Three Shows – One Street! Don’t miss out!

Rogers Park Theater Renaissance

By Venus Zarris

When you think of Chicago Theater your first thoughts might go to The Loop. Between The Goodman Theatre on Dearborn and the big commercial venues that produce the Broadway in Chicago product, the other options can get easily lost. Little to no advertising money makes it impossible for them to compete for visibility but that doesn’t mean that their efforts are any less impressive or important.

There is theater being produced all around the city and suburbs, some streets even have a couple options within walking distance but Rogers Park is exploding with outstanding work. Earlier this summer The Side Project saw a production of Sweet Confinement by a new company called SiNNERMAN Ensemble. They formed after training together at the School at Steppenwolf and the fledgling company created bold, provocative, glaringly intimate and urgently powerful theater in a tiny black box.

Keep an eye on this exciting new company and the other eclectic offerings at The Side Project at 1439 W. Jarvis Ave. (map).

Now Showing On Glenwood!!!

Within about a three block radius on North Glenwood, just off the Red Line Train Morse stop, there are three plays by three very different and very impressive companies.

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The Mark Of Zorro

Seldom do you ride a continual and exhilarating wave of energetic entertainment during an entire production but Lifeline Theatre’s world premier adaptation of The Mark of Zorro delivers a tsunami of charming delight!

This show has everything going for it, both creatively and technically, but the two elements that keep rising to the surface are the unbridled humor and the flawlessly swashbuckling fight scenes. It is always a treat to go to a comedy and giggle but it is an unexpected pleasure to go to an adventure tale and squeal with laughter.

Just when you have caught your breath from the whimsical comedy you are swept away by the exciting swordplay. Normally even the best staged fight scenes tend to break the suspension of disbelief. They look telegraphed, rehearsed and contrived. But Geoff Coates’s gifted and dazzling fight choreography delivers the most believable and invigorating swordplay that I have ever seen on stage, and he does it with a large cast in a relatively small space! Long hours of rehearsal dedicated exclusively to the fight scenes pay of in terms of childlike thrills for the audience. WARNING TO THE FRONT ROW: You might just soil yourselves because the action is so close and so real!

If you are looking for exciting exploits, dastardly villains and a handsome, lovable, laughable hero, run to see The Mark of Zorro!

Rating: ««««

(“The Mark of Zorro” extended through July 20 at Lifeline Theatre, 6912 N. Glenwood. 773-761-4477.)

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Jacques Brel’s Lonesome Losers Of The Night

Theater is a pretty remarkable proposition. A group of people from varied backgrounds and disciplines come together with a unified goal of presenting a piece of work. One might think that this is a recipe for chaos, and sometimes that is the case. But miraculously it is often the ingredients for something entertaining and or evocative. Occasionally it transcends the normal conventions and expectations and the synchronicity of creation lends itself to something exceptionally compelling. It taps a vein of emotions in a way that is rare and unique. This is the case with Jacques Brel’s Lonesome Losers Of The Night, produced by the award-winning theatre company Theo Ubique.

You enter the wonderfully quaint little venue of No Exit Café, far north of the hustle and bustle of the Loop and nestled next to the Red Line elevated train tracks, and are relocated to another time and another place. But the time and place are more so the setting of altered emotions and atmosphere, rather than a specific location. You are transported to comradery, inebriation, celebration, passion, longing, betrayal, loss, and melancholy.

Director Fred Anzevino and his eloquent company create a rare gift to the audience and an exceptional contribution to the exclusive theatrical choices that Chicago has to offer. Jacques Brel’s Lonesome Losers Of The Night is a lovely homage to Brel’s talent and the perfect vehicle for Theo Ubique’s incomparable imagination.

Rating: ««««

(“Jacques Brel’s Lonesome Losers Of The Night “ extended through August 30 at No Exit Café, 6970 N. Glenwood Ave. 773-743-3355.)

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Questa

People’s Theater of Chicago delivers a solid Midwest Premiere of  Questa, by “NYPD Blue” writer Victor Bumbalo. The urban landscape is simply and immediately rendered by Patricia Perez’s exceptional mural design, starkly yet warmly depicting a skyline in ruins, and also by James Scalfani’s explosive interior cityscape design of color on black box walls, creating an homage to the vibrancy of New York with a black light painting on black velvet effect. The contrast of vitality and desolation evokes the city’s heartbeat as well as the contrasting emotions in the lives of Bumbalo’s characters before the play even begins. Annah Zaman’s subtly lovely original music infuses the production with an appropriately overwhelming melancholy.

Director Madrid St. Angelo works wonders with his resources. He creates as much honesty and consistency as possible with an uneven cast and an overly ambitions script. Shaun F. Conway, as Nicholas, and Cliff London, as Daniel, deliver the productions most believable and emotionally realized performances.

The convoluted script is thought provoking, albeit not completely engaging, and the overall production proves to be a strong effort by an up-and-coming company with plenty of dedication, talent and potential.

Rating: ««

(“Questa” runs through July 19 at The Heartland Studio Theatre, 7016 North Glenwood Ave. 773-371-1868.)