly honest performances, rich in nuance and depth, make Our Lady of the Underpass a most enticing and wholly engaging theatrical work. Brian Sidney Bembridge’s set and Jess Klug and Mac Vaughey’s vivid lighting give an aura that sure could be an portrait of a holy woman.

The rock opera covers a wide range of emotions, actions including violence. With the over powering music and the uneven vocals by some players, You Took Away My Flag is long on rock anthems, a cliche-ridden story and several false endings.

It is refreshing to see an new play that contains wit, humor, biting satire with zinging commentary about what it is to be human. Ozma & Harrier is playwright Daniel Caffrey’s satire on the influence of TV sitcoms and pop culture.

I believe that using irritating rhymes and hip-hop speech patterns not only makes the words hard to understand but comes off as trivializing the horrors of surviving the slaughter in the Sudan. Combine the strong African accents with the gibberish, sports-orientated, hip-hop tirades and The Lost Boys of Sudan reduces the struggles of survival by the three teens as a provocative adventure. Too much whimsy and artsy disjointed scenes lowered the impact of the Sudan’s tragedy.

Miller’s 2002 penultimate play brilliantly satirizes modern politics and faith in a media-obsessed society. This is whacked-out satire that contains both Miller’s wonderful dialogue and apt speeches and, a rarely used farcical satirical style each used to hone in to make Miller’s duality– “hope and disgust, high amusement and despair. It’s all packed into one play.”

A Life is both an engrossing work filled with fully developed characters and a poignant look at how bitterness and judgmental attitudes can lead to an unfulfilled life. We see that many of us have some of Desmond’s traits in us.