Chicago Stage Review

By Venus Zarris

We are all children, moving about in our adult lives. We play the parts of adults based on observation and training, or the lack thereof, but when it comes right down to it we are still children. This is of course opinion. There are some who would disagree. I would argue that the more vehement the disagreement, the more entrenched (albeit buried) the child exists in that “sophisticated” adult. – Much like when you call a child a baby and they scream to the contrary, “I am NOT a BABY!” – This is also of course opinion.

Playwright Sarah Ruhl places children in adult bodies and then maneuvers them through adult situations in her play Late: A Cowboy Song. There is childlike wonder that they all find in life’s simple things. There are naïve notions applied to adult circumstances that both serve them well and trip them up. Late: A Cowboy Song resembles a staged production of a children’s book. You can imagine the illustrations, possibly by Chris Van Allsburg, but this is a children’s book that would be banned from children’s shelves because of adult content.

The children within us will recognize this in the play and will be both drawn to and frightened by it. The adults within us will recognize this and will be entertained or annoyed by it. Most likely, the adult/child and the child/adult will not understand these reactions on the surface because neither is completely conscious of how the other’s perspective simultaneously exists within us. They are often internally at odds, much like they are in Ruhl’s characters.

Mary and Crick are childhood sweethearts, living together in a vacuum of a relationship that has thwarted their development both internally and externally. Mary runs into a woman named Red, a childhood friend that has retreated to the world of cowboy life outside the city limits. Mary and Crick are frenetic and often at odds. Red is calm, confident and at peace. Mary is drawn to this contrast. Crick is threatened by Mary’s newfound relationship with a cowboy-woman. As Mary’s life opens up to a new possibility, Crick tried to close ranks. When Mary becomes pregnant, she recommits to the original relationship. They get married and make a go at family life. This becomes suffocating, especially when the baby is born intersexed. Doctors operate on the newborn to assign female gender. Crick is happy with this assignment but Mary wonders why it is necessary and thinks the baby should be free to develop naturally. Obviously her relationship with Red gives Mary a more sympathetic perspective on the fluid nature of sexual identity.

Mary and Crick’s relationship is depicted as suffocating. Mary and Red’s relationship is depicted as redemptive. All of these adult situations unfold in a sometimes dreamlike and always childish way.

Ruhl fluctuates between realism and romanticism with varying degrees of success. What works the most in Late: A Cowboy Song is the language. Ruhl writes lovely passages, sometimes funny and sometimes heartbreaking. What works the least is the character’s interaction with each other. Even between Mary and Red, the two characters with the strongest emotional bond and development, there seems to be a lack of three-dimensional connection. Much like in an illustrated book, we see the characters as colorful and detailed but somewhat flat.

Director Jessica Thebus creates this theatrical pop-up book with impressive depth. Thebus is a master at handling Ruhl’s idiosyncratic characters and extracting the humor and poignancy from the script. There are laugh-out-loud moments as well as heartrending ones. She strikes a lovely and merciful balance between the contrast of Mary and Crick’s chaotic relationship and Mary and Red’s gentle interactions.

Lawrence Grimm delivers a heavy-handed portrayal of Crick. It is hard to muster sympathy for this lost soul and even harder to believe his relationship with Mary. The petulance of Grimm’s depiction far out shadows his humanity. This creates an inadvertent “man bashing” atmosphere in the production. You see only desperation when he declares his love for Mary and when Crick becomes potentially violent we see him as more a bully, rather than a wounded lover.

Polly Noonan is captivating as Mary. This is Mary’s story, as she undergoes the most transformation, and Noonan generously keeps us in the loop of her awkward emotional journey.

Kelli Simpkins is remarkable as Red, creating the perfectly tranquil contrast to Mary and Crick’s turbulent world. Cowboy Red is the most cartoonish of the play’s characters and yet Simpkins delivers her with the most nuance. She is charming and patient, wise and unassuming. Her cowboy song musical asides are subtly playful and softly melancholy. Simpkins is a master of restraint. In dramatically offering so much by projecting so gently, she creates a real person from a caricature and proves just how much more less can be.

Amy Warren’s original music fills in the whimsical blanks to this storybook play with cowboy songs that lift you off the pages of the script and into a beguiling world. Since “cowboy song” is part of the play’s title these musical delights could be thought of as a starting point, but they are actually more a resplendent finishing touch. Warren delicately captures and then conveys mood and emotion with her ingeniously elegant magical composition.

Stephen Mazurek’s projection design creates Red’s sprawling outdoor world on the ranch and effectively delivers it to the small black box at Piven Theatre. Andre Pluess’s sound design is exceptional.

Late: A Cowboy Song is an unusually fascinating play and Piven Theatre Workshop places it in loving hands that overcome its shortcomings, accentuate its wonder and ultimately deliver a compelling production.

3 STARS

(“Late: A Cowboy Song” runs through August 29 at Piven Theatre Workshop, 927 Noyes Sreet, Evanston. 847-866-8049.)

Piven Theatre Workshop

Late: A Cowboy Song production photos by Chris Tzoubris.

* Visit Theatre In Chicago for more information on this show. Late: A Cowboy Song - Piven Theatre - Play Detail - Theatre In Chicago

By Venus Zarris

I have an evangelical notion that art is truly the great commission. More so than religion or any other institution, it is the place where alterations of consciousness can occur and so the perpetuation of it is critically vital. Because we have comparative minds these epiphanies normally come by way of holding up a mirror to our condition but it is not always the kind of mirror that we look at in the bathroom to simply fix our hair, rather it is oftentimes a fun house mirror with all manner distortions and deformations that deconstruct our complicated collective and individual machinations. There is always at least a trace of reality to spring from but the deviations can range from the ridiculous to the sublime.

In Karel Capek’s 1936 novel War with the Newts, the springboard is the turbulent sociopolitical climate of Europe just before the Second World War. Fascism, Communism and Capitalism were political systems on conflicting paths to manifest and dominate in the real world. The collision resulted in the death of over 60 million people. Capek wrote this novel when those tens of millions were still alive. He did not predict the pending march of death by way of these known conflicts. Instead, his deviation came by way of a strange discovery… Newts.

A race of intelligent humanoid newts, to be exact, are discovered and exploited. First they are used to collect a fortune’s worth of pearls but when their population explodes they are dispersed throughout the globe to alter the vary terrain of the planet. They rapidly evolve, form a collective consciousness and then revolt.

Playwrights Jason Loewith and Justin D.M. Palmer take on the Herculean task of adapting Capek’s classic fiction to the stage with varying degrees of success. The time period is beautifully rendered. The detailed chronology of events spells out the amphibious climb up the ladder of civilization precisely. The characters are engaging but the dramatic tension of the story drops off early in the first act.

The play opens in the parlor of a wealthy Czech businessman. The pecking order of the servants is humorously established as one-by-one the maid, gardener and bumbling gopher file through and get their daily orders from Povondra, the austere butler. This charmingly resembles an early 20^th Century comedy.

Then there is a knock at the door. The captain of a ship shows up and asks to see the master. There is hesitation on the part of Povondra, the kind of hesitation that unknowingly holds with it the future of the planet. Povondra decides to let him in.

When Captain Van Toch, masterfully played by Steve Pickering, meets with G.H. Bondy there is a bit of reminiscent banter about their youth together that adds texture to the time period and then he launches in on a business proposition by way of a fantastic tale. Pickering is a brilliant storyteller. His account of discovering, befriending and then manipulating a tribe of oversized newts is enthralling. He tempers frenetic excitement with entrepreneurial enthusiasm and adds a convincing dose of genuine affinity for the newts to the mix. Pickering’s enthralling delivery of the initial tale of the newts front-loads the production with captivating anticipation.

Bondy sees the enormous potential for profits and, as is so often the case when profits are to be made, the venture begins and the world will never be the same.

From this point the play shifts the focus to Povondra’s ever-increasing need to document the quickly changing importance of the newts. As their population rapidly grows and their intelligence quickly expands; they develop from slave labor, to sideshow freaks, to an unbelievably powerful workforce and finally to momentous military assets. With massive numbers and the ability to effortlessly maneuver on land and underwater, newts accomplish in a few days what would take humans years to achieve. All they ask for is coastline, their required habitat.

Povondra’s need to document their history escalates to obsession. Hording newspaper clippings, hiding away it the attic listening to short wave radio broadcasts, missing work, spending all of his money and ignoring his family; he is the portrait of a man driven insane by the belief that this is all untimely his doing. Initially proud that he opened the door (literally) to this profound and historically pivotal change, his pride turns to a heightened sense of accountability. With each piece of news, he formulates the potential ramifications and sees the grave potential.

Placing the dramatic weight on the character of Povondra also places the dramatic weight on the actor in the role. Joseph Wycoff is confident and competent, transitioning from buttoned down practicality to the brink of madness effectively. But this is a surface transition. Perhaps it is in part due to that initial situational comedic introduction, but his descent resembles Lucy getting behind on the assembly line, rather than a person compulsively acquiring more and more information that he cannot possibly process or reconcile with. Wycoff’s delivery is accurate and interesting but less than compelling.

Then there are the newts. We wait a long time to see them and when they finally show up in Povondra’s nightmarish dream they are creatively fashioned, by puppet designer Michael Montenegro, but too abstract for us to make the concrete connection that is needed to fuel the imagined reality of the story. For the story to work we must believe that the newts are real and the few times that we encounter them they present a visually absurd contrast to the production’s stylized realism that fails to establish their actual existence.

Director Jason Loewith delivers an elaborate and impressive production. The cast is gifted. The mostly thrilling design elements range from simply effective to full on spectacle. The strange story is clearly conveyed but a complete emotional connection is never made to either the humans or the newts. Without this connection the drama seldom rises above an attractive two-dimensional experience. We vividly see the cautionary tale and recognize the deplorable potentials of human greed and arrogance but we are never fully riveted.

“All have contributed to the great pageant of fear.” Povondra articulates but without an emotional connection to the story, characters or newts; we agree with the statement but we aren’t scared, and we should be.

Next Theatre’s World Premiere of War with the Newts is a wildly ambitious, extremely fascinating and ultimately entertaining theatrical adaptation. Although it misses the truly terrifying and emotionally evocative potential of the original material, it is a remarkably crafted interpretation of a uniquely thought provoking story that is well worth your time.

When I got home from the opening of War with the Newts, the news was showing the pathetic attempt at cleaning up the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. A handful of people in protective gear with shovels and plastic bags seemed like a Band-Aid on a decapitation. I thought, ‘We could really use those newts right now and we obviously deserve nature shifting control to some other life form.’ All I am saying is, give newts a chance.

3 STARS

(“War with the Newts” runs through June 20 at the Mulladay Theatre at Loyola University, 1125 W. Loyola Ave. 847-475-1875)

Next Theatre Company

War with the Newts production photos by Michael Brosilow.

By Venus Zarris

It is a sad truth that relationships often devolve into something that bares little resemblance to the initial passion and warmth from whence they sprang. Playwright Robert Tenges takes this truth past the “I don’t feel the same way anymore.” and delves into the jarring paradigm shift of “How the hell did we get here?” More so than a portrait of waking up not knowing the person that you share your life with, Tenges shows the crippling reality of knowing that person all too well and not liking them.

In The Side Project Theatre Company’s powerful world premiere of People We Know, three couples face the realities of detachment and isolation within their committed relationships. The emotional cold fronts start sweeping in from the very opening dinner party as we witness a group of friends who seem as though they would rather be anywhere but together.

Tenges writes evocative dialogue, leaving you with a sense of incompletion that mimics the imperfect lives portrayed. His rhythms are difficult but the strong ensemble find their way through under the intuitive direction of Adam Webster. Webster understands his intimate venue and brings the intensity into our laps with impact and nuance.

Andy Hager delivers a sweetly heart wrenching Jashua, easygoing partner to an overachieving wife. He is as compelling reacting silently as he is in conversation. Kirsten D’Aurellio digs deep to uncover honest warmth that is refreshing in the midst of her forlorn relationship. Together, Hager and D’Aurellio extract subtly endearing and honestly painful moments that are truly remarkable.

Set designer Michelle Lilly O’Brien constructs the physical reality of the play with amazing effect and Aaron Weissman’s lighting design is exceptional.

Tenges creates conflict that leans towards academic melodrama and some of the emotional transitions seem to be more plotted than organic but in the hands of such a gifted director, with such a talented ensemble, the end result is a compelling view of the moments in relationships that are often overlooked. People We Know is a fascinating slideshow of relationships that are trying to hold out past the expiration date and a wonderful example of theater’s ability to shed light on our darker internal struggles.

3 STARS

(“People We Know” runs through June 6 at The Side Project Theatre, 1439 W. Jarvis. 773-973-2150)

the side project theatre company

By J. Scott Hill

Abandon all hope ye who enter here.

That’s the inscription on the gates of Hell, at least according to Dante.  Many among us have already abandoned hope and are trapped in a living Hell thanks to our current or former employers’ embrace of the root of all evil, the love of money. But the recession is allegedly over.  Corporate profits are way up.  The Stock Market is way up.  The economy is getting better for those who already have money, lots of money.  The bottom ninety-eight percent of us are still feeling the pinch, if the drop of the guillotine can be called a mere pinch.  Unemployed, underemployed, multiple jobs, no benefits, no prospects on the horizon, if we aren’t experiencing it right now, we fear it could happen to us tomorrow.  Economists and other pundits may see prosperity ahead, but the rest of us are in crisis.

When will we find relief?

Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 8:00 p.m.

The Neo-Futurists can help.  For what you spend every week on that pipe dream of winning the lotto, you can gain entry into a world of stress-relieving entertainment: comedy, live music, singing, dancing, magic, short film, and challenging games.  If you are smart, lucky, and above all honest, you have a shot at winning some serious cash.

If you would like to be a contestant in CRISIS, show up a half-hour early and take the Scantron test.  Overhead projectors shine multiple-choice questions onto the walls and ceiling just like in eighth grade.  Don’t forget to answer the essay question; it will require you to state truthfully what may be a deeply personal story.

For eight contestants each night, CRISIS is a two-hour climb up the corporate ladder.  In the fantasy world of CRISIS, honesty and intelligence (rather than booty-smooching and mediocrity) lead to promotion.  The game itself has three tiers: Ground Zero, The Panic Room, and The Breaking Point.

During Ground Zero, contestants are broken into two teams and managed through a series of Family Feud-type questions by host Meister Lovegeldt, played by John Pierson with even more than his usual undeniable charm.  Pierson flings himself at this enterprise like a trebuchet flings pumpkins at the annual Pumpkin Chunkin’ down in Morton; the energy tapped leaves the audience in awe.  Like many an entry-level manager, Pierson works magic – in this case a set of classic tricks popularized on the TV variety shows of a bygone era.  Pierson’s entire performance is a throwback to the days when entertainers were first and foremost onstage to entertain – refreshing.

The team that survives Ground Zero is promoted to The Panic Room.  Host Mark E. Valli is tricksy and frenetic.  Dan Kerr-Hobert plays The Panic Room’s host as an oily mid-level manager: contestants start with as much credit as they are going to get from Valli, and he deducts points for every wrong answer and unwon challenge.  Kerr-Hobert’s song-and-dance number is a delight.

The contestant that keeps their cool in The Panic Room earns a sit-down with the CEO.  Round three is The Breaking Point, and CEO Clifton Frei probes the remaining contestant Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?-style.  In addition to increasingly more difficult, increasingly more valuable questions, the CEO has no compunctions about asking the contestant to give public answers to questions about normally private matters.  The audience is informally polled about the verisimilitude and completeness of these answers, and money is awarded or not, accordingly.  When digging through the contestant’s tender memories, Frei is no Regis Philbin, no blurter nor brute; he shifts instantaneously and effortlessly from bombastic to therapeutic.

The action is interspersed with clever and hilarious “executive client videos” (used in game play) and live commercials for local businesses.  These scenes change from night to night.  Present and former Neo-Futurists, as well as other prominent Chicago actors, will be performing in these interstitial scenes.

CRISIS (A Musical Game Show) is wild fun to watch, and the contestants seem to be having even more fun than the audience is.  The winner can walk away with up to a third of that night’s box office, over five hundred bucks if the show is sold out. The performances are geared toward nothing more profound than making mirth for the downtrodden, which nowadays is all of us.  Pierson, Kerr-Hobert, Frei, and the rest of the cast and crew work fervently to try to re-instill a little hope in our lives, not through some heartwarming success story or platitudes that things are getting better, but by entertaining us with abandon.

3 STARS

(“CRISIS (A Musical Game Show)” runs Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays through June 12* at The Neo-Futurarium, 5153 N. Ashland, Chicago. 773-275-5255.)

*The June 11 and June 12 performances are Champion Rounds.

Neo-Futurists

CRISIS (A Musical Game Show) production photos by Evan Hanover.

By Lori Dana

For experienced opera-goers as well as for relative “newbies”, Chicago Opera Theater’s new edition of a lesser-known work by the composer of “The Barber of Seville” is a rare treat indeed.

Gioachino Rossini’s “Moses in Egypt” was last produced on a Chicago stage in 1863, at the McVicker’s Theatre on Madison and State. This exciting new interpretation, by opera scholars Charles Brauner and Phillip Gossett, is populated by a cast and chorus of incredible voices and buoyed by a sparkling orchestra. COT, which presents itself as a jewel-like counterpoint to the grander productions of Chicago’s Lyric Opera, uses richly detailed costuming, contemporary set design (an atrium skylight of glass pyramids) and evocative lighting to create an Egyptian palace within the intimate space of the Harris Theater.  That relatively small space does tend to limit the staging options for “Moses”, especially in the third act when the chorus is present in almost every scene.  The dance-like movements of the chorus in Acts 1 and 2 present an effective use of the space and we would like to see more of that visual interest in Act 3.

We won’t give away the dramatic technical details of how Moses parts the Red Sea in Act 3 or elaborate on how this well-known Biblical story becomes a tale of star-crossed lovers (leave it to the Italians!) We will tell you that Rossini’s gorgeous and transcendent score is simply not to be missed in this ambitious production.  The nearly flawless vocal interpretations as well as the inspired conducting of soon-to-be superstar Leonardo Vordoni make for a perfectly delicious performance experience.

3 STARS

(“Moses In Egypt (Mosé In Egitto)” runs April 17, 21,23,25 @ Harris Theater, 205 E. Randolph. 312-704-8414)

Chicago Opera Theater

CLOSING WEEKEND! DON’T MISS!

By J. Scott Hill

At one time or another, every child contemplates running away to join the circus.  My own childhood circus-dream was sparked by chants of “One of us! One of us!” in Tod Browning’s Freaks, only to be dashed by the evil clown in Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist.  My circus fantasy died early, but five talented kids managed to run as far as Evanston to be a part of Science Fiction: An Experiment in Circus at the Actors Gymnasium. For Director Larry DiStasi and the cast of five pros, five kids, and the eleven young ladies of the Actors Gymnasium Teen Ensemble, the “experiment” was a grand success.

The frame around this one-ring circus is the story of five “wunderkinder” mad scientists.  Don’t be fooled if the show’s opening seems like just another school play.  These children perform.  They play in a calliope-inspired band that sounds like Tom Waits had finally found his happy place.  Julia White conducts a little circus magic with one of the pros, playing catch with an invisible ball that glows red when caught.  Griffin DiStasi and Asher White are devoured and then vomited (please let it be vomited) by a monster.  Sadie Sims and Jude Sims join the other kids in a spectacular Stomp-like “Drum Aliens” chorus, and as the passengers in “Silk Rockets” made of acrobats suspended from tissu.  These are but a few highlights: the kids rock.

The well-trained acrobats of the Actors Gymnasium Teen Ensemble were not going to sit still and get upstaged by a few talented kids.  Their Busby Berkeley-influenced unicycle act is lavish and delightful. Teen Ensemble members Meaghan Falvey, Rachel Karn, and Alison Tye rise to the level of the professionals with whom they performed.  Sarah Buoniuto, Emily Fishkin, Leah Rose Orleans, and Lander Ellis perform upon the Spanish Web (think the rope from gym class with a foot-loop at the top) with perfect form and grace. Gabrielle Aiden, Lucy Brennan, Eleanor Goerss, and Jackie Jarvis join the rest of the Teen Ensemble in the mesmerizing “Silk Rockets” act.  Again, these are but a few highlights.

As rich as this show is with developing talent, the professional performers bring a level of spectacle and skill to rival any show under the Big Top.  Jill Heyser and Nicole Pelligrino wow the audience with a double-act on a silk-entangled lyra that tip the single hoop’s axis 90°, at times transforming the usual languid spins into a Ferris wheel for two. Kacin Menendez and Will Howard perform a charming adagio as an eccentric scientist and the android she creates in the image of her secret love.  The combination of Menendez’s precise physical control and Howard’s faux-clunky mechanical strength is as funny and tender as it is elegant.  Howard further displays his raw power and perfect balance in one of the tableaux during the curtain call when he manages to maintain a jubilant smile with an acrobat standing upon his shoulders who has another acrobat standing upon her shoulders.

Matt Roben displays the greatest variety of performance skills in Science Fiction.  Roben plays the ukulele and saw, performs light magic, and clowns.  The most entertaining act in the show is Roben as a giant, child-eating Slinky monster. Roben looks like a flexible four-pointed starfish made out of extra-large dryer tubes; one can never be sure which end of him is up at any given moment.  Stupendous.

Not every act is amazing, but several are.  Sometimes things get a bit out of synch, but recovere quickly; this is more of a statement about the degree of difficulty of the various acts than an indication of lack of polish.  Never a glorified recital for the students of the Actors Gymnasium, Science Fiction stands as a showcase for some extremely talented professional circus performers who are seamlessly supported by a skilled and deep reservoir of emerging acrobats, stilt-walkers, unicyclists, and musicians.

Take your kids and run away to Evanston to see Science Fiction: An Experiment in Circus at the Actors Gymnasium.  It is a grand display by some of Chicagoland’s finest circus performers, and a vibrant insight into just how accomplished a young person can become while daring to follow that universal dream of running off to join the circus.

3 STARS

(“Science Fiction: An Experiment in Circus” runs through April 18 at the Actors Gymnasium in the Noyes Cultural Arts Center, 927 Noyes St., Evanston.  Tickets are available at www.brownpapertickets.com and 800-836-3006.)

CLOSING WEEKEND! DON’T MISS!

Actors Gymnasium - Now Playing

By Venus Zarris

Infamous Commonwealth Theatre opens their season dedicated to REDEMPTION with a strong production of Arthur Miller’s classic The Crucible. Miller’s scathing social, religious and thinly veiled political indictment still packs a gut punch and Infamous Commonwealth delivers it with conviction.

Set during the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, The Crucible details the horror of fervent institutionalized religious insanity. No one is safe, especially the innocent, when the ranting of teenagers is taken for gospel. Imagine the state of the Union if wildly outlandish accusations were grounds for the ruination of lives. No, this isn’t a Fox Newscast. This is a cleverly constructed recreation of one of the darkest times in American history. Sadly, this all too familiar scenario can still be seen in one manifestation or another over three hundred years later. Although we’re not listening to the disingenuous supernatural hallucinations of children with hidden agendas, we are giving the ridiculous manipulations of zealots and pundits the dangerous weight of headline news.

Director Chris Maher gets off to an awkward start. The normally brilliant Stephen Dunn sets a maudlin tone with his over-the-top performance of Reverend Parris. His neurotic eccentricities border on flamboyant and seem out of place for this ultraconservative time period. He starts at such a fevered pitch that there is little room for build and less evidence of nuance. Dunn has created some of the most three-dimensional characters seen on Chicago stages but this time out his Rev. Parris resembles the villain in a Dudley Do-Right cartoon.

Elaine Ivy Harris also brings a two-dimensional aspect to her characterization of Abigail Williams. This is a deceptively complex role, as the actor must strike a balance between the superficiality of a scorned teen and the depth of her reactions to romantic rejection turning deadly. Harris conveys this well on the surface but seems to be flying by the seat of her pants to get out of trouble, rather than calculating her cunningly contrived construction of revenge.

What Director Maher does right is place the story in the laps of John and Elizabeth Proctor, brilliantly realized by Craig C. Thompson and Jennifer Mathews. The honesty and believability that they bring to their performances is staggering. It grounds this production in the personal horror and tragedy of the story. Together they elevate this production to poignant and extraordinary dramatic excellence by accessing the truth of this tale and evocatively illustrating the struggles of the innocent in the face of false accusation. The Proctors are the beacons of sanity in this sea of hysterical chaos and social corruption. Thompson creates a man caught up in the explosion of his own faults with impressive vulnerability, sincerity and just the right dose of naive indignation. Mathews creates the shocking terror of the times with subtlety and restraint that is lovely, breathtaking and almost poetic. You are so compelled by these performances that you hope for a rewrite of the ending, as they deserve the redemption of justice and a happy-ever-after that of course never comes.

Act one ends with an evocative build that sets up the second act beautifully. Act two raises the climate to urgent and then escalates to frantic. The courtroom drama is outstanding, due in great part to Edward Kuffert’s unwavering performance of Judge Danforth. Kuffert creates a masterfully subtle dramatic bait-and-switch by giving you a convincing glimmer of hope that sanity might have a chance but then takes you back to the crisis of chaos with appropriate self-righteous absurdity.

Exceptional supporting performances are delivered by Adrian Snow as Tituba and John Ruhaak as Giles Corey. Cody Proctor renders the most powerful personal transition in the play with an outstanding performance of Reverand Hale and Nancy Friedrich brings a bit of comic relief and then the sadness of compromised truth for he sake of self-preservation to her remarkable portrayal of Mary Warren.

This impressive interpretation of The Crucible underlines the complex difficulty of holding fast to your convictions, personal truth and honor in a reality governed by illogical insanity; something that sadly still too often holds true. Although at times a bit uneven, the intelligence of Infamous Commonwealth shines through in this powerful production that makes a contemporary cautionary tale of historical madness and delivers exceptional theater in the process.

3 STARS

(“The Crucible” runs through April 25 at Raven Theatre, 6157 N. Clark Street. 312-458-9780.)

Infamous Commonwealth Theatre

The Crucible production photos by Paul Metreyeon.

By J. Scott Hill

The Disney Corporation has a reputation toward megalomania.  I have never particularly believed the urban legend about Disney suing people to force them to have their unlicensed character tattoos burned off, but I found out at Disney’s Beauty and the Beast that their bullying reputation is not groundless.

The happy audience was full of children, many no doubt having their first evening at the theatre.  Smiling parents were hopeful that they had found a fun way to teach their progeny to appreciate the arts, a momentous occasion that required a snapshot for the family album.

“I saw you take a picture in here, there are no pictures allowed in this theatre whatsoever,” said an usher.

“Oh, I wouldn’t take any pictures during the show,” said a patron/parent in the front row.

“I am going to stand here and watch you delete that picture off of your camera,” said the usher, “and if I see you take another picture, I will confiscate your camera and you won’t get it back until after the show.  We’ll erase everything on it.”

“See, it’s a just a picture of my kid.”

“Either you delete it, or I confiscate the camera now.”

I have seen vigorous trademark protection in the theatre before, but never quite this totalitarian.  Exactly what kind of Mickey Mouse operation is Disney running?

The production itself is simultaneously lavish, chintzy, spectacular, and glitchy – in a word: overproduced. Nothing says overproduced like the severed head of a child actor. The teacup boy Chip Potts is generally handled by having the young actor fitted with a hat that makes his head look like a teacup while his body is obscured within a teacart. In one short scene, however, Mrs. Potts carries Chip’s disembodied (albeit animatronic) teacup head across the stage on a tray, a la Reanimator.  All of this ghastly technology and expense goes into a prop only used in a single pass across the stage, while some other items seem to be made of tempera paint and cardboard.

I won’t go into much detail about other problems with the production. Lighting Designer Natasha Katz so over-lights the set that the house lights seem perpetually on.  Static from bad mics is louder than vocals from operational mics. Scenic Designer Stanley A. Meyer has some brilliant moveable set pieces that recombine to suggest various interiors and exteriors, but the library (so integral to the story) is suggested by a painted daisy chain of giant books unbefitting of the border on a flyer for a library book sale. The Beast’s transformation back into a man is handled out of sight of the audience.

The saviors of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast are the puppets, the music, and the actors.

Basil Twist’s Puppet Design for the old woman and the wolves is one part Muppets and two parts Redmoon. The orchestra, under the direction of Carolyn Violi, is superb.

Alan Menken’s music still wows twenty years later.  The late Howard Ashman’s lyrics are still intricate and funny and carry the plot forward.  Seven new songs not included in the Oscar-winning animated film, penned by Alan Menken and the legendary Tim Rice, fit seamlessly alongside the Menken/Ashman compositions.

The unrelenting talent of this cast accounts for the largest portion of this production’s success. Nathaniel Hackmann’s smarmy loutish Gaston is lovely to hate.  Liv Shivener’s amazing voice and indomitable charm as Belle have the whole audience in love with her from her first entrance through the curtain call.

Justin Glaser is somehow capable of both monumental and subtle emotion through the heavy prosthetic makeup of the Beast.  Glaser is intimidating and troubled and pathetic and warm.  He dynamically conveys such an amazing range of psychological change in the Beast that the big physical reveal once the spell is broken is more or less superfluous (but come on, behind a black curtain?  Really?).

The one to watch is Lumiere played by Merritt David Janes.  This performance is not some knock-off of Maurice Chevalier by way of Jerry Orbach. Janes is the Emcee from Cabaret, Edmund Blackadder, and Casanova, put in a blender set to saucy. The clumsy candle-hand props do not fetter him. “Be Our Guest” is rightly the showstopper at the end of Act I; through all the pageantry and spectacle, Janes carries the number upon his shoulders without ever shrugging away from the enormity of this enchanted pomp.

Ultimately, the gorgeous, rich performances overcome the technical shortcomings of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.  A wonderful ensemble is magnified through the performances by Liz Shivener, Justin Glaser, and the phenomenal Merritt David Janes.  Take your children if they can stomach a disembodied head on a platter, and if you can limit your urge to preserve the joy on their faces with a simple snapshot.

3 STARS

(“Disney’s Beauty and the Beast” runs through April 4, 2010, at the Cadillac Palace Theatre, 151 W. Randolph, Chicago. 312-902-1400.) Buy Tickets

Beauty and the Beast 2010 (Chicago) Tickets - Broadway in Chicago

Beauty and the Beast - Official Website

Beauty and the Beast production photos by Joan Marcus.

By J. Scott Hill

If you have seen Peter Bogdanovich’s critically unacclaimed film adaptation of Noises Off, starring Carol Burnett and Michael Caine, you may actively avoid going to see live productions of Noises Off.  Be assured that the film is not the play.  The play’s the thing.

Since its premiere on the London stage in 1982, Noises Off has become a favorite of professional and amateur theatre companies alike.  Michael Frayn’s oft-tweaked script has a foolproof trick: it is a metafarce, a farce about a farcically conducted production of a farce called Nothing On – a play within a play – replete with a playbill for the fictional Nothing On inserted into the playbill for Noises Off.  Bad acting, flubbed lines and entrances, and cardboard sets are not necessarily a liability to any given performance of Noises Off.  Thankfully, Theater at the Center’s current staging of Noises Off does not rely on Frayn’s clever failsafe.

Noises Off is a farce in three acts, each act taking the audience through the first act of the horrible fictional farce Nothing On at a different point in its ten-week tour.  Act I of Noises Off is the final dress-rehearsal of the hastily mounted Nothing On, with half of the cast thinking it is only the technical run-through for setting the lighting and sound cues.  Act II flips the entire set around, and the formal audience gets to see a mid-run performance from backstage with infighting among cast and crew already in full swing.  For Act III, the set is flipped back around, and the audience is shown a performance from near the end of the tour, as the relationships among several people involved with the production of Nothing On have deteriorated into open hostility.

Director William Pullinsi made a safe and surefire, but ultimately successful, choice in mounting Noises Off. The excellent ensemble makes this production an enjoyable evening at the theatre.

Will Clinger, longtime host of WTTW-11’s Wild Chicago, shines as director Lloyd Dallas. Lloyd’s eyes are already off of the dreadfully lame Nothing On before its run even begins, and onto his next project, Richard III.  As Lloyd, Clinger transforms British reserve into outrage-by-way-of-apathy.

The questionable competence of washed-up, frumpy actress Dotty Otley is played by Marilynn Bogetich with aplomb.  In Act I, her frustration and ineptitude with the stage-business regarding several plates of sardines was palpable and priceless.

Dale Benson.  After half a century of consistent excellence on the stage, is it even necessary to say in a review that Dale Benson is wonderful?  Dale Benson is wonderful.  At the performance I saw, Mr. Benson was not miked properly (proper sound levels being a consistent problem at Theatre at the Center), yet he overcame this with his professionalism and craft.  As the haggard, cantankerous veteran actor and inveterate alcoholic Selsdon, Benson sets the flow of every scene he appears in.  His comic timing is impeccable, as is his ability to lend focus to his fellow actors.

This production of Noises Off contains a delightful Easter Egg for regular attendees of Theatre at the Center productions: Jason R. Wroblewski plays Nothing On’s Stage Manager Tim Allgood.  Wroblewski has been involved in one capacity or another in the last sixteen productions at Theatre at the Center, often making the most of a small but never lesser role onstage in addition to his duties as Assistant Stage Manager or Stage Manager. How wonderful to see this talented young performer step into such a pivotal part and excel.  As Tim, Wroblewski exudes the frantic calm and exasperated diligence of all good stage managers.  Where other actors might play Tim panicky for laughs, Wroblewski gets things done, reversing on a dime when needed, radiating the fatalistic industry necessary to mollycoddle the neurotic cast of Nothing On through a ruin of a show to the final curtain.

Noises Off is a classic farce well executed by a strong ensemble under the direction of William Pullinsi.  Especially strong performances by Will Clinger, Marilynn Bogetich, Dale Benson, and Jason R. Wroblewski carry three ever-worsening takes on Act I of the play-within-a-play to the audience, resulting in glorious uproar.  The laughs still come fast and easy thirty-three years after playwright Michael Frayn first penned the one-act Exits that grew into this light delight.

3 STARS

(“Noises Off” runs through March 21 at Theatre at the Center, 1040 Ridge Rd., Munster, IN.  219-836-3255.)

Theatre at the Center (Munster,IN)

Noises Off production photos by Michael Brosilow.

Review by J. Scott Hill - Photo Essay by Venus Zarris

O gentle Reader! Dost thou long for bygone days of yore what echo with the din of clashing swords? Dost thou loveth well to feast with thine humble hands and escheweth foul cutlery?  Thou mayest, much as I.  If it is such, let me implore thee to kindly suffer these words a bit further….

Such affectation is infectious.  Whether you are under the influence of the smiling performer playing your waiter at Disneyworld, or the village idiot at the Bristol Renaissance Faire, an immersive theatrical experience can transform your mood and transport you to another place and time.

In Schaumburg, there is a giant edifice built to the immersive experience, besides IKEA: Medieval Times.  The size of the Schaumburg castle is impressive.  Ticketholders are received as guests for dinner and tournament at the behest of King Phillipe.  As guests wend their way through the queue, they are assigned a champion, are fed into an anachronistic photo-op with the Lord Chancellor (who serves as emcee of the show), and are led into the Hall of Arms, a great-room populated with merchants.  Need a dirk?  Need a drink (served in a commemorative glass that you can keep)? Need cosplay gear?  Peruse the possibilities.  Guests may also gaze down the Hall of Stallions at some of the horses used in the tournament, or duck into the Museum of Torture.

Guests of the King are seated in the Grand Ceremonial Arena in the color-coded pavilions of their respective champions.  Each of the impressive knights is given a name and a backstory in the Commemorative Program, but they are their colors to the waiting crowd: yellow, blue, red, black-and-white, red-and-yellow, and green.  Unceremoniously relegated to the left-hand side of the King’s dais — sinister being the Latin word for “left hand” — is the pavilion of the Green Knight.

As the servants take drink orders and vegetarian meal requests, the foul Green Knight kidnaps Prince Tristan.  The dinner and tournament must continue as planned. It is the age-old story of realm-loses-prince, realm-continues-with-feast-and-fun, vile-kidnapper-attempts-to-hijack-tournament, villain-has-comeuppance, realm-regains-prince.

During the feast, guests are treated to lighter entertainments: pageantry, displays of riding skill, the magnificent Andalusian horses performing intricate gaits, even falconry.  Engaging as they are, these feats are not what the crowd desires.  While desserts are served, a safety net is rolled down between the audience and the arena floor.  This is when things truly get medieval.

Brave knights battle in armed combat.  Swords and battle-axes and bolas clash in a rain of bright sparks.  Lances in joust explode into so much kindling.  This fighting is fast-paced and thrilling.  This spectacle occurs on a scale beyond expectations, with choreography more elaborate and precise than is often seen on stage or screen.  This tournament provides heart-pounding, brutal heroism to the delight of all.

To help the illusion that this is eleventh-century Spain, the performers are not listed by name in the program.  A few of the actors behind this very fine and skilled work deserve mention.

The Black-and-White Knight, played by Scott Madden, was a perfect vision of chivalry.  His combat was fierce and the audience could feel his exhaustion as he continued to fight within the tournament and for the freedom of his prince.

Dave Gordon as the Lord Chancellor (see top image) never broke character as he greeted every entering guest.  In fact, if a guest played along, greeting the Lord Chancellor with the propriety befitting the royal court, Gordon seemed invigorated, digging deeper.  As the master of ceremonies and guide for the audience through this tale and this realm, Gordon captivated the crowd with his kind manner and regal presence.

The most lustrous performance came from that personification of evil, the Green Knight — played with relish by Robert Idrizi.  Idrizi’s low, gravelly voice complemented his viciousness.  His skill as a fighter was formidable; his skill as an actor, portraying the Green Knight’s lust for blood in his quest for power, was masterful. Idrizi made everyone hate the contemptuous Green Knight from the very start.

As for the food, the standard meal was hearty, filling, and inoffensive but not great.  The tomato bisque, er, Dragon’s Blood Soup was tasty.  The garlic bread, roasted half-chicken, and spare rib were passable, but most of the joy of eating them was derived from sucking sauce and grease off of finger and bone.  The herb-roasted potato was delicious.  The Pastry of the Castle was a cinnamon-apple popover that was better than most.

For a real treat, choose the vegetarian meal.  Instead of the meats, the vegetarian meal includes a stuffed portobello mushroom cap, a skewer of roasted vegetables, and hummus with pita chips.  Our servant, the delightful Steel, told us that while the standard fare is prepared en masse, the vegetarian meals are prepared individually after they are ordered — and this freshness was plainly evident.

And so, Gentle Reader, here endeth the adventure.  Medieval Times doth provide fair sustenance to the masses, and delectable victuals for them what detesteth the flesh of slain creatures. Yea, hear me and know that spectacle and gallantry aboundeth in the realm of King Phillipe, and the feast for the eyes shall overwhelmeth thy spirit with majestic Andulusians and epic warriors of days anon.

3 STARS

(“Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament” runs continually at 2001 N. Roselle Road, Schaumburg. (888)935-6878/(888) WE-JOUST)

MEDIEVALTIMES.COM: The Official Medieval Times Website

* Deep discounts are currently available through the Medieval Times website that make this adventure in chivalry cost no more than dinner and a movie. Be sure to join the Birthday Fellowship for free admission on your special day (restrictions apply).  Package upgrades are available. *

Medieval Times images by Venus Zarris.