Raven Theatre’s fine production of Henrik Ibsen’s 1891 Hedda Gabler, in a contemporary adaptation by Jon Robin Baitz, is a star turn for Mackenzie Kyle as the neurotic, spoiled and totally devious Hedda Tesman (formerly Gabler). Hedda Gabler is the story of Ibsen’s ultimate socialite, the daughter of a Norwegian aristocratic General.
The Flu Season, besides having nothing to do with the flu, is a play about the agony of writing a play. It is a deconstructed, non-linear drama that wants to be both a love story and a glimpse into the world of mental illness.
Without the choruses, Brook’s Carmen depends on the strong vocals by Sandra Piques Eddy’s Carmen and the discovery of Noah Stewart, the mellow tenor who sings Don Jose. Together with Krenare Gashi’s Micaela and Michael Todd Simpson’s Escamillo, the cast reaches new heights of vocal acumen.
Musing, Amy Whittenberger’s new play about just how far someone will go to get ahead, is not exactly such a gem, but there is enough of a spark to the no-budget show and to the energetic young company that is producing it to make it worth the trip to Rogers Park – at least for those who prize originality and energy.
Rough Crossing focuses on two European playwrights who have nothing to do before their ship docks in New York except create and rehearse a new ending for their latest musical before the composer finds out the leading actress is cheating on him. What could be simpler!
Eric Bogosian’s award-winning 1987 play seems somehow less relevant today than it did 20 years ago. The play takes place in a Cleveland radio studio of that time over the course of an evening as radio talk host Barry Champlain serves up his nightly dish of hang-ups, insults and drivel. In fairness, it’s the callers who serve up the drivel; and that is the point of the play: that society has become so voyeuristic that the banal details of people’s dreary lives have become their entertainment. Bogosian was dead-on when he nailed the genre back in ‘87, but that was before Rush Limbaugh was a household name and back when the Larry King Virus was still somewhat contained.
The line between a sermon, a polemic and a one-person show has become muddled. McLean does put a human face on the New Testament but it isn’t enough to render the work more than a well performed sermon or recital.
It is rare that a playwright also doubles as the lead actor in his own work—but Tommy Lee Johnston is perfect as the eccentric man who can see color auras surrounding others. His talent or curse allows him to feel a person’s emotions whether their vitality or their imminent demise.
Old Times is a memory play enriched with realistic dialogue filled with long silences, start and stop responses—just as we often speak in life. This gives power and credibility to the work.
Certainly, the intimacy of the Raven Theatre provides wonderful immediacy. The audience becomes completely involved with the dispossessed Joad family, economic victims of the Great Depression, thrust from their homes in the Dust Bowl of Oklahoma and forced to board their makeshift truck to undertake a hard, tedious migration across the U.S.