Review: Kentucky by Gift Theatre, an Homage to the Meaning of Home and Happiness
Kentucky is a richly drawn study of a family of characters who disagree and battle and are not quite sure they love each other. Mostly it‘s a story of what […]
Review: Despite Potential, Be Here Now Never Manages to Spark Inspiration
There’s a thoughtful core to Deborah Zoe Laufer’s Be Here Now, the story of a bitter, cynical woman afflicted with headaches and seizures that leave her seeing the world as one […]
Review: Remy Bumppo’s Beautiful Production of Howards End Tells Three Family Stories
Howards End, the stunning new production by Remy Bumppo Theatre, weaves together strands of three families. The wealthy and elite Wilcoxes—father, sons and daughter—the Schlegel sisters, who belong to the […]
Review: Love and Acceptance Star in Kokandy Productions’ Head Over Heels
By Guest Author Katie Priest Kokandy Productions’ Chicago premiere of Head Over Heels opened last weekend to a full house, just six months after the conclusion of its Broadway run. […]
Review: Shattered Globe’s Hannah and Martin, an Intellectual Romance and Ideological Battle
Hannah Arendt is having a moment. There’s renewed interest in this brilliant 20th century political philosopher, probably best known for her writing on the Adolf Eichmann trial in Israel, published […]
Review: Remy Bumppo’s The Father Tricks With Our Minds in Story of Aging, Memory and Perception
The Father by French playwright Florian Zeller is a play about aging and dementia. But it’s not your typical touching human story designed to gain your sympathy for a troubled […]
Review: The Realistic Joneses, A Play About Nothing, Laced With Existential Dread
Awkward dialogue. Misunderstood references. Two people with obscure diseases. Two couples named Jones. Two marriages in flux. The Realistic Joneses is about life and the fear of death—and about the […]
2018 in Review: What We Liked on Stage
This isn’t a “best theater of 2018” list. We didn’t see everything. Most of our writers are freelancers, all with other gigs, and it’s hard for us to cover the […]
Review: Remy Bumppo’s Poetic Frankenstein Asks How a Lonely Creature Becomes a Monster
Frankenstein opens with an exquisitely staged birthing scene. The Creature is shrouded in a sheer fabric sac, a metaphoric womb. He struggles to free himself and emerges naked, covered in scars […]
Shattered Globe’s Crime and Punishment: An Intellectualized Thriller That Needs More Tension
Dostoyeksky’s Crime and Punishment is a thriller, a slow-paced intellectualized thriller. If you haven’t read the novel since college days, Chris Hannan’s 2013 adaptation—on stage at Shattered Globe Theatre—will […]
Memes Become Scenes in Theater Wit’s Delicious Women Laughing Alone with Salad
Playwright Sheila Callaghan (writer/producer of Showtime’s Shameless) morphs memes into scenes in the delicious Chicago premiere of Women Laughing Alone with Salad. Guy (Japhet Balaban) is EveryGuy, a dope-smoking dilettante […]
Swashbuckling Is in Style in Boho Theatre’s New Adaptation of Cyrano
Cyrano, the new adaptation of Edmund Rostand’s poetic Cyrano de Bergerac, by Michael Hollinger and Aaron Posner, is lean and hilarious. The man with the famously large nose is played […]