The Chicago premiere of Larissa FastHorse’s play runs through June 2, 2024
In THE THANKSGIVING PLAY, four actors’ road to creating an elementary school Thanksgiving performance is paved with good intentions. But good intentions aren’t enough to save them from their “white savior” complexes.
Continue reading “Review: THE THANKSGIVING PLAY at Steppenwolf Theatre Company”
The world premiere comedy starring Jason Alexander runs through May 26, 2024
JUDGMENT DAY may be a world premiere comedy, but it trades in old-school jokes. Rob Ulin’s play is relatively simple and wears its moral heart on its sleeve (Main takeaway: Don’t be a jerk), even if lead role Sammy Campo doesn’t have a heart at all. While JUDGMENT DAY pokes some fun at the Catholic church, the play’s satire is not that deep. That said, this play is swiftly moving and delightfully entertaining, and it fully delivers on the promise of offering audiences a good time.
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Director Chuck Smith’s production runs through May 19, 2024
JOE TURNER’S COME AND GONE conveys the search for Black American identity among the inhabitants of Seth and Bertha Holly’s boarding house in 1911 Pittsburgh. Chronologically, it’s the second play in Wilson’s Twentieth Century Cycle (though, admittedly, the first this critic has seen on stage!), and it’s a layered character study within Wilson’s body of work. Director Chuck Smith has a long history of championing and producing Wilson’s work at the Goodman and here he leads a talented Chicago cast who weave artfully between the play’s moments of grounded reality and eerie mysticism and spirituality. Perhaps that’s one of the most striking parts of this play: In the characters’ search for identity, they must reckon with the hauntings of their pasts.
Continue reading “Review: AUGUST WILSON’S JOE TURNER’S COME AND GONE at Goodman Theatre”
The pub of nine singing lads is open for business through July 14, 2024
Raise a glass to THE CHOIR OF MAN, a rollicking good time of a show. The show’s a UK transfer and it transports audiences to the fictitious pub The Jungle, modeled after classic Irish and British pubs. Therein, the eponymous nine man choir serves up pop and rock hits on tap. THE CHOIR OF MAN is all about having fun and delivering on its promise of great vocal arrangements.
Continue reading “Review: THE CHOIR OF MAN at Apollo Theater “
The “homegrown” premiere of the bio jukebox musical showcasing the story of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons runs through July 28, 2024
Mercury Theater Chicago has staged a “homegrown” production of JERSEY BOYS full of Chicago heart. The bio jukebox musical has graced Chicago tour stages over the years (in fact, I had a chuckle looking back at the review of the first national tour I wrote for my high school newspaper), but this is the first staging to showcase Chicago talent — and it definitely accomplishes that goal.
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Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s world premiere family drama runs through April 28, 2024
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins has set the table for one hell of a family dinner in PURPOSE.
Directed by Phylicia Rashad in a world premiere for Steppenwolf, this family drama keenly focuses on the privileged Jasper family, whose patriarch is a Civil Rights icon. The first act moves at a brilliant clip with lots of darkly funny moments during a contentious family drama, then unspools into a more serious and somber contemplation of the skeletons in the family’s closet in the second.
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Artistic Director Susan V. Booth’s production runs through March 31, 2024
Retellings of ancient Greek mythology and texts have been the subject of many theater productions — and now Goodman Theatre Artistic Director Susan V. Booth puts her own spin on Margaret Atwood’s decidedly feminist tale THE PENELOPIAD. THE PENELOPIAD is a reimagining of the story of Odysseus’s’ wife Penelope, who waits 20 years for his return from the Trojan War. Notably, Atwood’s play focuses on Penelope and 12 of her maids, who are hanged upon Odysseus’s return for supposed treason and conspiracy with Penelope’s slimy suitors. As with her famous novel THE HANDMAID’S TALE, Atwood uses THE PENELOPIAD as a device to convey the horrors and abuse committed against women. While Penelope feels confined to her role as dutiful wife, her maids likewise long for the freedom she has as a woman who’s not enslaved like they are. Atwood’s points are valid and mirror the gender inequalities and abuse women still experience now (the original novella was penned in 2005). But THE PENELOPIAD’s feminist argument isn’t revelatory. Instead of providing truly new insight or perspective, the play rather reinforces existing (though rightfully undeniable) points.
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The Chicago engagement of the musical based on the 1993 film that starred Robin Williams plays through March 10, 2024
MRS. DOUBTFIRE is escapist musical theater fun with tremendous character actor Rob McClure (reprising the role from Broadway) carrying on Robin Williams’s immense legacy from the 1993 film in the lead role.
Continue reading “Review: MRS. DOUBTFIRE National Tour Presented by Broadway In Chicago”
Director Mary Zimmerman’s whimsical, fun-sized MAGIC FLUTE with 10 actors and 5 musicians runs through March 24, 2024
Director Mary Zimmerman returns to the Goodman with the whimsical and inventive THE MATCHBOX MAGIC FLUTE. Zimmerman’s adaptation of Mozart’s iconic opera is lively and accessible; this would be a great introduction for those new to the opera. I formally studied THE MAGIC FLUTE in a musical theater history course in college, and I still thoroughly enjoyed it (though I think the run-time could still be trimmed some, even at its current two hours and fifteen minutes). This is an utterly fun, visually delightful MAGIC FLUTE — and Zimmerman’s choice to stage the show in English (with some modern-day quips in the material) makes it easy to digest. Zimmerman’s design collaborators ensure it’s a visual marvel, too: Todd Rosenthal’s set is full of clever tricks that evoke the ethereal fairy-tale landscape, Ana Kuzmanic’s costumes are colorful and showcase an array of luxurious fabrics, and T.J. Gerckens’s lighting mirrors the light and shade in Mozart’s score. Amanda Dehnert and Andre Pluess’s music arrangements for the 10-member ensemble and five musicians capture the beauty and joy in Mozart’s music, as well. While it’s not the same as listening to THE MAGIC FLUTE in a large opera house with a full orchestra, the creative team captures the majesty and magic.
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“Like a Rolling Stone,” the Bob Dylan jukebox musical GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY rolls along at an erratic pace with haphazard direction. Book writer and director Conor McPherson’s musical loosely wrapped around many of Dylan’s classic songs concerns a cast of characters at a guesthouse in 1934 Duluth, Minnesota. The musical introduces the owner of the guesthouse Nick Laine (John Schiappa, convincingly both weary and scrappy) and his troubled family: His wife Elizabeth (Jennifer Blood, convincingly losing her rational mind) seems to suffer from dementia, his son Gene (Ben Biggers) is an aspiring writer and alcoholic, and his adopted 19-year-old Black daughter Marianne (Sharaé Moultrie) is pregnant…and the would-be father is nowhere to be found. McPherson brings in a number of other residents at the Laine guesthouse, who flit in and out of the property. Some of them, like the newly released and wrongfully imprisoned Joe Scott (Matt Manuel), have good intentions; others, like the slimy Bible salesman Reverend Marlowe (Jeremy Webb, and, not, shockingly, an actual reverend) do not. The town’s Dr. Walker narrates the proceedings; he bookends the musical’s beginning and end with expositional monologues about this motley crew.
Continue reading “Review: GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY Presented by Broadway In Chicago”
Rachel Weinberg Reviews 