Drama Archives - Page 2 of 406

a lone donkey on a bridge against a foreboding stone wall

EO

by Maxwell Rabb December 9, 2022December 9, 2022

Jerzy Skolimowski chooses an unassuming, gentle, and watchful donkey to experience the multifaceted spectrum of life, adorning Eo with more personality than any Disney special.

a young white man with brown hair holds his eye to an movie camera in the mid 1900s

Film

The Fabelmans

by Adam Mullins-Khatib December 2, 2022December 2, 2022

Steven Spielberg’s 33rd feature film is a marvel coming-of-age story and one of his most personal.

In the foreground is a man at the piano. Two women stand on either side of another man standing behind the pianist. In the background, we see a Christmas tree and another man and woman looking on.

Theater Review

American Blues plants a whole holiday garden

by Dan Jakes November 30, 2022November 30, 2022

Frank Capra’s 1946 Christmas classic film is packed frame-by-frame with small moments of storytelling perfection, and as I get older, there’s one that just guts me like a fish. Exhausted, panicked, and facing certain financial and reputational ruin, George Bailey tries in vain to cajole Zuzu, his littlest one, to bedtime. “I’m not sleepy,” she […]

Theater Review

Apartheid and Antigone

by Sheri Flanders November 23, 2022November 23, 2022

Exquisitely paced and intellectually explosive, The Island at Court Theatre is a profoundly moving work of art. From the first moment, this production (directed by Gabrielle Randle-Bent, Court’s associate artistic director) seizes the audience and thrusts them into the world of two political prisoners of apartheid and doesn’t let go, even long after the play […]

A white woman in a brown shirt and black face mask stands left, holding a script. On the right is a Black man, also holding a script and wearing a black face mask. He is pointing upward with his right hand

Arts & Culture

Our bodies, but whose choice?

by Jack Helbig November 23, 2022November 23, 2022

It was around 2010 that writer-actor-director Julie Proudfoot was sitting in a Starbucks at the IC station downtown, waiting for the South Shore line to take her home, when she became aware of two young couples sitting at an adjacent table. “And the males were not only saying sexist things to the young women,” Proudfoot […]

Film

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio

by Jonah Nink November 22, 2022November 28, 2022

Del Toro saddles up with stop-motion animation legend Mark Gustafson to present some of the year’s most stunning visuals but also goes a step further by adding some weighty thoughts on war, death, and family to the beloved Carlo Collodi fairy tale.

a Syrian-American man with long hair and a beard points something out to a Black man in a black T-shirt, chain necklace, and yellow jacket

Film

Bad Animal captures Chicago’s glimmering indie music scene

by Cam Cieszki November 22, 2022November 22, 2022

Bad Animal feels like the natural progression for their fledgling production company [Emulsion Lab], marrying the indie music locus that inspired their start with the drive for creating projects that rival the scale of their DIY counterparts.

a raggedy white boy with dyed red hair sits outdoors on the ground next to a Black girl, who looks over at him

Film

Bones and All

by Catey Sullivan November 18, 2022November 21, 2022

Despite its preponderance of blood and guts and sinew-slathering, bone-smacking gore, Bones and All isn’t exactly a movie about cannibalism.

a Black soldier in uniform on top of a wall or truck reaches his hand down

Film

The Inspection

by Adam Mullins-Khatib November 18, 2022November 18, 2022

Elegance Bratton’s autobiographical story The Inspection is one of learning to accept love on one’s own terms.

Two young white women sit at a dimly lit kitchen table. They are holding beer bottles.

Theater Review

A death in the family

by Amanda Finn November 17, 2022November 18, 2022

Death is an often unwelcome teacher. It descends into our lives suddenly, without warning, or takes its sweet time. No matter when it finds us, Grief is right behind Death, bringing myriad reactions that we do not always see coming. Such is life for Jess in Emily Schwend’s A Mile in the Dark, when Jess […]

In the foreground on the left, a white man in white shirt, suspenders, and tan trousers faces a Black woman in a 1950s-style blue dress. Behind them on the left we see a Black man, also in shirt, trousers, and suspenders, and a white woman in a brown suit dress, looking at the argument unfolding between the two characters in the foreground.

Theater Review

She sees you, white American theater

by Kerry Reid November 17, 2022August 31, 2023

Alice Childress’s Trouble in Mind made its off-Broadway debut in 1955, but it never made the leap to the Great White Way (emphasis most definitely on “White”). The white producers demanded that Childress give her story about racism in the American theater a happier ending depicting racial harmony. (Pause for irony.) Childress refused at first, […]

In the front, on the left, we see a young white man in military fatigues. He is facing a young Asian woman on the right, who is wearing a Japanese WWII jacket and holding a rifle. Behind them is a hotel room, and through the window we see a young Latinx man in "hippie" clothing seated next to another young Asian woman in a plain cream blouse and brown skirt.

Theater Review

A surreal Seoul story

by Kerry Reid November 15, 2022November 15, 2022

Hansol Jung’s 2016 play, Among the Dead, now in an intriguing, surprisingly funny, and sometimes quite moving production with Jackalope Theatre, occupies a bit of the same surreal territory and narrative lines as Mia Chung’s You for Me for You (produced by Sideshow Theatre in 2018) and Lauren Yee’s Cambodian Rock Band (produced at Victory […]

a man in a wrist cast sleeps sitting up, while a young girl is curled awkwardly against him

Film

Aftersun

by Becca James November 10, 2022November 10, 2022

Aftersun, as a product, is meant to soothe. One uses it after a sunburn to avoid peeling. Aftersun, as a film, doesn’t have the same intention.

a white ginger boy and a Black boy stand in what looks like a bathroom stall

Film

Armageddon Time

by Dmitry Samarov November 10, 2022November 10, 2022

Reportedly based on director James Gray’s own childhood, the film traffics in broad-stroke ideas about racism, anti-Semitism, and class struggle.

a Black man and a white woman in a pool at night

Film

Causeway

by John Wilmes November 10, 2022November 10, 2022

A dour, paint-by-numbers contemplation on trauma and dislocation unfolds, and we see two actors capable of tremendous expression stuck in a place that won’t allow it.