One disadvantage of video replacing photography as the public’s primary means for interpreting the world is video provides a false sense of context.  Viewers watching a 30-second video too often choose a side in a conflict without considering what occurred in the hours, days, weeks, and years preceding the video.

Lucy Kirkwood’s play Chimerica (playing at the Timeline Theater) is anchored on June 6, 1989, the day that photojournalist Jeff Widener immortalized the Tank Man photo as a symbol of the Tiananmen Square protests.  In this three-hour exploration into the contrasts between modern China and modern America, most of Kirkwood’s ideas find their target despite Kirkwood not quite recognizing the most powerful moment in her script.

Continue reading “Chimerica–Timeline Theater (6/18/16)” →

Chicago Shakespeare’s Othello makes a strong case for Iago as Shakespeare’s greatest character.  Not just Shakespeare’s greatest villain, mind you (give Iago 10:1 odds in that non-contest), but the overall bracket winner in the tournament of Shakespeare’s greatest creations.*

While Hamlet, Brutus, and Lear expound on their inner turmoils at every turn in the road, Iago is a giant oak unmoved by morals or loyalty or the law.  From the opening scene, Iago follows Othello only “to serve my turn upon him.”  His guiding question, “And what’s he then that says I play a villain[?],” is not a justification to himself but a direct challenge to his audience: judge me if you want, but I was wronged long before any of this started.

Continue reading “Othello — Chicago Shakespeare (3/31/16)” →

Imagine buying a ticket to a musical titled Nán Wáwá.  The show is set in New York during the 1930’s and begins with three gangsters singing a catchy song about gambling on horse races.  Absolutely nothing about this musical is Chinese—so why isn’t the show’s title Guys and Dolls?

This scenario pertains to just one of the confusing aspects of Mai Dang Lao, a world premier produced by the Sideshow Theater Company at Victory Gardens’ upstairs theater.  Mai Dang Lao is the name used for McDonald’s restaurants in China, yet any connections between this stage play and China exist solely in the playwright’s bio (David Jacobi has performed in theater companies in both America and China).

Continue reading “Mai Dang Lao — Sideshow Theater (3/27/16)” →

After watching Johnny “Rooster” Byron and his drug-addicted disciples for three hours in Jerusalem, I cannot blame the residents of Wiltshire, England, for wanting him out of his trailer in the woods.  Nor am I surprised that Rooster Byron was such a hit for London Theatergoers, who saw in this anti-hero the rough-around-the-edges Brittonian that is as synonymous to the British identity as Robin Hood and King Arthur.

Continue reading “Jerusalem — Profiles Theater (3/19/16)” →

The title of Sarah Gibbins’s Cocked refers to the act of engaging a gun, and indeed a gun is central to the plot line.  Oddly enough, the titular gun is central to the most notable flaw in Gibbins’s otherwise engaging script.

The action revolves around Taylor (Kelli Simpkins, providing Chicago with another strong performance following her work in Timeline’s Spill), a high-octane corporate lawyer who begins the play with a knife in hand, ready to strike an intruder in her condo.  The realization that the intruder is her brother Frank (Mike Tepeli) only slightly dissuades Taylor from using the knife.

Continue reading “Cocked — Victory Gardens (3/13/16)” →

David Auburn’s Proof made me feel a little bit good about myself when I saw it twice on Broadway in 2001.  Despite my being a Calculus drop-out, I’m not so different from Catherine, Robert, and Hal—math geniuses that talk about their insecurities and argue about whether to eat pasta for dinner.  I can even understand the basic tenet of Catherine’s proof, which uncovers something about Germain primes (take a prime number, double it, add one, and you get another prime number… simple, right?)

Continue reading “Proof — ColorBox Theater (3/12/16)” →

Satchmo at the Waldorf explores the life of Louis Armstrong on many complex levels: the personal, the professional, and the historical.  Not surprisingly, the stand-out moments in this fantastic one-man show occur when Barry Shabaka Henley (playing Armstrong and a few other roles) is in the closest proximity to Armstrong’s music.

Continue reading “Satchmo at the Waldorf — Court Theater (2/5/16)” →

The disgraced politician at the center of Bruce Norris’s Domesticated believes that he is a victim—a victim of natural biological urges, a victim of an anti-male society, a victim of the laws of physics.

Following a quick multi-media presentation on sexual dimorphism (that highlights gender dominance in a series of non-human species), Domesticated begins with the resignation of an urban politician named Bill (Tom Irvin) following a scandal that involves Bill injuring a teenage prostitute in a hotel room.  Regardless of whether Bill pushed her or she fell by accident, she is in a coma and Bill must leave public service.  Bill’s embarrassing inability to stick to his script as he meanders between public apology and incoherent justification of his actions is highlighted by his wife Judy (Mary Beth Fisher), who stands beside him with the icy stoicism.

Continue reading “Domesticated — Steppenwolf (12/26/15)” →