Author Archives: Erik Piepenburg

A Family Affair, Greasy Joan & Company, at the Chopin Theatre. Out struts an impertinent young woman in a girdle who declares, “Death is terribly unfashionable at the moment.” So begins this dense, self-indulgent, but visually enchanting production of Alexander Ostrovsky’s 1850 comic drama, adapted by Nick Dear. The young woman, the daughter of a […]

Bee-Luther-Hatchee, Northlight Theatre. “Is the writer more important than the words?” asks playwright Thomas Gibbons in this folksy, precious examination of race relations and cultural covetousness (the title refers to a place worse than hell). Shelita Burns is a successful publisher with an award-winning hit–a memoir by the elderly Libby Price (Penelope Walker), who was […]

Egyptian Rat Screw, Uffish Theater Company, at the Chopin Theatre. Carl Jung, Karl Marx, and an iron maiden walk into a bar–that’s the rumpled punch line of Chicago playwright Jason M. Lindner’s overwritten, underdeveloped dark comedy. Elton (Brendan Farley) is a young interrogator ordered to torture information out of revolutionary musician Vic Bloom (Michael T. […]

Betty’s Summer Vacation, Roadworks Productions, at Victory Gardens Theater. In his latest play, Christopher Durang skewers voyeuristic reality TV: rambling and one-dimensional but occasionally insightful, Betty’s Summer Vacation is equal parts Big Brother, Hustler, and The Truman Show. Its philosophical flaws are as outrageous as its undisciplined story: a group of contemptible oversexed people, including […]

Sybilization, at the Playground. Why would you turn an intermediate-level improv class into a full-length show and charge admission? True, the seats will probably be filled by the performers’ friends, family, and coworkers, but I’m not sure who else would want to see this evening of labored comedy. A variation on the Harold, the Sybil […]

Young Playwrights Festival Pegasus Players By Erik Piepenburg The four works in Pegasus Players’ 15th annual Young Playwrights Festival bring to mind not so much the devil-may-care attitudes of a generation suckling furiously at the teat of prosperity, as you might imagine at a time when not giving your teenager a cell phone and his […]

The Good Thief, NorthSide Productions, at Breadline Theatre. Fans of Conor McPherson, the overrated young playwright whose precious The Weir is getting star treatment at Steppenwolf, are being offered another chance to marvel at his chatty self-indulgence with the midwest premiere of The Good Thief, a one-man show of incidental proportions. An Irish thug reminisces […]

Enter the Guardsman Northlight Theatre By Erik Piepenburg No matter how you roast Ferenc Molnar’s 1910 play The Guardsman, it was an old chestnut in its first incarnation and remains one today, in the nutty 1996 musical adaptation Enter the Guardsman. In the syrupy-sweet story, an actor (David New) puts his actress wife (Hollis Resnik) […]

Screw Xmas, Sweetback Productions, at the Theatre Building, and Rudolph the Red-Hosed Reindeer, Sweetback Productions, at the Theatre Building. All I want for Christmas is more rehearsal time for the talented actors in Screw Xmas, a series of monologues whose writers would rather you be kicked than kissed under the mistletoe. Despite the performers’ flubs […]

The Weir Steppenwolf Theatre Company By Erik Piepenburg “The willingness to believe stories about . . . encounters with angels and other miraculous occurrences is considered a mark of enlightenment,” writes social critic Wendy Kaminer with a skeptic’s sneer in her book Sleeping With Extra-Terrestrials: The Rise of Irrationalism and Perils of Piety. “These are […]

The Radio City Christmas Spectacular, Rosemont Theatre, and A Christmas Fantasy On Ice, Drury Lane Theatre, Evergreen Park. There are really only two ways to enjoy certain holiday productions: either grab the nearest kid or senior citizen, shell out $15 to valet park your minivan, and sit back and “fill your heart with Christmas” or […]

Private Eyes, Sliced Bread Productions, at the Acme Theater. Steven Dietz’s deeply flawed black comedy gets a blemished once-over in Sliced Bread’s sincere but emotionally hollow production, which wastes a terrifically talented cast. Using the device of a play within a play within a play, Dietz recounts in often confusing terms the story of Matthew […]