The last great production of The Cherry Orchard I saw was at Steppenwolf, nearly 20 years ago. Tina Landau turned the company’s upstairs theater into a near-immersive experience, with Riccardo Hernández’s set design incorporating swathes of lacy white cloth all around us—perfect for Anton Chekhov’s characters, who spend so much time hiding from visible truths […]
Tag: Anton Chekhov
Posted inTheater Review
A mixed quartet
Theatre Above the Law’s sampler platter of four one-acts from the late 19th and early 20th centuries (most of them seldom produced) offers mixed results. The opening piece, A Dollar by Yiddish playwright David Pinski, feels like an extended acting exercise in which archetypes (the Comedian, the Villain, the Ingenue, etc.) fight over the titular […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Siah Berlatsky shakes up Shakespeare
Siah Berlatsky just graduated this month from ChiArts, but though she’s taking a gap year before college, the 18-year-old playwright-director-actor isn’t letting the grass grow under her feet. In August, she’ll be part of Artistic Home’s outdoor developmental series, “Summer on the Patio,” with her Elizabethan-style gender-bending rom-com, Malapert Love, which she also directs. (“Malapert,” […]
Posted inTheater Review
Steppenwolf’s Seagull opens a lovely new space
“Here is a theater. No curtain, no wings, no scenery. Just an empty space.” Konstantin Treplev, the young and hungry artist manqué in Anton Chekhov’s Seagull, intones these words before the disastrous and abortive premiere of his play-within-the-play for his family. But at the Saturday opening of ensemble member Yasen Peyankov’s production at Steppenwolf, it […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Leave Me Alone! turns Chekhov into a public service announcement
And, in the process, gives the entire ending away.
Posted inBlogs
The Mountain Between Us considers how we endure both tragedies and everyday life
The new disaster movie-cum-romantic melodrama is most provocative after its characters survive a plane crash in the Rocky Mountains
Posted inArts & Culture
Robert Falls gives the Goodman’s Uncle Vanya all the clarity of his years
Chekhov’s masterwork gets a master staging.
Posted inBlogs
Aaron Posner follows up Stupid Fucking Bird with another Chekhov adaptation, Life Sucks
Aaron Posner adapts another Chekhov classic, this time for Lookingglass Theatre.
Posted inArts & Culture
Steppenwolf’s Constellations and Voice Lessons, and 13 more new stage shows
An endless meet-cute and an off-key farce are among this week’s notables.
Posted inArts & Culture
Mike Mother, Best of Enemies, The 180 Degree Rule, and eight more stage shows to see now
A Neo-Futurist show, a drama about an almost unimaginable alliance, and a satire of Hollywood’s golden age are among the hits this week.
Posted inArts & Culture
Goodman Theatre helps redeem Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike
Christopher Durang’s overrated Tony Award winner is a case of absurdism lite.
Posted inArts & Culture
In the Hypocrites’ Three Sisters, Russian angst meets the party people
The Hypocrites’ Three Sisters proves a surprisingly fruitful collaboration.
Posted inArts & Culture
Too many of this year’s Rhinofest offerings are too small and too safe
The 25th annual Rhinoceros Theater Festival presents the cozy side of fringe.
Posted inBlogs
What do you get when you take the dinosaurs out of Jurassic Park?
Comparing the Steven Spielberg blockbuster, currently playing in a new 3-D version, to Uncle Vanya and the classic Polish drama The Structure of Crystals