Theater Review Archives - Page 3 of 83

Five women stand in a line across the stage. The first four women are white, the woman on the far right is Black. The woman in the center is in black Grecian god-warrior garb. The second woman on the left is in contemporary clothes, sitting at her kitchen counter drinking wine. The other three are in flowing gowns and are positioned around the woman in the godlike clothing, looking at her with adoration and moving as if in a ritual dance.

The real Maenads of Monmouth

by Kerry Reid June 29, 2022July 28, 2022

Back in 2014, Theater Wit presented Madeleine George’s acerbic but aching comedy, Seven Homeless Mammoths Wander New England, in which the denizens of a small New England college town wrestle with the dusty past, as represented by the display of the title creatures in the campus museum—which no one ever visits. George’s play wove in […]

Close-up on a young white woman with dark hair, encircled with a wreath of flowers and greenery. Her arms are outstretched as she looks to the left with a look of anguish on her face.

Theater Review

An Antigone for our times

by Albert Williams June 29, 2022June 29, 2022

The central characters of Redtwist Theatre’s current production are a conservative male government leader determined to impose his laws on everyone around him and a radical young woman passionately driven to defy those laws as unjust. This is no up-to-the-minute new drama about abortion rights in America, but rather a Greek tragedy from the fifth […]

A white middle-aged man sits left in a chair. A young Black woman stands right, pointing to him. They are in a home office with flowered wallpaper and notes for debate points taped to the wall.

Theater Review

Girl, interrupted

by Kerry Reid June 29, 2022June 29, 2022

Maybe it’s a sign of our times that musicals about the aftermath of loss and grief have become so prominent in 21st-century life, from Next to Normal to Dear Evan Hansen. But while both those shows relied on plot devices that hinged on audience misdirection in the case of the former (the better to illustrate […]

On the left at a slight distance, a group of actors crouch with their arms outstretched. A Black man with his arms stretched to the side stands before them. On the right front, another Black man gestures with his arms in front of him toward the group. They are wearing bright clothes reminiscent of the 1960s.

Theater Review

The magic is gone

by Amanda Finn June 24, 2022June 24, 2022

Every piece of art has a timeliness. When it is born and put into the world, it becomes part of its identity for better or worse. For Godspell, that time has come and gone. First staged in 1971, this musical by Stephen Schwartz and John-Michael Tebelak is painfully dated. That cannot be fixed no matter […]

Three men stand in a cluster, looking at a phone screen with looks of surprise on their faces.

Theater Review

The celluloid closet

by Katie Powers June 24, 2022June 24, 2022

The Chicago premiere of British playwright Chris Woodley’s Tommy on Top, now playing at Pride Arts Center, is a witty farce that elevates crucial questions about representation and authenticity in contemporary media. The show is centered on Tommy Miller (Ryan Cason), a closeted actor who’s just been nominated for his first Academy Award. He’s the […]

Four people in the break room of a warehouse. A young Black woman sits left, with an older white woman behind her. A middle-aged white woman sits center, and a middle-aged white man in a police uniform stands right.

Theater Review

Big-box blues

by Kerry Reid June 24, 2022June 24, 2022

On the wall of the big-box retail warehouse that forms the setting for Eboni Booth’s Paris, now in a midwest premiere at Steep Theatre under Jonathan Berry’s direction, there’s a sign reading: NOBODY CARES. WORK HARDER. It’s a stark enunciation of the realities of late-stage capitalism and consumerism. Paris Through 7/23: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun […]

A woman in a black suit with a red lace teddy visible underneath crouches in a dance position center. On the left, a young woman in a school uniform leaps in the air. A young man sits on a bed behind them, while another young man jumps in the air on the right.

Theater Review

Shameless nostalgia

by Marissa Oberlander June 24, 2022July 6, 2022

We all remember where we were when we saw Cruel Intentions. Its iconic soundtrack (anyone else melt to Counting Crows’ “Colorblind”?) and “shameless perversity” (thank you, Buzzfeed, for this spot-on description) have become canon in many a millennial’s coming of age and sexual maturity. Directed by Adrian Abel Azevedo, Kokandy Productions’s Chicago storefront premiere of […]

Six women in a beauty parlor. On either side there is a woman in a salon chair, with another woman standing behind her working on her hair. Two other women stand center, looking on.

Theater Review

Pleasant posies

by Jack Helbig June 24, 2022June 24, 2022

My daughter tells me she likes the 1989 movie version of Steel Magnolias because you can have it running in the background while you do other things, and still more or less follow the plot. The 1987 play the movie is based on has the same virtue. You don’t really have to use all your […]

Four Black women dance in a kitchen. The woman on the left is in gray pants and sweater with a light blouse. The young woman to her right is in a bathrobe and slippers, her hair wrapped in a cloth. An older woman in a long housecoat with a cane stands behind the table. The only one not dancing is seated with a book at the kitchen table on the right, looking skeptically at the others.

Theater Review

Lead in the water

by Kerry Reid June 23, 2022June 23, 2022

I hardly ever start reviews this way, but trust me: stop reading this and hop online to get tickets for Erika Dickerson-Despenza’s cullud wattah, now in its local premiere at Victory Gardens under Lili-Anne Brown’s direction. It’s a profound, poetic, scabrous (and beautifully acted) piece of theater that hits at so many levels that I […]

Five cast members of Second Cityu stand onstage in a row. From left, a Black woman, a nonbinary white person, a Black man, a Filipino man, a white woman, and a white man. They are in purple lighting, striking "vogue"-type poses

Theater Review

The political is personal

by Kerry Reid June 15, 2022June 15, 2022

Like the rest of the world, Second City has been through its share of upheavals in the past two years. Longtime owner, CEO, and executive producer Andrew Alexander stepped down in June 2020 in the wake of increasing public allegations about institutional racism at the comedy powerhouse. Anthony LeBlanc stepped in as interim executive director, […]

Two white people sit inside a frame suggesting a car. A blonde on the left has a red Twizzler hanging out of their mouth. On the right, the person is wearing a backwards baseball cap, a black D.A.R.E. T-shirt, and is smoking a cigarette

Theater Review

Hell on wheels

by Dmitry Samarov June 15, 2022June 15, 2022

Nealshow Productions premieres Pat Radke’s and Dave Satterwhite’s malaprop-fueled road-trip comedy. Candyce (Lee Satterwhite), in WWI helmet and goggles, is at the wheel of a middle-school-art-project stand-in for an automobile. While nominally a rideshare driver, he doesn’t seem to be especially savvy about geography, money making, or anything worldly. Candyce is going through some sort […]

A group of people in 1970s clothing dance together in a group. A sign reading "Windy City Skates" is above their heads, in front of the band.

Theater Review

Just skating by

by Irene Hsiao June 8, 2022June 13, 2022

The year is 1994, and rock star Jacqueline Miller (Diana DeGarmo) is zigzagging the country on a tour. Her dishonest manager has absconded with her earnings, her deadbeat saxophonist boyfriend (Ace Young) is either cheating or has forgotten her birthday, and she’s going on Oprah tomorrow but just lost the cover of Rolling Stone to […]

The cast of The Little Mermaid in bright colorful costumes dance in a line. White circles of light on the floor suggest the underwater atmosphere.

Theater Review

Sea legs

by Catey Sullivan June 8, 2022June 8, 2022

Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale, “The Little Mermaid,” is a load of hooey. Consider: The titular mermaid throws herself on a dagger in the end, because she can’t bear to go on after some dude she first encountered days earlier marries someone else. Also, she gives up her voice in exchange for legs so she […]

A young Black woman and a young Black man sit facing each other on a wooden platform. The backdrop behind them is blue.

Theater Review

Home is where the heart is

by Kerry Reid June 8, 2022June 8, 2022

Samm-Art Williams’s Home, first produced in 1979 with the seminal Negro Ensemble Company and then in a Tony-nominated run on Broadway in 1980, is considered a contemporary American classic, but it doesn’t get revived as much as it probably should. This feels especially self-evident when viewing Tim Rhoze’s stellar production for Fleetwood-Jourdain Theatre. Staged simply […]

A young white male-presenting figure sits on a bed in a child's bedroom, holding a large red hand puppet in their left hand.

Theater Review

Puppet revelations

by Jack Helbig June 8, 2022June 8, 2022

Puppets are cool, but they are also creepy. Very creepy. Even the cute ones, like Kermit the Frog or Ollie the Dragon. There is just something deeply unnerving about how puppets seem like autonomous beings, even when their puppeteers are right there on stage with them. I think there is something deep and primal in […]