Chicago actor David Shapiro’s performance of Wallace Shawn’s monologue The Fever was one of the most memorable off-Loop theater experiences of the 1990s. Reader critic Justin Hayford wrote of the show’s original run in 1992, “It’s a wickedly difficult monologue in which a man of privileged upbringing stands onstage for an hour and a half, explaining how he’s confronted the atrocities perpetrated in ‘poor countries’ but remaining unable to process the experience. . . . The difficulty of this play lies . . . in its potential to degenerate into an indulgent white-liberal guilt trip. Luckily . . . Shapiro and director Joann Shapiro appreciate the complexity of Shawn’s text, the subtlety of its emotional landscape, and perhaps most important its abundance of ironic humor.” On Monday, Shapiro–brother of Tony Award-winning director Anna Shapiro (August: Osage County)–presents a one-night remount of The Fever to benefit Revolution Books Chicago (associated with the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA). It will be interesting to see how Shawn’s take on torture, economic injustice, and insular American complacency play in our current political climate. Monday 1/26, 7 PM, 1103 N. Ashland Chopin Theatre, 1543 W. Division, 773-489-0930 or http://www.chopintheatre.com/events.php, $20. A reception follows.
