THE SOUR SMELL OF SUCCESS Never confuse fear with respect. During the Cold War, when the Russians were less deniably our enemies, op-ed tyro Joe Alsop rivaled gossip czar Walter Winchell in …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:17PMMATURE MAGIC No spells get cast here, no phantoms materialize. There are no mystical suspension of the laws of physics, just our disbelief. Now in a too-short stop at Chicago’s Oriental T…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:47PMSINKING INTO THE STEPPES Running invisible endurance feats, the characters of Anton Chekhov expose what Henry David Thoreau called “lives of quiet desperation.” When the good doc…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:17PMTHIS BROTHERS IS A KEEPER This winner really is a blast from the past. Celebrating America’s most explosive and enthralling tap-dancing team, My Brother’s Keeper—The Story of the Nich…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:15PMA SOUTH SIDE WEAVE The setting is a beloved beauty parlor on Chicago’s South Side. It’s seen better times and may soon see none. Hanging over the storefront is a gallery of famous female…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:34PMNO ADO ABOUT LITTLE Never has a lesser comedy enjoyed a lovelier setting: Embraced by a Rococo balustrade, staircase, and pastoral backdrop worthy of Watteau or Boucher, Chicago Shakespeare …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:14PMURINE FOR A GOOD TIME I fondly recall the infectiously brilliant Cardiff Giant shows that Greg Kotis and Mark Hollmann perpetrated in the 80s and 90s. After so much success in Chicago, it’…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:01PMTHE URGE TO BE USEFUL Steppenwolf Theatre is great at stirring things up—on stage and in the minds of its crowds. Nobody does it so well. Exhibit A is their latest offering: There’s good…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:18AMTHE SONGS AND THE FURY Sardonic, ironic, cheeky, subversive—hip epithets can’t convey the excruciating call-and-response fusion of humor and horror, laughter and tears, that you feel see…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:56AMTAKING OUT THE (WHITE) TRASH Ever since 1981, small-town souls, Dixie doodles and atavistic Red State rednecks have fueled the fun in the Tuna trilogy. It’s a hilarious perpetration by ada…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:04PMANATEVKA COMES HOME In this world premiere of a newly commissioned and instantly topical new work, Chicago Shakespeare Theater makes it clear: Karen Hartman’s The Book of Joseph is not jus…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:27PMHE FOUND HIS HEART IN SAN FRANCISCO (AND MORE) I Left My Heart: A Salute to the Music of Tony Bennett totally earns its title. Created in 2005 by David Grapes and Todd Olson, this warmly wr…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:25PMPROTECTING YOUR ASSET The best thing about The Bodyguard, Lawrence Kasdan’s Oscar-nominated 1992 film, was how it put the late Whitney Houston on the map and in our hearts. Despite zero c…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:46PMTHE DEAD WEIGHT OF RANDOM TALK Richard Greenberg’s better works—Take Me Out, Three Days of Rain, The Violet Hour—stand out by putting enough in play to make us care. Raven Theatre’s …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:11PMVISITING THE INTERNET OF ‘SHADES’ Cryptic and fascinating, Jennifer Haley’s 85-minute one-act The Nether takes its name, if not its inspiration, from an allusion to the afterlife. But,…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:25PMSPOILER ALERT: THE PLAYWRIGHT DID IT Here’s the warning issued to the press on Monday night. It’s about critiquing Goodman Theatre’s imported New York staging of Gloria: “In the hope…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:35PMANOTHER BAND OF BROTHERS At a certain “tipping point” in the mid-20th century, passing for straight became one lie too many. A generation before the Stonewall riots, a generation after H…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:15PMTHE PURITY OF INFINITY Mathematics can be maddening. Unless reflected in music (as in Bach), the “numbers game” feels stuck in a seemingly sterile realm of abstract entities, perfect in …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:29PMA CONSECRATION AND A CONCERT FIT FOR A KING Chicago Sinfonietta’s annual concert to commemorate Martin Luther King—now in its fourth decade—held more relevance and righteousness than u…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:51PMTHE HERO JOURNEY OF A DRAG QUEEN Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is, of course, a much-loved 1994 “staying out” film from seemingly straight Australia. It spins the peripatetic tale of t…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:02PMLEARNING TO BE DEAD Orpheus usually gets top billing in the classical Greek legend. He is of course the master of music who literally goes to Hell to retrieve his beloved Eurydice, abducted …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 11:52AMWHAT OF OUR SUFFERING IN THE NIGHT? Ambition should be made of smarter stuff. Nearly three hours of unfocused agitation, What of the Night? begs its own incoherent question. It’s not the …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:14PMCATHARSIS IN A BASEMENT It’s not easy for actors to lose control without losing the role as well. A master of concentrated dread and systematic despair, Kate Buddeke haunts this solo show.…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:06PMA VERY DISPENSABLE DOOM Famed for her sardonic 1948 short story “The Lottery” and the scary novels We Have Always Lived in the Castle and The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson was …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:58PMFIXING FICTION It’s not your usual detective story: A quaint couple works to restore a villain suddenly lost from countless fairy tales. Mr. and Mrs. Pennyworth depicts a very proper Edwar…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:59PMDROPPING THE DROPPING CHANDELIER Andrew Lloyd Webber’s mega-musical wants to be an opera about opera to end opera. Ironically, “Hannibal,” its first-act spoof of a 19th-century grand …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:25PMTCHAIKOVSKY MEETS THE WORLD’S FAIR: A PERFECT NUTCRACKER RECIPE It was a marvel of the ages and the crowning achievement of the 19th century (except maybe the Eiffel Tower). Now, happily, …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:26PMNASHVILLE NIGHTINGALES If winter needs warming, Honky Tonk Angels should heat up happy crowds at the No Exit Café in Chicago’s Rogers Park. The bubbly good time delivers a mix of downhome…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:59PMHEAVEN MEANS HELL In King Charles III, now playing Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Mike Bartlett imagines what would happen if a king dares to act like one—and opposes a Parliamentary proposa…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:55PMPICKING UP OUR PIECES The neatly punning title of The Second City’s 105th Mainstage Revue, The Winner…of Our Discontent, implies an anti-Trump evening. But, unlike SNL, there’s little …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:39PMA SWEET AND SOUR “TWIST” In the month of December, Goodman Theatre simply goes schizoid. On one end of its block-long Dearborn Street lobby is the Albert Theatre, where the sacre…
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