Theater Editorial Reviews
1. 'Golda's Balcony' stays in touch with the times
By Nina Metz - May 8, 2008
With the proverbial 3 a.m. phone call at the center of Hillary Clinton's campaign ads, it seems worth a look back 35 years to when Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir—no shrinking violet herself—was literally phone-in-hand at 3 a.m., weighing a decision on nuclear war.In "Golda's Balcony," the...
2. 'Our Town' astounds! That's right, 'Our Town'
By Chris Jones - May 3, 2008
David Cromer has directed some distinguished Chicago productions in his career, including Next Theatre's "The Adding Machine," for which he just snagged a bucket-load of award nominations. But I think his brilliantly revisionist and astounding new production of Thornton Wilder's "Our Town" by The...
3. 'Virgins' promising but uneven
By Chris Jones - May 5, 2008
For a playwright still in her 20s, the Chicago scribe Laura Jacqmin has made a big, fast splash. She already has established relationships with major theaters in New York and Chicago, and a few weeks ago she snagged the Wendy Wasserstein Prize, a prestigious award from the Dramatists Guild designed...
4. 'Ballad' fails the legacy of Emmett Till
By Chris Jones - May 6, 2008
The story of the life and death of Emmett Till cannot be told too many times. Not in Chicago. Till was a child of this great city. His inestimably courageous mother lived quietly on the South Side. And through the giants of the African-American media here assembled, Chicago told the world about...
5. Politically stimulating drama
By Kerry Reid - May 7, 2008
Election-year production of 'Trumbo' is timely
6. 'Around the World' in a cheerful journey
By Chris Jones - April 28, 2008
To say that Laura Eason of the Lookingglass Theatre is not the first to adapt Jules Verne's 1873 novel "Around the World in 80 Days" to another form is a bit like saying that the late Charles Schulz wasn't averse to sticking Snoopy on a few lunchboxes.The venerable tale of Phileas Fogg—a...
7. 'Die! Mommie' needs to come to life; 'Space' at the Annoyance
By Nina Metz - May 2, 2008
With a taste for camp and drag and Hollywood divas run amok, David Cerda might be the closest thing Chicago has to Charles Busch. And while Cerda's troupe, Hell in a Handbag, typically stages original shows that skewer film classics—most notably and hilariously with "The Birds"—the company is...
8. 'Speech and Debate' is word-perfect about teens
By Chris Jones - May 1, 2008
The American legal system has consistently reaffirmed the right of high schools to limit the free speech of their students. Wording varies according to the case, but the general gist is that the right and obligation of schools to protect their students from harming themselves or others should trump...
9. 'See What I Wanna See' a daring effort by ITC
By Chris Jones - April 28, 2008
I last saw Michael John LaChiusa's chamber musical "See What I Wanna See" at New York's Public Theatre in 2005. Even in those famously progressive surroundings, the piece was widely and correctly regarded as too raw, ambitious, cold, dense, dark, complex and generally too weird to reach beyond...
10. Nadler plays 'Russian on the Side' in a brisk key
By Chris Jones - May 2, 2008
Mark Nadler is one of those rare live performers who appears to have taught himself to do anything and everything upon which anyone might ever shine a spotlight. This palpable desire to overachieve is one of his biggest assets and, based on a look at "Russian on the Side,' the accomplished...
11. 'Respectively' smart at i.O.; 'Crazy' needs direction
By Nina Metz - April 25, 2008
You know, good sketch comedy doesn't need to be complicated. Just well-thought.It is an illuminating point made by "Steve and Jordan, Respectively," the two-man sketch show running late-night Fridays at i.O. Theater. Simple but exceedingly smart, it is among the best sketch shows in Chicago right...
12. If 'Omniscience' knows all, it tells little
By Chris Jones - April 22, 2008
"Omniscience" is the 100th production of Stage Left Theatre—a small Chicago theater that has, incredibly, beaten back the shifting sands of time and the high rents of Wrigleyville to survive more than 25 years on a block otherwise crowded with eateries, bars and Cub fans.Stage Left has had...
13. 'Passage' fails to truly convey Forster's sweep
By Chris Jones - April 22, 2008
Its setting was the British Raj, but E.M. Forster's great novel "A Passage to India" contains much timeless wisdom about the dangers of outsiders trying to take over a country they are ill-equipped to understand. To Forster's uptight, terrified British colonialists — even those of relatively good...
14. New jokes, old format at Second City
By Chris Jones - April 22, 2008
In its great mid-1990s revues "Pinata Full of Bees" and "Paradigm Lost," The Second City blew everything up. The old blackout-sketch-blackout routine was replaced by a new form in which satire and current events merged before your eyes. As writers and performers, those alumni went on to...
15. Neos take dark view of television with 'Picked Up'
By Nina Metz - April 22, 2008
Though conceived before the writers strike, "Picked Up" at the Neo-Futurarium suggests what could have happened if sitcom writers had sat things out indefinitely. If only.This might be the looniest Neo-Futurist show since "Daredevils" in 2005, but I'll admit to some early skepticism toward the...
16. Children's Theatre handles Holocaust with striking honesty
By Chris Jones - April 22, 2008
Somewhere in the middle of the intensely emotional drama "Hana's Suitcase," a Japanese schoolteacher encounters an official from a Holocaust museum. "What," the traveling teacher asks, "do you tell the children?"It's a question likely to be in your mind before taking young ones to the latest...
17. 'Fiorello!' is back and even better
By Chris Jones - April 22, 2008
Consummate production has plenty of tunefulness
18. 'Dead Man's Cell Phone' consistently invigorating
By Chris Jones - April 11, 2008
In a quiet café, a guy croaks. And then his cell phone rings. So does that mean he is no longer dead? Because even the bright sparks at Nokia or Samsung have yet to imbue one of their annoying handsets with rejuvenative powers — photo-cropping tools are here but the elixir of life has...
19. Porchlight's 'Nine' keeps sensual flair, loses its heart
By Chris Jones - April 11, 2008
Part of the appeal of "Nine: The Musical," the fanciful theatrical rendition of Federico Fellini's movie "81/2," is a stage full of beautiful, immaculately attired, Euro-chic women, variously kvetching, wooing, warbling and pouting, all while wearing high heels. Broadway understands the lure of...
20. Heartache, regret haunt 'Boneyard'
By Kerry Reid - April 4, 2008
The hobo as holy fool is an enduring touchstone for film and theater artists, from Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp to Samuel Beckett's existential squatters to William Kennedy's 1984 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "Ironweed," which was subsequently turned into a 1987 film starring Jack Nicholson and...
21. 'Dark House' puts Neil LaBute in a new light
By Chris Jones - April 4, 2008
ou would hardly call Neil LaBute a comforting playwright — his uber-text is men, behaving with their natural cruelty. But still, LaBute's fans have come to expect certain familiar titillations.You expect to squirm in your seat at someone's nastiness. You expect schadenfreude as someone goes down...
22. 'I Am Who I Am' does what it does best
By Chris Jones - March 24, 2008
As the musical biography of Teddy Pendergrass played out at the Black Ensemble Theater on Sunday, the real Teddy Pendergrass sat at the back of the theater with a big smile on his face. And after the judiciously selected closing number, "I Am Who I Am," somebody positioned a microphone next to...
23. 'Sweet Charity' dazzles in Drury Lane production
By Chris Jones - March 26, 2008
There's a genuine triple threat in the title role, nine healthy pieces in the pit, a groovy Austin Powers-like setting and the most precise, hardest-working ensemble this side of the Alleghenies. All of that reflects the ongoing, thrilling sea change in the cultural life of Oakbrook Terrace,...
24. 'Penguins' is too much like work; no fight in 'Gladiators'
By Nina Metz - February 22, 2008
Every workplace has its weirdness, every job its absurdities. And so we enter the world of public relations in "Pitching Penguins," a new comedy from a couple of local PR veterans, Michael Rosenbaum and David Brimm, who figured they had seen enough craziness over the years, why not write a play...
25. Death and humor in 'Sings'; dancing and song in 'Can Can'
By Kerry Reid - February 29, 2008
'Til The Fat Lady Sings: Chicago playwright Scott McPherson wrote a handful of plays before his untimely death from AIDS in 1992, only one of which ("Marvin's Room") remains well-known today, thanks in part to the 1996 film starring Diane Keaton, Meryl Streep and Leonardo DiCaprio....
