Playwright Dominique Morisseau’s first play in her The Detroit Projects trilogy, Detroit ’67 is a glimpse into the world of African-Americans struggling to exist in a violent and changing urban city. We meet Chelle (Tyla Abercrumbie) and her younger brother Lank (Karmal Angelo Bolden) who run a “blind pig” (a non-licensed bar with musical entertainment) in their basement. These private neighborhood establishments were often harassed and shook-down by the mostly white Detroit police.
By Rainer Werner Fassbinder Translated by Denis Calandra Directed by Beata Pilch At Trap Door Theatre, Chicago Enticing dark comedy speaks to the folly of judging human behavior by language alone Remounting the show that 17 years ago put Trap Door Theatre on the Chicago theatre map, Blood on the Cat’s Neck celebrates the … Read more
Based on true events, this piquant portrait of a cabbie’s hellish Christmas Eve is a strange, funny and ultimately moving journey into the urban world that’s definitely worth taking.
Don’t let the five hours fool you or deter you from enjoying the power and spectacle of grand opera. Just accept and cherish that it is a full transformation into the magnificent world of Wagner. Bring food since there as three intermissions. Look at it as an adventure and simply let the joys of opera sweep into your psyche. The payoff is a dazzling experience that is unforgettable.
Some of director Jason Gerace’s staging left large portions of the audience blinded by pillars during key moments. Also the use of multiple narrators quickly became an irritant. The lack of articulation and the thick accents made the already complex story impossible to follow. What I did gather was that PIP (Mike Tepeli) is an orphan boy who is plucked from poverty and thrust into the upper class by a hidden benefactor. Pip has various adventures as he strives to find his way and a soul mate. The saga is adventurous and the supporting five actors play 40 characters in various accents and personae.
The world premiere of Kate ans Sam Are Not Breaking Up by Joel Kim Booster is a hoot! It combines dark humor with an absurd depiction of the weird world of dysfunctional losers whose obsession with the film stars of a book-to-film series (Ghost Forest) that compels them to kidnap the stars in order for Kate and Sam to reconcile their relationship.
Rob Fention depicts Kevin’s the somewhat adventurousness of youth; John Hoogenakker presents the self-doubting man who hides in booze while Joe felts regret that he never went for the woman he lusted for. Each of these men tells us of their ordinariness as manifested in their admitting to being “one’s who go with the flow” rather than being “one’s who fight.”
In the year of one playwright, this year Sir Alan Ayckbourn, Eclipse Theatre presents a fine, scary, well staged version of Ayckbourn’s 1994 mystery, Haunting Julia. This three person mystery is surprising even as it appears to be predictable but since Ayckbourn is a master at audience manipulation, it unfolds with razor-sharp timing to jolt us.
The crew holds nothing back when it comes to vociferously attacking Calvin’s story. Looming largely over the students is the recent suicide of a female student, Eleanor. This repressed fact influences the Professor (Ed Dzialo) as he tries to tone down both Nan’ s violent stories and Calvin’s main character’s suicide. Much of this unwritten 85 minute drama is filled with inauthentic scholarly debate often becoming personally insulting. I simply didn’t believe much of the dialogue as being more that “playwright speak,” especially the emotional rants from Henry.
The haunting sounds from Bill Meyers’ cello underscores this beautifully heartfelt story of a family’s perpetual torment from the Holocaust.. Elegy emerges as a fitting elegy for the dead as a means of letting go by the most effected person in the family – Helmut (the empathetic David Wohl).
Set in the 1970’s and earlier, 1938 during the Kristallnacht pogrom in Berlin to Auschwitz in 1942, we meet Hilde (Iris Lieberman) as she discovers her 20 something son Jerry (Justin Leider) in their home’s attic. Jerry finds a poem written in German with the same handwriting as his fathers.