Author Archives: Brian Nemtusak

This rowdy bar-set burlesque is such a free-for-all I’d almost call it unreviewable. Inspired by 70s splatter and exploitation cinema (and the recent Rodriguez-Tarantino tribute to those genres) and referencing films from Black Mama, White Mama to Rocky Horror, its titillating vignettes amount mostly to chaotically approximate gestures. But then, the theme is only there […]

William Wyler’s 1965 film version of the John Fowles novel, which confirmed the stardom of the incomparable Terence Stamp, should be held up alongside seminal serial-killer flicks like Psycho and Peeping Tom. Its butterfly motif prefigures imagery in The Silence of the Lambs, and its treacherous appeal to the audience’s inner stalker resonates profoundly in […]

Hmmm. Now why would the Venture Theatre, visiting from Green Bay, schedule its press opening against the Bears’ season opener? Dare I say–conspiracy? Writer-star Mike Eserkaln’s show takes a satirical, silent-theater look at cubicle culture; sound cues that roil from cell phones and PAs dictate the action, but the actors’ clowning is pure pantomime. Though […]

Chief among the inelegant oddities framing this Pretty Blue Sky production of Coward’s frothy classic is the way the title’s been stenciled, in deco lettering, on one wall of the set. One assumes it’s there to remind viewers which play they’re watching. Other discordant notes include overdeliberate pacing–looking for meaning where there’s precious little, the […]

It’s easy to tag Sam Shepard’s 1983 play as self-parody, but if you ask me Shepard has trafficked in the stuff for most of his career. As with fellow icon Tennessee Williams, a melodrama-bordering-on-camp approach can thus, paradoxically, be key to finding the cold truths amid the overheated mythemes and supercharged dialogue of his idiom. […]

Broad strokes and lapses in realism have to be allowed for in children’s theater, but this show might try an eight-year-old’s patience. The story–about a kid who finds a magical Honus Wagner baseball card worth millions in a neighbor’s attic–turns on an ethical conflict whose obvious solution (communicate, negotiate, share already!) is willfully ignored. Its […]

The R is for “retarded.” Wisconsin Dells guru Tommy Bartlett, in thrall to a homicidal arcade game and its knife-wielding Humpty Dumpty sidekick, lures foreign tourists to the pair’s amusement-park lair. In return the villains promise to provide Bartlett the final component of Thunderpussy, the world’s most preposterous roller coaster. Fleshing out this tissue-thin premise […]

Brecht’s 1943 play turns the dialectic of Major Barbara in on itself, fusing Machiavellian father and idealistic daughter in a single character. The upshot of the metaphor: market socialism (or any capitalism with a human face) is schizophrenic. This production deftly nails the geopolitical resonance of Brecht’s thesis today, from the literal hybrid of the […]