Archive for October, 2009
Join in a creative arts conversation with Emerging Leaders Network Chicago at Lookingglass
When: Tuesday, October 27, 2009 | 5:30 pm
Where: Lookingglass Theatre | 821 N. Michigan
With four distinctly different generations now in the workforce and leadership coming from top to bottom and bottom to top, the need to bridge the generation gap among members of the arts community is essential. The rise of social media, lack of programming aimed towards young adults, increase in number of arts administration BA and MA programs, and discrepancy in the school of thought between generations all provide fodder for discussion.
The evening will include food and drinks, networking, and a facilitated discussion between emerging and veteran leaders—all for a suggested donation of $10.
Please join the Emerging Leaders Network Chicago (ELN Chicago) for a Creative Conversation in honor of National Arts and Humanities Month.
(And don’t forget to join us on Facebook at "ELN Chicago")
RSVP by Monday, October 26 by clicking HERE. Space is limited!
Review: “Carpenter’s Halloween” at Mary’s Attic
Definitely a treat!
The Scooty & Jojo Show presents:
Carpenters Halloween
created by Scott Bradley and Jonny Stax
directed by Scott Bradley
music-directed by Brent Moore
thru November 7th (buy tickets)
reviewed by Katy Walsh
Light their way when the darkness surrounds them…
Is this the beginning narration of a story about a beast or a line from a 1970’s pop song? In Carpenter’s Halloween Scott Bradley and Jonny Stax re-imagine John Carpenter’s 1978 Halloween movie as a musical. The Scooty & Jojo Show’s production uses the lyrics of Karen and Richard Carpenter to tell the tale of Michael Myer’s psycho ward escape and killing-spree homecoming. The results? Carpenter’s Halloween is a hilarious slasher reproduction.
“a kind of hush all over the world tonight”
Performed at Mary’s Attic, the show starts with and uses film footage projected on televisions to illustrate Michael Myer’s childhood transformation into psycho killer. The multi-talented cast, cardboard cars, live band and puppets transport you back to the familiar cult classic. The fear factor is gone as the campy show pokes fun of the movie’s scary elements 30+ year ago that, in hindsight, seem ridiculous.
“We’ve only just begun….”
Some of the best moments are new lines on the familiar script; “he always looks like that. He’s a puppet.” And “would Karen Carpenter have a second bowl of popcorn?” Leading the laughter is the stand out performance of Scott Bradley as Laurie Strode. Playing up the Laurie’s “Solitaire’s the only game in town loneliness,” Bradley hilariously mimics Jamie Lee Curtis’ memorable performance. One of many giggle-fests occurs when Lindsey (Ryan Guhde) and Tommy (Libby Lane) re-interpret the phrase “go upstairs and change your clothes.” Baby, baby, baby, aw baby I love Carpenter’s Halloween I really do!
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Examples of comments heard from audience members include – Steve: Muppets meet Python; Tom: campy, funny, songy; Shawn: scream queen lives; Scott: song slash dance; Jen: well-delivered, witty, wicked; Paul: camp built well; and James: Karen would approve!
Rating: «««
Review: Piven Theatre’s “Two by Pinter: The Lover and The Collection”
Piven needs to push the envelope
Piven Theatre Workshop presents:
Two by Pinter: “The Lover” and “The Collection”
by Harold Pinter
directed by Joyce Piven
thru November 15th (buy tickets)
reviewed by Paige Listerud
Two early works by Harold Pinter, The Lover (1962) and The Collection (1961) onstage now at Piven Theatre Workshop, probably shocked their audiences when they first premiered. Replete with BDSM and homoerotic undertones, they explore the games people play while maintaining or establishing control within a marriage or among multiple sexual relationships. Quite appropriately, you won’t find leather, whips, or chains in founder Joyce Piven’s interpretation of these little capsules of Pinter. But that doesn’t mean the dramatic stakes should be any lower for lack of accoutrement. There’s plenty of emotional sadomasochism to go around and charge the evening with peril.
Dana Black (Sarah) and Lawrence Grimm (Richard) in The Lover are certainly well paired as a married couple spicing up their relationship with their own version of extra-marital dalliances. Both are excellent in expressing an aloofness that masks the need for control in the dynamics of their sexual cat-and-mouse play.
Strangely, though, lack of chemistry plagues their efforts to depict characters with a driving need to play these games, for whatever reason. Since cool surface adherence to social pleasantry is as much a part of this couple’s game as anything else, it’s difficult to suggest just when lust and risk, danger and fear should emerge to take the foreground. But take place it must or the audience will sense the actors are playing it safe or that there are no stakes here worth playing for—either in physical or emotional safety for these characters. Black’s performance compellingly pulls the action toward the risk of intimacy, but that risk has to stand in stark contrast to the politically incorrect possibility of violence and subjugation.
The Collection fares a little better since actors Jay Reed (James) and John Francisco (Bill) take more risks, especially in venturing toward the violent. Francisco’s Bill is charming, erotic, and shifty enough to take on any role he feels required of him in the moment; Reed plays James with just the right suggestion of privilege and pomposity that gets him into trouble later on. It’s in this second one-act that Grimm, as Harry, gets to pour on Pinter’s icy, savage language with a relish he seems denied as Richard in the first one-act. It’s a play with more teeth in it–but even then, the actors could push it a little farther.
There you have it–at the risk of sounding gratuitous, let there be more sex, more violence. These are middle class people with dark, dark dreams. I respect the need not to be over the top, but pulling punches also does grave disservice to Pinter’s works. Piven and cast must demonstrate that they are not afraid to go into the night.
Rating: ««½
Productions Personnel
| Playwright: | Harold Pinter |
| Director: | Joyce Piven |
| Prod. Manager: | Jodi Gottberg |
| Lighting Design: | Seth Reinick |
| Sound Design: | Collin Warren |
| Props Design: | Linda Laake |
| Dialect Coach: | Jodi Gottberg |
| Set Design: | Aaron Menninga |
| Stage Manager: | John Kearns |
| Cast: | Dana Black John Francisco Jay Reed Lawrence Grimm |
Review: Redtwist Theatre’s “Lettice and Lovage”
The Joy of Eccentricity
Redtwist Theatre presents:
Lettice and Lovage
by Peter Shaffer
directed by Steve Scott
thru November 8th (buy tickets)
reviewed by Paige Listerud
The Redtwist Theatre production of Peter Shaffer’s Lettice and Lovage is nothing but pure comic delight. Director Steve Scott keeps it simple and allows the talents of Millicent Hurley (Lettice) and Jan Ellen Graves (Lotte) to take flight. Starting out as opponents, Lettice and Lotte solidify their friendship over shared confessions of their philosophies and tastes. Hurley and Graves ground their characters in the fullness of flesh and blood, accenting their foils’ eccentricities without a hint of condescension. The result is a comedy whipped up to deceptively light and careless fun. Sterling and well-balanced performances by Jim Morley (Bardolph) and Maura Kidwell (Miss Framer) set the production like a little diamond in silver.
Charlotte “Lotte” Schoen, manager of tours conducted through Fustian House in Wiltshire, England, must sack Lettice Douffet for deviating from the official tour script. But Lettice, who believes her duty is “to enlarge, to enliven, to enlighten” her tourist audience, finds Fustian House “haunted by the ghost of Nothing Ever Happened” and since “fantasy floods in where fact leaves a vacuum,” feels free to embellish on family estate history. Though Lotte cannot allow Lettice to have free reign with the facts, she is drawn nevertheless into Lettice’s world and reveals passions one would never have thought possible in her staid, practical nature.
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The light, quick precision of Hurley and Graves’ performances allows Shaffer’s comedy to be what it was intended: a little rebellion against the grayness of the modern world that champions the imagination against resigned acceptance to what is. Lettice and Lotte may indeed act like schoolgirls, but their childlike play sets the soul free from crushing convention. In laughing with, as well as at, their shenanigans the audience becomes their co-conspirators.
“Without danger, there is no theater,” says Lettice, a woman whose whole life confronts head on the fear of appearing ridiculous. But what is that compared with submitting to the absurdity of promoting an inedible cheese product at a supermarket for her living? Beneath Lettice’s brave eccentricities lies the incapacity to accept the gross absurdities of capitalist civilization; just as beneath Lotte’s practicality lies a radical revulsion against modern ugliness. Their blossoming friendship gives them the freedom to be themselves with each other and, who knows, perhaps create an alternative future. For a couple of hours, we get to steep in the light of their growing bond with each other and enjoy the freedom of their bloodless revolution.
Rating: ««««
Production Personnel
| Playwright: | Peter Shaffer |
| Director: | Steve Scott |
| Stage Manager: | Shauna Warren |
| Scenic Design: | Jack Magaw |
| Light Design: | Christopher Burpee |
| Sound Design: | Christopher Kriz |
| Costume Design: | Erin Fast |
| Cast: | Jan Ellen Graves Millicent Hurley Maura Kidwell Tom Lally Jim Morley |
Review: Steep Theatre’s “Kill the Old, Torture Their Young”
Out of Place, Out of Time
Victory Gardens presents:
Kill the Old, Torture Their Young
by David Harrower
directed by Kathryn Walsh
thru November 7th (buy tickets)
reviewed by Paige Listerud
The success of Blackbird at Victory Gardens Theatre this summer has exposed Chicago to the work of Edinburgh born playwright David Harrower. Kill the Old, Torture Their Young, onstage at Steep Theatre, is Harrower’s second play, which had its world premiere at Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre in 1998, fresh from his breakout success with Knives in Hens (1995).
“Kill the Old, Torture Their Young” is also the name of a song by Biffy Clyro, a Scottish alternative grunge band, which also had its beginnings in the mid-90s under the name Screwfish. Interestingly enough, Harrower bookends his play with monologues from a nameless Rock Singer (Derek Garner), commenting on modern alienation from an airplane in flight. But any connection between the two may have more to do with the 90’s explosion of Scottish culture than anything else. It’s not that the playwright might be familiar with Biffy Clyro; it’s that the band’s lyrics, too, are chockfull of the alienation and dislocation that inform Harrower’s central themes.
Steep Theatre’s production dislocates Kill the Old, Torture Their Young even further, from its cultural and historical roots. Placing the action in America, the actors do not engage in Scottish dialect; nor is there much of a strong nod to the 1990s postmodern use of multiple narratives–experimentation that ultimately influenced major commercial films like Magnolia. Director Katherine Walsh’s choices would be more than excusable with a stronger cast, with better timing to pull off all the nuanced humor of Harrower’s writing. However, given the unevenness of performances and lack of a cohesive ensemble, this production loses its bearings in more ways than one.
What also goes missing is daring punk/grunge energy that would better inform the rage of a character like Darren (Niall McGinty), a man whose thwarted ambition to become an actor results in otherwise inexplicable violence. Much like the Scottish novel Trainspotting, written by Irvine Welsh, made into a major motion picture, Kill the Old, Torture Their Young contains an underlying current of rebellion against alienating daily capitalist existence. That rage, unfortunately, goes largely unexploited and un-acted on in this production. Sadly, characters in this production seem to share only common resignation to the dreary, meaninglessness rhythm of their commodified lives.
That being said, a few performances create interest. Jim Poole’s quiet and stirring portrayal of Steven stands out, as the manager who could film the city he loves better than Robert (Peter Moore), the famous documentarian hired to do the job. Nice moments are created between Robert and Heather (Julia Siple) in a hotel room together. Paul (Leonard Kraft) and Angela (Bronwen Prosser) make a realistic pair of lost souls, who will likely stay together even if one doesn’t know what to do about the other. James Allen’s chagrined Birdwatcher and Patricia Donegan’s random Woman in Robes add badly needed humor and spice to the proceedings.
Rating: ««
Production Personnel
| Playwright: | David Harrower |
| Director: | Kathryn Walsh |
| Asst. Director: | Alex Hugh Brown |
| Prod. Manager: | Julia Siple |
| Scenic Design: | Dan Stratton |
| Lighting Design | Samantha Szigeti |
| Costume Design: | Melissa Torchia |
| Sound Design: | M. Florian Staab |
| Fight Choreographer: | Joey de Bettencourt |
| Stage Manager: | Jen Poulin |
| Cast: | James Allen Patricia Donegan Dereck Garner Leonard Kraft Niall McGinty Peter Moore Jim Poole Bronwen Prosser Julia Siple |
Banana Shpeel – Cast announced for Chicago production
Stars from Broadway’s Jersey Boys and Wicked join cast
Playing at the Chicago Theatre from November 19 – January 3
Stars from Broadway’s Jersey Boys and Wicked will join the distinctive cast of comedic and dance talent in the brand new theatrical production, Banana Shpeel, presented by Cirque du Soleil and MSG Entertainment. Banana Shpeel begins performances at The Chicago Theatre on November 19, with an official Opening Night on Wednesday, December 2. The limited Chicago engagement concludes January 3, 2010, and Banana Shpeel debuts in New York at The Beacon Theatre in February 2010.
The Cast
Michael Longoria, who starred as Frankie Valli in the Broadway production of Jersey Boys, will portray Emmett, an innocent and romantic young actor, while Annaleigh Ashford, who starred as Glinda in Wicked on Broadway and in Chicago, portrays Emmett’s love interest Katie, and Remo Airaldi, a prolific resident company member of Boston’s acclaimed American Repertory Theater, portrays Schmelky, a cruel and irritable theater producer. Joining them is an international crew of comedic actors: Claudio Carneiro (Brazil), Daniel Passer (U.S.), Patrick de Valette (France), Gordon White (Canada), and Wayne Wilson (U.S.). In keeping with Cirque du Soleil’s unique and diverse performers, global talents showcased in Banana Shpeel include Russian hand balancer Dmitry Bulkin, Vietnamese juggler Tuan Le, Spanish foot juggler Vanessa Alvarez, and the American sister-brother tap dance duo, Joseph and Josette Wiggan. Completing the cast is a talented ensemble comprised of 10 “triple threats”: singer-actor-dancers Robyn Baltzer, Alex Ellis, Adrienne Jean Fisher, DeWitt Fleming Jr., Luke Hawkins, Kathleen Hennessey, Adrienne Reid, Anthony J. Russo, Melissa Schott, and Steven T. Williams.
The Band
Under the direction of Band Leader Robert Cookman, the Banana Shpeel original score is performed live on stage by Roland Barber (trombone), Bobby Brennan (bass), James Campagnola (multi-instrumental), Iohann Laliberté (drums), Jean-François Ouellet (saxophone), Peter Sachon (cello) and Scott Steen (trumpet).
The Show
Banana Shpeel is a roller-coaster mix of styles that blends comedy with tap, hip hop, eccentric dance and slapstick, all linked by a narrative that ignites a succession of wacky adventures. This is not circus, or a musical or a variety show, or even 
vaudeville. It is Banana Shpeel!
Synopsis: Propelled by crazy humor and intense choreography, Banana Shpeel plunges us into the world of Schmelky, who dangles fame and fortune in front of Emmett, who has come to audition for him. Emmett soon finds himself trapped in a flamboyant, anarchic world where Schmelky sows terror and reigns supreme. Emmett falls in love with the beautiful Katie and meets a bunch of absurd characters, including the strange Banana Man. But who is this mysterious Banana Man and how can Emmett escape the clutches of Schmelky and his henchmen?
The Creative Team
The Banana Shpeel Creative Team includes: Artistic Guides Guy Laliberté (Cirque du Soleil Founder) and Gilles Ste-Croix; Writer and Director David Shiner; Director of Creation Serge Roy; Composer and Musical Director Jean-François Côté; Comic Act Designer Stefan Haves; Choreographer Jared Grimes; Costume Designer Dominique Lemieux; Set Designer and Props Co-Designer Patricia Ruel; Props Co-Designer Jasmine Catudal; Lighting Designer Bruno Rafie; Sound Designer Harvey Robitaille; and Make-up Designer Eleni Uranis.
Banana Shpeel writer and director David Shiner started out as a mime in Paris. His career took off in 1984 when he was discovered at the renowned circus festival Cirque de Demain. Shiner later teamed up with Bill Irwin to create the wordless two-man show Fool Moon, which played from 1992 to 1999, including three Broadway runs. Fool Moon picked up numerous prizes, including a Tony Award, Drama Desk Award and an Outer Critics Circle Award. In 2007, Shiner directed his first Cirque du Soleil production, the big top touring show KOOZA.
Performance Schedule
Banana Shpeel performs from November 19, 2009 through January 3, 2010 at The Chicago Theatre
Ticket Information
Tickets are available now for all performances and can be purchased at www.cirquedusoleil.com or www.thechicagotheatre.com or by calling 1-800-745-3000. Regular ticket prices range from $23 to $98, with limited Premium and Tapis Rouge VIP Experience tickets also available. Discounts are available for groups of 20 or more, by calling 1-866-6-CIRQUE (1-866-624-7783).
Review: Strawdog Theatre’s “St. Crispin’s Day”
Strawdog season-premiere struggles to find the funny
Strawdog Theatre presents:
St. Crispin’s Day
by Matt Pepper
directed by Christopher Fox
thru October 31st (buy tickets)
reviewed by Oliver Sava
Strawdog’s St. Crispin’s Day looks pretty, but just isn’t all that funny. The show’s striking set (Anders Jacobson, Judy Radovsky) and lighting design (Sean Mallary) is weighed down by the plodding rhythm of the action, and the production seems to drift in a haze of average with the occasional flash of promise.
Matt Pepper’s anti-war comedy, set during the Battle of Agincourt of Shakespeare’s Henry V, tells the story of three soldiers that find themselves engaged in a plot to kidnap the king, masterminded by Irishman Will (Kyle Hamman). Along the way they’ll have their way with French prostitutes, rob a few churches, and occasionally fling shit at each other like monkeys. The problem is that director Christopher Fox and his cast haven’t found the humanity behind the humor, creating caricatures instead of characters.
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Pepper’s script juggles themes of patriotism, conscientious objection, and pacifism with slapstick physical antics and toilet humor, but the contrast would be more effective if the comedy came from a place other than lowest common denominator sight gags. The laughs begin to feel stale and cheap after a while, and the slow pace of the dialogue sucks the energy out of scenes, creating jokes that crash to the ground long before landing in the audience’s laps.
Marika Engelhardt and Caroline Heff bring a much-needed spark to the proceedings as two French prostitutes with ulterior motives, and Heff’s scenes with Carlo Garcia, playing sheepish young soldier Tom, capture all the innocence and naïveté of young love. Unfortunately, the rest of the show lacks the nuance of these few scenes and does not ever manage to rise above being a didactic farce.
Rating: ««
Review: Marriott Theatre’s “Hairspray”
Marriott Lincolnshire brings the beat and never stops
Marriott Theatre presents:
Hairspray
by Marc Shaiman, Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan
directed/choreographed by Marc Robin
thru December 6th (but tickets)
reviewed by Oliver Sava
The genius of Hairspray is its pulse; when the show starts moving it never slows down, a feat accomplished by the retro rock n’ roll stylings of Marc Shaiman’s music and a hilarious but socially conscious book by Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan. Exquisitely directed and choreographed by Marc Robin, Marriott Lincolnshire’s Hairspray captures the limitless energy of the early 60’s with the kind of finesse that makes it all look so easy.
Not enough can be said about Robin’s creative prowess, seamlessly maneuvering his actors around the tricky stage of Marriott’s in-the-round theater. When all 29 actors in the cast perform the show’s final number to all four sides of the house, the rush is exhilarating. Of course, it helps that Robin is assisted by a cast of the city’s top musical theater talent and Chicago newcomer Marissa Perry, who comes straight from Broadway where she played the fifth and final Tracy Turnblad.
Set in 1962 Baltimore, Hairspray tells the story of spunky teenager Tracy’s mission to become a star on “The Corny Collins Show” and date hunky Link Larkin (Billy Harrigan Tighe) while overcoming her overprotective mother Edna (Ross Lehman) and the bitchy Barbie mother-daughter duo of Velma and Amber Von Tussle (Hollis Resnick, Johanna McKenzie Miller). When the dance moves Tracy learns from black classmate Seaweed J. Stubbs (Joshua Breckenridge) in detention make her Baltimore’s hottest sensation, she sets out to integrate her favorite television show with the help of best friend Penny Pingleton (Heidi Kettenring) and Seaweed’s brassy mother Motormouth Maybelle (E. Faye Butler).
Perry is pitch-perfect as the show’s protagonist, and she brings an infectious energy to the stage that not only spreads to her costars, but the audience as well. When she squeaks out the first notes of the show’s opening number “Good Morning Baltimore” there is no doubt that this is a role that fits her like a glove. The powerhouse vocals and amazing comedic timing of Butler and Kettenring make their scenes with Perry crackle with energy, and watching Lehman’s Edna burst out of her shell and embrace her buxom beauty is heartwarming. Breckenridge gives Seaweed an unbridled sensuality that adds a layer of grit to his dirty dancing, (but there were moments when his vocals paled in comparison to his costars). Marriott’s Hairspray is musical theater at its finest, and should not be missed.
Rating: ««««
Review: “The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity”
Victory Gardens and Teatro Vista presents:
The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity
by Kristoffer Diaz
directed by Eddie Torres
thru November 1st (buy tickets)
reviewed by Catey Sullivan
Midway through rehearsals for The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, actor Christian Litke took a foot to the face that landed him in the emergency room, suborbital socket bone beneath one eye pulverized. Opening night, he went on with a Technicolor shiner you could see from the back row. Per Kristoffer Diaz’s strict must-not-look-like-fight-choreography stage directions, Litke proceeded to take another half a dozen “camel kicks” in the kisser – as well as a few spine-rattling power-bombs. As it is in real life, the professional wrestling world depicted in Chad Deity is a brand of fakery that’s truly brutal.
While audiences aren’t apt to suffer physical damage like Litke, The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity is a knock-out victory of equal parts brains and brawn.
Power-bombs (wherein one’s spine hits the floor at a velocity surely spines were not intended to withstand) and lightning-quick roundhouses aside, Diaz’ ground (and bone) breaking take on the world of professional wrestling isn’t rooted in violence for the sake of shock, although it’s plenty violent and often shocking. It doesn’t traffic in the pandering stereotypes that fuel the WWE, although it uses those stereotypes point out their ridiculousness. This is a tale of race, racism and all-American boys grasping at the shiny, illusive brass ring of the All American Dream. It unfolds in hip-hop rhythms and is infused with some of the most politically incorrect language you’ll hear outside a meeting of the Alabama Chapter of the John Birch Society.
In director Eddie Torres, Diaz has a collaborator able to grasp and convey this incendiary material without missing a beat. The script requires a keen ear for both polyglot urban rhythms and the unctuous whitebread idiocy. Torres hears them all, and makes them resonate.
Chad Deity (Kamal Angelo Bolden , looking like the after photo in one of those back-of-the-magazine protein powder ads) is a professional wrestling champ who – as his bigot boss Everett K. Olsen (James Krag, a perfect mix of oiliness and ignorance) likes to say – makes people glad to be American. When Chad wins a fight, the terrorists lose.
But the real hero of Chad Deity is Macedonia Guerra (Desmin Borges, in a breakout performance that should have every agent in town clamoring to meet with him), aka The Mace. Macedonia’s job is to make the likes of Chad Deity look good. Stars like Chad Deity can’t exist without people like the Mace willing to act like they’ve lost every bout. Borges is a wholly endearing mix of self-deprecation and fierce pride. He knows he’s far more intelligent than his boss will ever be. He also knows that all his innate intelligence isn’t worth a slap in a world that prefers its villains and heroes in simple, black and white terms.
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So Mace suits up like a Frito Bandito outfit every fight, declares that he lives to steal American jobs and send American money back to drug lords in Mey-hee-co and lets Chad beat the crap out of him. Because when Chad Deity wins, Americans know why they’re fighting in Afghanistan, E.K. declares. To which the Mace sighs under his bright red sombrero and resignedly shakes his maracas.
For Macedonia, a way up in the wrestling world presents itself in Vigneshwar Padujar (Usman Ally), a multi-lingual Brooklyn-born Indian kid who is, no matter where he goes, “the most amazing thing in the room.” Charisma might owe Chad Deity money, but VP owns the entire fricking bank.
“I’m gonna get you a job,” Madedonia tells VP, and so begins the career of Chad Deity’s next enemy. E.K., in a move so awful it’s hilarious, has VP hit the ring as The Fundamentalist, a “Moslem” who enters flanked by women in burkas and praising Allah. In the lead up to a pay-per-view bout with Chad, the Fundamentalist beats up guys with names like Billy America (Litke, draped in a confederate flag and entering to a blast of Sweet Home Alabama) and The Patriot (also Litke, this time wearing an American flag). The fights manage to be both a tragic commentary on ugly Americans like E.K. and a wildly amusing mockery of them.
As animosity in the ring starts bleeding into real life, the dynamic between wrestlers becomes ever more complicated. As Macedonia worriedly notes, without community among in-ring enemies, wrestling gets dangerous. So as Chad and VP come to despise each other for real, the looming bout between them become fraught with the possibility of unscripted danger.
By having greased up, impossibly muscle-y men tear through the audience waving flags and shouting threats, Chad Deity manages to instigate the kind of audience participation you’d find at ringside at a Vegas championship bout. It’s wildly fun, wickedly funny and deeply provocative. In the so-called fake world of professional wrestling, Diaz captures profundity, adventure, aspirations and true triumph. The result is a theatrical prize.
Rating: «««½
The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity continues through Nov. 1 at the Victory Gardens Biograph Theatre, 2433 N. Lincoln Ave. Tickets are $20 – $48.For more information call 773/871-3000 or go to www.victorygardens.org.
Chicago theater openings/closings this week
show openings
Anna, in the Darkness: The Basement
Bastards of Young - Tympanic Theatre
Calls to Blood - The New Colony
Cats - Cadillac Palace Theatre
Dooby Dooby Moo - Lifeline Theatre
Everyone’s Favorite Lobster - Gorilla Tango Theatre
The Flaming Dames in Vamp II - New Millenium Theatre
Heroes - Remy Bumppo Theatre
The House on Mango Street - Steppenwolf Theatre
The Last Unicorn - Promethean Theatre
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow - Filament Theatre Ensemble
The Man Who Was Thursday - New Leaf Theatre
Mrs. Gruber’s Ding Song School - Gorilla Tango Theatre
Plans 1 Through 8 from Outer Space - New Millenium Theatre
Rachel Corn and the Secret Society - Corn Productions
You Can’t Take It with You - Village Players Performing Arts Center
show closings
Ah, Wilderness! - Loyola University Chicago Theatre
Bad Touch and the Deep End - Annoyance Theatre
Dirty Talking Amish - Gorilla Tango Theatre
Dracula - Oak Park Festival Theatre
The History Boys – Timeline Theatre
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom - Court Theatre
The Night Season – Vitalist Theatre
Rent - Big Noise Theatre
Sleeping Beauty - Big Noise Theatre
Stripped: An Unplugged Evening with Marilyn’s Dress - Gorilla Tango Theatre
Wednesday Wordplay: Miles Davis, Oprah and “cactus legs”
Quotables
Your best shot at happiness, self-worth and personal satisfaction – the things that constitute real success – is not in earning as much as you can but in performing as well as you can something that you consider worthwhile.
— William Raspberry
It’s a shallow life that doesn’t give a person a few scars.
— Garrison Keillor, in Salon.com
It isn’t kind to cultivate a friendship just so one will have an audience.
— Lawana Blackwell, The Courtship of the Vicar’s Daughter, 1998
The toughest question has always been, "How do you get your ideas?" How do you answer that? It’s like asking runners how they run, or singers how they sing. They just do it!
— Lynn Johnston, Lynn on Ideas
My future starts when I wake up every morning… Every day I find something creative to do with my life.
— Miles Davis
I believe the choice to be excellent begins with aligning your thoughts and words with the intention to require more from yourself.
— Oprah Winfrey, O Magazine, December 2003
Ask not what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive… then go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.
— Howard Thurman
Urban Dictionary
the feeling on a woman’s legs as a result of not having shaved.
–Steve is mad at me!
–why?
–cuz last nite, he wanted to touch my legs and i didnt let him
–why?
–cuz, i got cactus legs, i have shaved in a week
