Chicago Stage Review

Chase Community Giving = Something for Nothing or Support Chicago Theater Companies for FREE!

By Venus Zarris

I have often day dreamed on the notion of having Bill Gates’s resources and then taking these resources and feeding them into the theater that is created here in Chicago. From short list to long, my fantasy of beneficiaries would receive disparately needed money to continue their extraordinary mission statements through the creation of sometimes challenging, sometimes delightful, sometimes stumbling towards remarkable, sometimes transformative but always unique theater.

At first thought, this fantasy seems perfect. Imagine what these already inspired companies and individuals could create without the burden of worrying where the funds, materials, and venues to perform in will come from? Instead of plugs being pulled on great ideas and unconventional projects, the plugs would find the sockets and the wires would be filled with the necessary currents to see these creations to their most potentially excellent outcomes.

But then a noise in my head interrupts this fantasy. It is either the noise of a needle being scratched across a vinyl record played on a phonograph or the sound of crashing metal in a car accident. That noise heralds the epiphany that money does not necessarily make things better, oftentimes rather having the opposite effect. The epiphany then continues; it is the something-from-virtually-nothing phenomenon that makes so much of the art that is created intrinsically miraculous.

I have a dear friend who is a passionate gardener. A huge part of her waking hours, and I’d venture to guess her sleeping subconscious, is spent plotting and planning her extraordinary garden. From amazing sights, to intoxicating smells, to delicious tastes she imagines and then realizes a new sumptuous living canvas each year. Part of the brilliance of this creation is the extensive premeditation, hard work and resources that go into every aspect its fruition. It is always, to the say the least wonderful.

But then I think of a spring/summer phenomenon that I used to witness every year while driving through an industrial area on the south side. On a stretch of road located in one of the most profoundly polluted and toxic areas of Chicago, I would see the blooming and flourishing of the most breathtaking wildflowers. Each year this fireworks display of beauty would be different and each year it would be dazzling but more amazing than the flowers themselves was the fact that they existed at all. They may as well have sprung forth from a baron rock, as it was unimaginable that there could be anything there to facilitate, much less sustain their life.

It would be an apples and oranges argument to debate which one is better; the planned garden or the spontaneous wildflowers. Both are lovely. It is often an apples and oranges argument to debate whether well-subsidized or virtually impoverished theater companies create better or more valuable work. Both are integral aspects of the incredible theatrical bounty of Chicago.

But there is something singularly miraculous about a play produced in spite of there being relatively nothing to start that process out with, other than the desire to tell a story in some collaboratively elaborate way. Mother Necessity has children in every nook and cranny of this city, in the form of theatrical productions.

It is easy to sit in a darkened black box, storefront or otherwise transformed theater space and be lost in the story being told and the artistry conceived to tell it. It is easy to forget while being compelled, outraged, spirited away, challenged, enlightened or entertained by a relatively meager production; that this experience comes to you by way of an effort whose primary recourse is not a grant, commission or subscriber financed budget but rather a simple and undeniable burning desire.

Separate and independent of whatever reaction the production inspires in its audience; the sheer fact that the efforts employed to make the show exists at all seem illogical and unrealistic creates an intrinsically magical context that adds weight and depth to the work.

To the Chicago theater community I say, don’t worry. If I ever get that pie-in-the-sky windfall, I still plan on sharing the wealth. But I must follow that up by saying, please don’t hold your breath waiting for it. I’ve got that waste of time covered for all of us.

To the audience and supporters of theater in Chicago; there IS something that you can do to help. First, see as much theater as you can. A less than brilliant production still offers more than most nights spent watching TV. The brilliant offerings, and there are many, will take you places that you might never imagine and inspire thought and feeling otherwise undiscovered.

Also, for the next 4 days you can vote on-line through the Chase Community Giving project. Your favorite local theater companies could receive thousands of MUCH NEEDED dollars and it costs you nothing but a few minutes of your time.

Visit this link to effortlessly help the theater companies that have given so much of themselves in order to give so much to you! Search for your favorite theater companies and click away!

Chase Community Giving on Facebook

Chicago Theatre image by Venus Zarris.

CLOSING SOON - DO NOT MISS!

By Venus Zarris

Sometimes, combining two completely unrelated flavors creates a magical delicacy. Such is the case with Clove Productions’ remarkable presentation of Fruit Tree Backpack and Madeleine Remains: In Memory, A Wife of Genius. Both extraordinary new works completely transport you to suspended realities that are fascinating, provocative, entertaining, and yet are totally and contrastingly different.

In Madeleine Remains: In Memory, A Wife of Genius, playwright Michael Martin creates a detailed and delicate portrait of Madeleine. She is the unassuming wife of Nobel Prize-winning writer André Gide. Charming, soft-spoken, articulate and subtly devious, Madeleine shares her post-mortem (as both she and André are long gone by the time we meet her) revelations on life with the accomplished writer.

Martin imagines a life lost in the shadows of the fame that surrounded it. Madeleine was sweetly loved and simultaneously scorned by André. She was his platonic muse, floating above his homosexual indulgences. She is bothered but not bitter, loving but not naive. Madeleine does not wish to shame Gide’s reputation, usurp his place in history, or even stake out her own spot, but rather share the emotional interactions and isolations of the unconventional partnership.

Shannon Evans beautifully directs this enchanting monologue with great depth. She shines a restrained light on the emotion, as one would curate a fragile masterpiece in a museum.

Ariel Brenner takes on this dauntingly complex character with impressive nuance and splendidly soft strength. So many moments could go painfully wrong in the hands of a lesser actor, but Brenner not only makes these moments compelling, she also makes them magical. She is a single woman, in a simple parlor, telling a sweetly somber story with staggering effect. She brilliantly weaves as rare and resplendent a tale as Martin elegantly writes.

Madeleine tells us that, “Of all of the geniuses running about this poor good world, writers must be the worst… the urge to write is unnatural… Even acting is less perverse.”

If this be true, viva Martin’s profound and poignant perversions.

Fruit Tree Backpack opens on a woman wrapping an orange in clear packing tape. The act may seem odd but it is mundane compared to the hysterical exposition that follows. Playwright Barrie Cole creates an examination of abstract personal conceptualizations that is casual, frantic, contemporary, absurd, accessible, sincere and ridiculous. In the seemingly silly conversations of a darling yet detached couple, Cole uncovers extraordinary analysis of art, art analysis, and the anti-analysis of artistic expression.

Delightfully intellectual without being academic, Cole uncovers humor in places that few bother to look. The writing is self-aware, self-assured and self-aggrandizing; balancing in the perfect dose of silly so as not to take its serious revelations too seriously. Cole uncovers the idiosyncratic psychosis of human interaction at its most brilliantly funny and cleverly revealing by rendering absurd analogies that are dead on.

When the relationship between the couple starts to unravel, the woman declares, “I wish that things were different between us, like a newly remodeled grocery store with a health food section.”

Eric Ziegenhagen directs Marisa Wegrzyn and Michael Kessler with exceptional restraint. The delivery is both stylized and natural. The esoterically erudite antics are in the hands of charmingly smart actors that create laugh-out-loud results. Both bring unique performances to the play but Wegrzyn shines as a comic genius with wry and controlled eccentricity that yields explosive humor.

Fruit Tree Backpack and Madeleine Remains: In Memory, A Wife of Genius are rare and astonishing theatrical treasures. In a tiny black box with no whistles and bells, Clove Productions takes two short scripts and three exceptional actors and creates a dynamic spectacle of intimately captivating wonder. Seating is limited and the run is short so waste no time reserving your tickets to this incredibly beguiling combination of resplendently unusual plays.

4 STARS

(“Fruit Tree Backpack and Madeleine Remains: In Memory, A Wife of Genius” EXTENDED through July 26 at The Side Project Theatre, 1439 West Jarvis. 773-508-0666)

Clove Productions | Facebook

Madeleine Remains production photo by Jordan Scrivner.

Fruit Tree Backpack production photo by Eric Ziegenhagen.