You’re walking north on Dearborn through Printer’s Row, portfolio in hand, and you’re feeling pretty good about yourself and about the early-morning showing you’ve just wrapped up. Work’s picking up, the lean years are just about behind you now. You feel confident. You take long strides. Out of the corner of your eye you see […]
Tag: Vol. 18 No. 18
Issue of Feb. 16 – 22, 1989
Posted inArts & Culture
TV or Not TV
TV OR NOT TV Joined by the Hip at the Roxy Despite its title, TV or Not TV doesn’t offer the viewer a choice. (And you thought you’d left the tube safe at home.) Television-generated humor is what mostly fuels Joined by the Hip’s comedy revue, which includes over 20 video segments. If nothing else […]
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Getting Better
AMERICAN BALLET THEATRE at the Civic Center for Performing Arts February 7-18 Looking better than in years, American Ballet Theatre has danced into town with a lovely if unimaginative season featuring beautiful dancing, ever more fully developed dancers, and a slow, steady improvement in repertory. La bayadere represents the most recognizably classical side of ABT’s […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Silent Othello
SILENT OTHELLO Italian American Theater at Lower Links Frank Melcori, the artistic director of the Italian American Theater, says he wanted to do a silent production of Shakespeare. But his original choice was already being produced, so he settled for Othello, the bard’s complex and tragic study in jealousy. It is a curious choice, and […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Legal AIDS
The medical plague of the 80s will be the civil-rights nightmare of the 90s.
Posted inArts & Culture
Shay
SHAY Footsteps Theatre Company at Chicago Dramatists Workshop Shay is like one of those “disease of the week” made-for-TV movies. The formula is simple: Take a disease that has been receiving a lot of publicity–Alzheimer’s disease, perhaps, or bulimia. Invent a character who has it, a few characters who are affected by the victim’s plight, […]
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The Apollo of Bellac; The Bald Soprano
THE APOLLO OF BELLAC and THE BALD SOPRANO Interplay The Bald Soprano turned 40 last year, but you wouldn’t know it by the laughs it got the other night in Pilsen. This middle-aged absurdist comedy still works, proving what we knew already, that the world is still crazy after all these years. Essentially plotless, this […]
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Toots & the Maytalls
Whenever Toots Hibbert opens his yap, were instantly reminded that reggae did not just spring full-grown from the damp Jamaican soil, but rather evolved slowly as Jamaican musicians, already full of instinctive Afro-Caribbean rhythmic feel, took additional sustenance from American R & B beamed out at night from high-powered radio stations in New Orleans, Miami, […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Press: Beautiful Women
Mercedes was waving her “TempoWoman” section in the air. “Wah dey mean by beaufoe?” she wanted to know. “Deze girls don’ be lookin’ so fine ta me.”
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Comrades in Arms
A WALK IN THE WOODS Steppenwolf Theatre There’s one thing for which I’ll always be grateful to Ronald Reagan. I mean, besides the Meese commission’s report on pornography. I’ll always be grateful to Reagan for that time at the Reykjavik summit when he apparently blanked out and offered to disarm. Do you remember that? It […]
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Billy Branch & Louis Myers
As a tribute to harmonica genius Little Walter, this pairing of one of today’s top young harp men with a 1950s Chicago legend might rankle some purists, who would probably prefer a harmonica player more solidly in Walter’s mold, such as Carey Bell or Little Willie Anderson. But they’re missing the point. Harpist Billy Branch […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Straight Dope
I’ve enclosed an ad for Infinity Reference Standard V speakers, which are described as “the embodiment of Infinity’s obsession.” These speakers, you will note, cost $50,000 a pair. Cecil, tell me: is there anybody out there so desperate for self-justification that they’ve actually plunked down $50,000 for a pair of speakers? If so, how many? […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Chevere
Just your basic Afro-Cuban, Afro-Brazilian, Costa/Puerto Rican, electric-acoustic nine-piece Chicago band (and we all know how common they are). For most of the 80s, Chevere has been among the most explosively exciting bands in the midwest, and also one of the least visible–largely because most clubs shy away from booking bands this size. But there’s […]
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Music Notes: John Elliot Gardiner is not an early-music freak
John Eliot Gardiner an early-music specialist? “The hell with that label,” says the controversial founder of the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists. Both groups will debut in Chicago this week, under Gardiner’s direction, as part of the choir’s silver jubilee tour. “I’ve never considered myself as an early-music freak,” says Gardiner, “and I […]