186 stories by "Hugh Iglarsh"
With its total focus on the private and the domestic, "No Such Thing" never pulls us in.
Chicago-based playwright, producer and cultural activator LC Bernadine is a theater maker who thrives on the freedom and spontaneity of one-off projects. Bernadine would like nothing better …
Brookelyn Hébert's portrayal of Henrik Ibsen's celebrated femme fatale is an old-school, eyeball-grabbing star turn, one that every theater lover will relish.
Time itself is the great betrayer, revealing who and where we really are.
Gwydion Theatre's pared-down, gripping production of Henrik Ibsen's "Ghosts" at the Greenhouse is a homecoming of sorts: oddly enough, the play premiered in 1882 in Chicago, in an auditorium…
"Debate" is pre-scripted docudrama"an outward sketch of history, rather than an inward exploration of its implications and effects.
If you approach the play for what it is, a left-wing provocation delivered with all the nuance of a wrecking ball, it works just fine, rubbing our collective nose in the sheer monstrousness …
"Vanya" is being put on within the bare, echoing confines of the North Side's Servi-Sure factory, a seriously real-world place that makes titanium anodizing racks for industry. The play will…
The Joffrey Ballet's annual holiday-time "Nutcracker" extravaganza, that revered tradition, offers so much"but it also raises the question, How much is too much?
This is a worthy debut for an accomplished playwright who clearly deserves more attention on our side of the border. It's also proof of how much the Gwydion company has matured over its two …
Based on a 2001 novel by Ian McEwan that was adapted for the screen in 2007, "Atonement" might be described as a sort of postmodern tearjerker: A complex, downbeat story of how a young girl'…
It's a play that negates itself, and the feeling it leaves behind isn't catharsis, but rather frustration.
"Royko: The Toughest Man in Chicago" is mainly, and justifiably, about the public issues confronted and battles fought by a very brave and public writer on an almost daily basis over four de…
This is what theater needs to be in our time: a mirror not just to nature but also to the media landscape that surrounds us. Invictus has crafted a memorable production of an important and i…
As an illusionist, Jon Tai performs a truly impressive feat that makes the audience gasp; as a storyteller, though, the amicable and unassuming Tai comes off as less than magical.
The play never hits a high gear dramatically and ends on an anticlimax. But I still found "Wells and Welles" enjoyable, for the simple reason that, over the play's single act, we do get to k…
For a smallish storefront theater like Invictus to do so well by a play as expansive and demanding as "Three Sisters" is no mean feat, and I wish the show a long and happy run.
New York playwright Jay Stull manages to craft an ingeniously twisty, provocative meditation on artificial intelligence that takes the form of a play within a play within a darkly mysterious…
Performative intensity is a good thing, but it's not enough to carry a play. We see this clearly in "Turret," a show with too much heat and not enough light.
Under-plotted, more static than flowing, anticlimactic and sometimes over the top, "The Thanksgiving Play" is not a polished work of theater. But it is a powerful provocation, a real booby t…
Veteran director Chuck Smith, our foremost August Wilson interpreter, has crafted an emotionally highly charged, exuberant, well-paced production. But even with Smith's steady hand on the he…
Izzard's dazzling performance holds up a mirror not just to nature, but to ourselves.
With its engaging characters, pointed and fast-paced dialogue, unpredictable but logical storyline and luminous poetic flourishes, "Love Song" is a show that will charm the pants off even th…
"End Days" reminds us that the overtones of strangeness, precariousness and disequilibrium that define reality these days began exactly at the moment when the American public lost its sense …
It's solid, gripping writing, delivered with crystalline sincerity, and it hits like a sledge hammer.
