5th Floor productions offers a funny off-night (Monday & Tuesday) comedy that dares to deal with how our profession defines us as a person. The three—Annalise (Eva Gil) is a geographer; Dave (Max Lesser) is a Court Reporter-stenographer; Margaret (Sarah Kinsey) is typographer—exploration of the idiosyncrasies of their jobs in a quite funny and truthful comedy. These three actors gave honest, heartwarming performances.
Chicago Shakespeare Theater seldom disappoints. The plays are tried and true, the acting is always splendid, the productions are often spirited and innovative, and never has there been a staging of Twelfth Night like this one!
The theater’s location on Navy Pier inspired scenic and costume designer Lucy Osborne to recapture that ambience indoors. She is quoted as saying, “There’s something about a pier that suggests a voyage into the unknown. . . .and pleasure piers are just fundamentally playful and sort of decadent.”
Tom Williams Discusses Mary Poppins, Magnolia, Pacific Overtures, Curtains, and Million Dollar Quartet with Carl Amari on Wind AM 560’s Hollywood 360 program on Saturday nights at 11 pm.
Steppenwolf Theatre, under Tina Landau’s wildly ambitious direction, has launched The Bard’s final work in an uneven production that features gender bending interracial casting with gymnastic elements, excruciating sound effects peopled with a rich assortment of Steppenwolf ensemble members some with expert Shakespearean talents and some with no clue to the Folio Method. That made for a radically strange production that included a screeching loud opening ship wreck scene, some terrific comic turns from K. Todd Freeman (Caliban), Yasen Peyankov (Stephano), and Tim Hopper (Trinculo).
Utilizing a simple white runway set with only two benches, God’s Ear unfolds as a depressing exercise in psychological fantasy that has Ted and Mel hallucinating as they struggle to cope with a child’s death. Using twisted language, wordplay, poetry and rhythm chants, Ted and Mel recite, almost babble, several meaningless monologues that drone on. So many free-flowing words, so little meaning. Might as well recite the phone book. There is a long list of clichéd figures of speech and repetitious questions and answers in this absurdist work.
Provocative Painteresque work by Jez Butterworth (Mojo, The Night Heron), Parlour Song is a most worthy domestic drama now at Steep Theatre. Butterworth’s lyrical language contains rich imagery and telling character traits. In the hands of three terrific actors—Alex Gilmor as Dale, Tim Curtis as Ned and Julia Siple as Joy, Parlour Song is a relationship drama with a mystery element and a few surprises.
I was impressed with the large crowd that come to hear former U.S. Vice President Al Gore speak. There were all kinds of protestors outside the Chicago Theatre including deniers of global warming. The carnival atmosphere quickly got serious when Al Gore—a little grayer and heavier began to speak. He was crystal clear and focused concerning global warming. He outlined the bleak future of our planet if we don’t take action now.
Old Times, Pinter’s 1971 drama, is a static, wordy affair that unfolds as a psychological exercise in mind games designed as competition between Deeley and Anna for Kate’s affection. Deeley and Kate are a miaged married couple living in a rural farm house in Britain.
Victory Gardens Theater, the home of world premiers plays, debuts ensemble playwright Jeffrey Sweet’s new play, Class Dismissed. It is a somewhat nostalgic look back at the 1960’s and the effects that decisions made during that time of rebellion have on the lives of participants growing up in that tumultuous time. Class Dismissed is funny, well acted and accurate.
Eclipse Theatre does justice to Rebecca Gilman’s Blue Surge, now playing at the Greenhouse Theatre Center. Blue Surge is peopled by relatively uneducated working class folks caught in the confinements of semi-poverty. We see two Midwest small town cops, Curt (Kevin Scott), a sergeant struggling to make lieutenant and his friend Doug, a detective without ambition as they screw up at raid on a message parlor. Curt meets Sandy (Laura Coover in a fabulous nuanced performance), an eighteen year old prostitute caught in survival mode in tough economic times. The wild and carefree Doug entraps Heather (Sasha Gioppo) during the raid.