Latest from Chicago Critic

As a Dickens adaptation, the show is long, and I wish the evening performances didn’t start so late. There are a few plays-within-the-play that could have been left out. Still, anyone who isn’t satisfied just seeing A Christmas Carol this winter would do well to give Great Expectations a try. Given the challenges of a smaller theatre, many of Gerace’s solutions are ingenious. The cast seems to make up far more people than they do, and the whole show is a celebration of the imagination

City Lit Theater, the jewel of Edgewater, specializes “in literature theatre including stage adaptations of literary material.” They return to that mission with a wonderful remount adaptation (by director Terry McCabe) of two of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s short stories: “A Scandal in Bohemia” (the first of a series of 56 short stories) and “The Final Problem” (the intended last of the Holmes short stories—ten years later, Doyle resumed doing more Holmes stories).

Women At War also speaks to the unique problems women face in the military. From being basically unwelcome by the male military establishment to the different stress levels women experience to the constant embarrassment to physical assaults (by fellow troupers) to the basic loneliness and fears of combat zone life, women are still learning survival techniques that present more problems than males ever faced. The mixing of genders in stressful and fearful circumstances often leads to victimization of women personal.

lan Souza’s Chicago directing debut is a reinterpreted of the 1960 Camelot that starred Julie Andrews and Richard Burton.

Based on the old English mythology from T. H. White’s “The Once and Future King,” Camelot’s story revolves around the idealistic, fair-minded English king who establishes rule of law over the ‘might equals right’ mentality.