Review: Court Theatre’s Antigone Asks the Old Questions for New Times
Every time an old play is revived, it inhabits two dimensions—the time of its writing and the time of its revival. You can’t exactly call a restaging of a 2,400+ […]
Review: Midnight’s Broken Toll …. Girl from the North Country
Girl from the North Country, a musical adaptation of Bob Dylan’s songs by the Irish playwright Conor McPherson, has already appeared in London’s West End, Off-Broadway at the Public Theater, […]
Review: Bottled Spiders and Blood Splatter in Chicago Shakespeare’s Richard III
Now is the unseasonably warm winter of our discontent, and Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s new artistic director Edward Hall helms his first production on Navy Pier. Tony Award-nominated track and field […]
Review: Otherworld Theatre’s Twihard! A Twilight Musical Parody Is a Comic Treat for Diehard Fans and Others
A zany and eclectic soundtrack by Tiffany Keane Schaefer and Brian Rasmussen meets a zany and eclectic cast in this hilarious generation-specific parody. The three background musicians (Brian Rasmussen, Mark […]
Review: At Timeline Theater, Anna Deavere Smith’s Notes From the Field Walks in the Words of Racial Reality
Sometimes the topic of a play is so big and important, a brief description falls short. Anna Deavere Smith’s Notes from the Field, now onstage at TimeLine Theatre, lands squarely in […]
Review: Chicago Shakespeare’s Illinoise Inspires, Electrifies
Maybe one of the essential hallmarks of truly great art is the way it inspires others to produce creative efforts of their own. And that is nowhere more true than […]
Review: Red Orchid’s In Quietness Presents a Puzzling Story About Marriage and Conservative Religion
In Quietness at A Red Orchid Theatre asks a lot of its audience, especially an urban liberal (most likely) audience. The play pits feminism against fundamentalist religion. It asks us to believe […]
Review: Odets’ Waiting for Lefty by Gwydion Theatre Still Packs a Punch in Contemporary America
Playwright Clifford Odets set Waiting for Lefty in 1935, but this one-act classic play about unions has echoes of life in America today. Unions’ battle against big business was illustrated […]
Northlight Theatre’s Selling Kabul Is Full of Suspense and Gut-Wrenching Intrigue
Lights come up on a live broadcast. On the television on the far corner of the small apartment, we witness President Barack Obama announcing that American troops would withdraw from […]
Review: Goodman Theatre’s Highway Patrol Is a Thought-Provoking Story About Online Friendship
“The truth is, I needed to know I could love someone.” That’s all so many of us want—to love and to feel loved. That can look a number of different […]
Review: How Will the World End? Fire, Ice or Water? In Flood at Shattered Globe, the Answer Is Water
Shattered Globe Theatre’s new play, Flood, is about family issues—parents who don’t understand their children, children who never call home, elderly parents who ignore the realities of today’s world. There may […]
Review: Champion at the Lyric Defines Opera in Jazz With Story of Boxer Emile Griffith
Champion is the story of welterweight boxer Emile Griffith’s career in boxing with a life-defining fatal bout in 1962 against Benny “Kid” Paret. I believe that an opera in jazz […]