Lucy and Charlie are Asian American newlyweds on that “Vigilante Sh*t” (to borrow from Taylor Swift) in Matthew C. Yee’s premiere musical LUCY AND CHARLIE’S HONEYMOON. With book and music by Yee and direction by Amanda Dehnert, this is a hilarious and original ride. The pair rob a convenience store at the top of the play using a toy gun…and that act propels them on a wild adventure, which is told through funny book scenes and songs from Yee’s distinctive rock score. 

The Second City’s 111th Mainstage revue DON’T QUIT YOUR DAYDREAM has a slightly existential air to it as the name suggests. In one of the revue’s most effective sketches, ensemble member Evan Mills breaks into song as he muses about the questions that keep him up at night—they range from the mundane “Why does it take six hours to be assisted at a place called urgent care?” to the more complex “Why are people afraid of men in dresses but not of men with guns?” In keeping with the tradition of Mainstage revues past, the political leanings are definitely liberal (and that resonates just fine with me), and questions like the ones that Mills poses in that sketch are on the clever-funny side. 

What if you only told the truth and nothing but the truth? Would it actually make a difference or be purely self-serving and futile? Itamar Moses explores this idea at the heart of THE WHISTLEBLOWER. The play also has some fairly dramatic tonal shifts: It starts out as a lighthearted character study of protagonist Eli, an L.A. writer who pitches a T.V. show about a man who decides to confront the people in his life with hard truths— and then decides to try that out in his own life. 

I didn’t think I’d ever see a singing Antarctic explorer in a musical, but that’s exactly what ERNEST SHACKLETON LOVES ME delivers. This quirky but conventionally structured two-hander introduces audiences to Kat, a struggling experimental musician with a newborn baby and a deadbeat, absent boyfriend who’s on tour with a Journey cover band, and the eponymous Ernest Shackleton. 

“Stop trying to be what everyone else wants you to be, man. Just be you.” Antonio Edwards Suarez recounts that his childhood best friend, Curtis, said to him growing up. This sentiment becomes in many ways the mantra for ANTONIO’S SONG: It’s a deeply human exploration of identity — and specifically Suarez’s identity — and all the elements that make us who we are. In ANTONIO’S SONG, Suarez and co-playwright Dael Orlandersmith share vignettes from Suarez’s upbringing that reflect the complexities of his identity. This is a touching, if not groundbreaking, solo show. Ultimately, theater reflects our humanity, and ANTONIO’S SONG reinforces that we turn to art to better understand ourselves. Structurally and thematically, this is well-trod territory. 

I was intrigued when Mercury Theater Chicago announced that Artistic Director Christopher Chase Carter would be staging BIG RIVER, a 1984 musical adapted from Mark Twain’s ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN. It seemed like an odd and bold choice given that it’s rarely produced and also given that it’s questionable if that novel ever needed to become a musical (but so it is, with book by William Hauptman and music and lyrics by Roger Miller). Watching BIG RIVER, I was struck by how oddball of a show it is. While Mark Twain’s novel was considered ahead of its time for depicting the adventures of plucky young Huck Finn and the runaway slave Jim, it’s still undoubtedly fraught. It’s hard not to watch the show and think that Huck has a strong case of “white savior” syndrome, and obviously for 2023 audiences, watching Huck’s moral dilemma about running away with a slave and worrying about Jim as “stolen property” is uncomfortable. In keeping with Twain’s novel, the musical also has frequent use of the “n-word.” That’s true to the source material, but it’s tough to hear nonetheless (Mercury’s lobby display helps explain the context of the show’s language and setting, but that underscores why BIG RIVER is a strange choice to stage). 

LAST NIGHT AND THE NIGHT BEFORE explores the in-between, the murkiness of transitioning life stages and fraught family relationships. Donnetta Lavinia Grays drew inspiration for the play’s title from a playground hand game. Hand games are smartly a thematic thread in the play. Protagonist ten-year-old Sam Mcloud revels in them as a way to amuse herself or by teaching her father Reggie the tricks of the trade. While there’s a childlike innocence to Sam’s play, she’s also on the verge of entering puberty and has had some experiences that are tragically beyond her years. This contrast between childhood play and the darker, all too complicated realities of adulthood becomes the dual strands of the play. Grays’s writing has a distinct rhythm to it, and the unique syncopations of the hand games become additional poetry unto themselves.