Irene Hsiao, author at Chicago Reader

At left, a young woman kneels in front of a case full of glass figurines. Behind her in the background on the left is a man walking across the stage, wearing a light brown coat. On the right, an older woman in a gray patterned dress is held up by five identical men in light suits and straw hats. She is holding a bouquet of jonquils. A brown staircase is visible behind them on the right

Bodies and metaphors

by Irene Hsiao February 28, 2023February 28, 2023

Downstage right is a cabinet of crystal figurines, concentrating the light to shimmer with rainbows. Their allure is hypnotic: ghostly against the dark curtain, reflection distorted on the marley; delicious as diamonds but far more fragile, they remain in place throughout the performance, surely shivering with every footfall on the floor. Stacked stage left are […]

A woman with long blonde hair sits at a pub table next to a man with short brown hair. They both wear jeans and work shirts, with pints of beer in their hands.

Theater Review

A universe of privation

by Irene Hsiao February 21, 2023February 21, 2023

No wings close the expanse of earth that widens the Court Theatre stage to a landscape in Caryl Churchill’s Fen, directed by Vanessa Stalling, with scenic design by Collette Pollard. The terraced land, hemmed in scalloped edges by shining metal borders, looks like the ocean, diminished and immobilized in its crash against the massive concrete […]

Samuel J. Lewis II, a Black man, is seen behind two screens of a paper "crankie." On the left screen is a rendering of an old-fashioned steam locomotive. On the right is a drawing of a black man holding a red flag in his hand.

Arts & Culture

Finding his place

by Irene Hsiao February 9, 2023February 9, 2023

Some 20 years ago, Chicago artist Samuel J. Lewis II discovered a vintage Black Americana marionette named Jambo the Jiver in his father-in-law’s attic. Built in 1948 by a company called TalenToon, along with other characters such as Pim-Bo the Clown, Toonga from the Congo, Kilroy the Cop, and MacAwful the Scot, the marionettes were […]

Three young women are in what appears to be a conference room. Two are seated in white plastic swivel chairs at either end. Another is standing between them behind her chair, facing left. There is a poster behind them with various slogans, including "It's okay to be white," and "Be Color Blind Unity."

Theater Review

Toxic claustrophobia

by Irene Hsiao February 2, 2023February 2, 2023

Jasmine Sharma’s Radial Gradient, directed in its world premiere at Shattered Globe Theatre by Grace Dolezal-Ng, is the story of two students and their bid to enter a sorority at their university. Anjani (Simran Deokule) is American-born, of Indian descent, and her family has lived in the United States for at least two generations. Her […]

A person in dark clothing, their back to the camera, climbs a rope. The photo is filled with a purplish wash

Arts & Culture

Gray days, but vibrant stages

by Kerry Reid, Irene Hsiao and Deanna Isaacs January 30, 2023January 30, 2023

We’re finally getting a taste of the usual winter weather, but that’s no reason to stay housebound. (Unless you’re being extra COVID-cautious, for which we don’t blame you!) But if you’re up for some cultural adventures, there are some great possibilities on tap the next couple of months. Chicago Theatre Week, sponsored every year by […]

Ariella Granados, who uses they/she pronouns, sits right in a chair in front of a green screen. On the left is a green faceless figure dressed in a white shirt and black suit and tie, wearing a pink bobbed wig. An outsize woven boot bearing "tattoos" like a purple star and a heart with an arrow through it inscribed "Mom" is to the left of the green figure. The set is surrounded by various pieces of lighting equipment and tripods

Arts & Culture

‘Utopia is a place that accommodates every body’

by Irene Hsiao January 25, 2023January 25, 2023

Last October, the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities (MOPD) and Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) appointed multidisciplinary artist Ariella Granados as its first Central West Center artist in residence. Supported by the MOPD, the National Endowment for the Arts, and DCASE, the residency offers studio space and funding for Granados […]

Dance

Don’t wait for the knock on the door

by Irene Hsiao December 21, 2022December 21, 2022

The year 2022 was designated the “Year of Chicago Dance” by the city of Chicago, drawing a commitment from the mayor and several partner institutions to increase investment, collaboration, participation, and focus on dance in all its forms in Chicago. But if institutions are “humanly devised structures of rules and norms that shape and constrain […]

Two Asian women are seated on a green couch. The woman on the left wears a sleeveless top and ripped jeans. Her head is closely shaved, and she is baring her teeth in a grimace-grin. The woman on the left is in jeans and a tan cardigan. Her head is wraped in a gray scarf.

Theater Review

Mourning and celebrating in the same breath

by Irene Hsiao December 15, 2022December 28, 2022

Him (Jennifer Lim) coughs on the smoke of the incense she lights as she bows to a temporary altar in her kitchen in Carrollton, Texas. Ma (Wai Ching Ho) is propped up on a hospital bed, where she is unceremoniously dying. Sophea (Francesca Fernandez McKenzie) isn’t around, but is it her fate or her fault? […]

Two women stand on either side of a cardboard puppet set, manipuating small cardboard figures. The woman on the left is all in black, with part of her face obscured. The woman on the right wears a light orange turtleneck and a gray cardigan sweater. They are in shadow, with light coming through the center of the cardboard frame around the puppet stage.

Theater Review

Practical holiday magic

by Irene Hsiao December 6, 2022December 6, 2022

Uncle Joe was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatsoever about that. The cardboard boxes littered the floor, filled with Joe’s tools, Joe’s college textbooks, Joe’s albums and manuals, Joe’s CDs, Joe’s tax returns, Joe’s unfinished projects, and all manner of Joe’s mess and memorabilia, stacked in a circle radiating outwards from a […]

Seven actors dance in a line. They are all wearing black suits, white shirts, black ties, and black bowler hats, reminiscent of a Magritte painting.

Theater Review

When is a pipe not a pipe?

by Irene Hsiao November 9, 2022November 9, 2022

René Magritte’s 1929 painting La Trahison des images is best known for the text it contains: painted in a curlicue script beneath the curved image of a pipe are the words, “Ceci n’est pas une pipe.” The paradox brings us not to the depth of the pipe but the surface, gleaming with a plastic finish, […]

Dance

‘Every footfall leaves an imprint’

by Irene Hsiao October 31, 2022October 31, 2022

On October 27 and 28, the Harris Theater filled from front row to the top of the balcony for Pina Bausch’s The Rite of Spring (1975) and common ground[s], a new work by Germaine Acogny and Malou Airaudo. These historic performances, coproduced by École des Sables, the Pina Bausch Foundation, and Sadler’s Wells, brought Bausch’s […]

Dance

Different but the same

by Irene Hsiao October 19, 2022October 19, 2022

Though differing in mood, the three works in Joffrey’s Beyond Borders program are structurally of a type: abstract, ensemble-based, heavy on unison choreography that exhibits the patterns that can be formed by dancers forged according to an exacting technique. Featuring a world premiere by Chanel DaSilva, alongside a 2013 work by the late Liam Scarlett, […]

Four Asian actors are pictured in a dining-room set. An older man is seated left, with an older woman standing directly across from him. She is flanked by a younger man on the left and a younger woman on the right.

Theater Review

Pecking themselves to death

by Irene Hsiao October 12, 2022October 12, 2022

Albert Chen (Christopher Thomas Pow) is sitting on a park bench eating what appears to be a burrito or a hot pocket when a hunched old man, dressed in an intersection of athleisure and preppie that signals respectability, comfort, and a baseline certainty of invisibility, shuffles in. “Hey! You Chinese?” he hollers. Albert, though he […]

A man and woman in gray shorts and vest stand center. He is bent backwards, his left leg held up by her left arm, his left arm held perpendicular to his horizontal torso by her. Six dancers wearing various dresses, trousers, and tops in the same gray material, stand behind them. All are looking ahead, except for the woman at the far left, who is looking at them.

Dance

Refraction opens Hubbard Street’s 45th season

by Irene Hsiao September 30, 2022October 4, 2022

Now celebrating its 45th anniversary, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago presents Refraction, a mixed bill of contemporary works consisting of the world premiere of Chicago choreographer Randy Duncan’s Love Infinite, The Windless Hold by Osnel Delgado, and Darrell Grand Moultrie’s Dichotomy of a Journey—for one weekend only at the Harris Theater. With a program composed of […]

A man in a red suit jacket and tan trousers stands in front of a painted backdrop of the Chicago skyline. He appears to be disheveled and frightened.

Theater Review

High-rise havoc

by Irene Hsiao September 22, 2022September 22, 2022

On the rooftop of a high-rise, one of many in the forest of silhouettes that comprises our city’s skyline, a professor (Dan Hanrahan) and an automotive engineer (Juanjo López) have been locked out for six days, surviving on trickles of water sluiced out of the bottom of a trash can and bread crumbs that appear […]