Theater Review Archives - Chicago Reader

Four people sit on orange rolling office chairs. They are wearing a mix of "professional" clothing (jackets and ties) with shorts. At the far left, the person in the chair holds a cement block. The next person to the right is beating against a suitcase with a drumstick. The two people toward the right of the photo are staring ahead, looking a little disgruntled

Fire sale

by Dmitry Samarov March 23, 2023March 23, 2023

What does material success look like to young people in 2023? Is it possible to attain the lifestyle they see in 80s TV shows? Is that something to aspire to? A talented Neo-Futurist troupe takes on capitalism, parents’ expectations, their own hopes and dreams, and whether it’s even possible to just get by in this […]

Two Black men stand facing each other in what looks like a wooden cabin set with rough wooden plank walls. The man on the left is bald, wearing dark trousers, a light shirt, and a dark vest. The man on the right is wearing overalls and a plaid shirt. Both are bearded. They look as if they are caught mid-laugh. The man on the left is holding what looks like a diploma or some sort of certificate. Behind them we also see light green curtains and a set of shelves with various household implements on them. A table with a lace tablecloth and a chair covered in light red patterned upholstery is visible at the lower left.

Theater Review

The pain of history

by Sheri Flanders March 23, 2023March 23, 2023

I cannot recommend this play without caveats. At least to Black people. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad play. As a matter of fact, it’s a very good play. It’s clever, well-written, timely, and it makes good use of unusual devices. The quality of the play is not the problem. The problem […]

Three figures are seen onstage. A young white woman with long brown hair is seated at the left, wearing vaguely medieval clothing and holding a long wooden pole in both hands. She is smiling. Seated next to her toward the right of the photo is a young Black woman in similar garb, who looks alarmed. In front of her is a person wearing a mask like a dragon or unicorn, holding a cane and also wearing glittery sleeves. The floor underneath is filled with patches of bright color, and there is a glittery wall hanging in the background.

Theater Review

Interactive inclusivity

by Kimzyn Campbell March 23, 2023March 23, 2023

Filament Theatre’s Think Fast, Jordan Chase!, written by Sonia Goldberg and directed by Jamal Howard, is full of plot twists which weave in and out of schoolyard and fantasy. Addressing difficult social scenarios that kids encounter, it opens with a plucky Jordan (Christabel Donkor) and her majestic bestie Mahari (Joolz Stroop) on the playground. Relations […]

Kayla Boye, a white woman with dark hair piled on her head, sits at a table in a black slip dress and a pearl necklace. She holds a pair of horn-rimmed glasses in one hand and what appears to be an orange toothbrush in the other. A black plastic garbage bag is on the table in front of her, and a series of lights dangle behind her.

Theater Review

Beckettian summit

by Jack Helbig March 23, 2023March 23, 2023

Dame Peggy Ashcroft considered the role of Winnie in Samuel Beckett’s notoriously difficult Happy Days a “summit part,” one of those roles, like Hamlet or King Lear, that tests an actor’s mettle and proves her alpha status in the pack. (Ashcroft played Winnie in a 1975 production at the Old Vic Theatre in London.) Chicago […]

Theater Review

Utopia for two

by Marissa Oberlander March 23, 2023March 23, 2023

Promethean Theatre’s world premiere of local playwright Trina Kakacek’s two-act dramedy, directed by Anna C. Bahow, is a unique and meaty thought experiment that would benefit from some cleanup and a tighter approach. Between Ida (a winning and scene-stealing Cameron Feagin) and Vivian (Kali Skatchke)—the lone inhabitants of Progress, Ida’s vision of matriarchal utopia rooted […]

Two lines of performers (three per line) stand onstage. They are dressed in vaguely 19th-century garb, holding up metal drinking mugs Their left legs are all raised akimbo and they are leaning to the right of the photo. They are surrounded by cabaret tables and chairs.

Theater Review

Bed to crime to bed

by Kelly Kleiman March 23, 2023March 23, 2023

Directors have two jobs: to help the audience understand what the play is about and to stage it so the audience can see it. Director Fred Anzevino has failed at both here. The Threepenny Opera is, like most Bertolt Brecht works, a critique of respectability: its antihero Macheath is a charming criminal, while its villains […]

Theater Review

Woven tales

by Amanda Finn March 23, 2023March 23, 2023

Hajja Souad’s story, eight decades of life lived, is woven into a narrative of resilience, hope, and the changing tides in Palestine during her long lifetime. Brought to life in the U.S. premiere of The Shroud Maker at Chicago Dramatists by International Voices Project in collaboration with Intercultural Music, Ahmed Masoud’s play about a burial […]

The setting is a family kitchen. Five people are gathered around it, toasting each other with tea glasses. The table is oval, covered with an orange tablecloth. The chairs are yellow. Three younger people are seated. At left is a bearded man with blue jeans and a pink shirt. Next to him is a clean-shaven young man in a black T-shirt and black shirt with vertical pinstripes. On the right is a young person who identifies as nonbinary in the show. They are wearing brown trousers and a teal patterned short-sleeved shirt with green animal slippers on their feet. Standing behind the table on the right is a bald bespectacled older man in a black turtleneck. To his left is a woman also older than those at the table in a short-sleeved white sweater. The feeling is one of joy and celebration.

Theater Review

Loss and joy

by Kerry Reid March 17, 2023March 17, 2023

“The shit we deal with in Baghdad, it doesn’t exist in America,” declares Sahir early in Martin Yousif Zebari’s Layalina, now in a world premiere at the Goodman under Sivan Battat’s direction. The newly minted Assyrian bridegroom is both right and wrong. The devastation of “shock and awe” bombing by American forces (followed by a […]

Zurin Villanueva as Tina Turner stands at a microphone center in a bronze-colored sleeveless satin minidress. To her right is Garrett Turner as Ike Turner in a pale salmon suit, holding a guitar. On the left are three Black women backup singers in sleeveless yellow dresses. A band comprised of six Black musicians (a piano player on the left, then three horn players, a drummer, and a bassist) are in the background.

Theater Review

Great songs, so-so script

by Kerry Reid March 17, 2023March 17, 2023

On the ticketing page for Broadway in Chicago’s presentation of the touring version of Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, there’s a small line at the bottom: “Please note that Tina Turner does not appear in this production.” Given that Turner turned 83 last November and retired from performing at 69, the caveat hardly seems necessary. […]

At left stands Glenn Davis, a bald Black man in a dark gray suit with an insignia pinned to the lape. He is playing Vova, and stands slightly in front and to the side of a very long open file drawer. On the right on the other side of the drawer is Yasen Peyankov as Nikolai. He is an older white man with thinning hair and dark-rimmed glasses, and he wears tan trousers, a white shirt, and a brown cardigan wth the same insignia pinned to it.

Theater Review

The lies of others

by Kerry Reid March 15, 2023March 20, 2023

I’m just going to get the obvious adjective out of the way right now: Rajiv Joseph’s Describe the Night, now in its local premiere at Steppenwolf under Austin Pendleton’s direction, is definitely Stoppardian. As in much of Tom Stoppard’s work, the story spans decades—1920-2010, to be precise. And also as in Stoppard, an object (in […]

Center is Christian Denzel Bufford as Maurice White of Earth, Wind & Fire. He is wearing white trousers and a sparkling tank top. He is flanked by two Black women, MIciah Lathan and Keya Trammell, who are singing back-up while wearing black gowns, cut to be off one shoulder.

Theater Review

Sing a song

by Sheri Flanders March 15, 2023March 15, 2023

Black Ensemble Theater has cornered the Chicago market on excellent musical tributes to prominent Black musicians, and their latest show Reasons: A Tribute to Earth, Wind & Fire (EWF) is no exception. The show is a high-octane extravaganza that opens with a set of glowing drumsticks, signaling that something special has arrived. Maurice White, the […]

A Black woman with long braids, wearing an orange hoodie, is seated on a nearly bare stage at left. To the right is a younger white person (Tristin Hall, who is nonbinary) wearing all black and standing astride a ladder.

Theater Review

Missing girls

by Katie Powers March 15, 2023March 15, 2023

In the world premiere of MIA: Where Have All the Young Girls Gone?, writer and director Mary Bonnett uses interviews and research to illuminate the crisis of missing young women in the United States. The performance interweaves the fictitious story of a missing young girl named Mia (Jamise Wright) with real-life cases and statistics, emphasizing […]

Six women in goth Renaissance-like soldiers' garb are onstage. Four of them are in a cluster in the center, holding wooden daggers with red streamers suggesting blood flowing out of them. Two other women are standing on either side of the battling group, looking on with their hands outstretched, as if cheering or yelling suggestions.

Theater Review

The three faces of Joan

by Irene Hsiao March 15, 2023March 15, 2023

Joan of Arc: history or apocrypha, saint or schizophrenic, myth or martyr? We’re all mad here, suggests Trap Door Theatre’s vivacious U.S. premiere production of Matei Vişniec’s Joan and the Fire (2007), translated by Jeremy Lawrence and directed by Nicole Wiesner. Down a narrow alleyway, through a restaurant, beyond an unimposing doorway, lies a world […]

Six Black performers stand onstage at UP Comedy Club. Two men in the center face each other as if they are in a dance-off, with two other performers on the left and two on the right looking on, gesturing and cheering.

Theater Review

Dance party, comedy extravaganza

by Cristalle Bowen March 15, 2023March 15, 2023

WTF is Black Joy, anyway? Rob Wilson aims to get into specifics with his Second City directorial debut, Dance Like There Are Black People Watching: A Black Excellence Revue. Second City has long been revered for being an improvisational comedian factory: many comics sharpen their steel within the hallowed halls and go on to have […]

Two women are onstage. At the left is a woman in a blue polka-dot bathrobe. Her arms are folded in front of her and she looks concerned. At the right is the blurred face of another woman who is in the process of lighting a cigarette. The woman on the right has her eyes closed and one hand shields the lighter flame.

Theater Review

Baby blues

by Amanda Finn March 15, 2023March 15, 2023

When I read Molly Smith Metzler’s now award-winning Cry It Out in 2018, I knew it was something special. I am still not a parent myself nor (at that point) were any of my closest friends. Fast-forward five years and a lot has changed, but Metzler’s poignant portrayal of parenthood still resonates stronger than ever. […]