Have we reached the End of Civilization as We Know It? Or have we just hit a run of bad books by cranky conservatives who don’t know anything about pop culture?
Tag: Vol. 18 No. 4
Issue of Nov. 10 – 16, 1988
Posted inNews & Politics
Typo Maniac
To the editors: When your “mania” is legendary, I suppose you must expect to be the subject of apocryphal tales [Hot Type, November 4]. It is not true that I ever threw a typewriter on the floor in anger over typographical errors. It is true that I greatly dislike typographical errors and, for good cause, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Chicago String Ensemble
To think of Vivaldi only in terms of the crowd-pleasing Four Seasons is to slight the more significant accomplishments in his lengthy and prolific career. L’estro armonico, his opus 3 (1711), for example, is acknowledged by musicologists as perhaps the most influential collection of instrumental work to appear during the whole of the 18th century. […]
Posted inArts & Culture
An American Dream
AN AMERICAN DREAM at Sam’s Saloon and Speakeasy The spirit of Tom Lehrer hangs over this effort at cabaret musical comedy, but not the wit. Lehrer’s songs–cynical and sarcastic, Tin Pan Alley style black humor, as if Lenny Bruce teamed up with Lerner and Loewe–were welcome assaults on the bland conformism of their day, the […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Shop Talk: finally, a bookstore for gays and lesbians
Carrie Barnett never met the person who first helped her accept her homosexuality. It wasnt a lover, or a friend. It was an author. “Actually, it was about 30 authors,” Barnett says as she takes a coffee break from laying the floor of her new store. “When I was a freshman in high school in […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Love Letters on Blue Paper
LOVE LETTERS ON BLUE PAPER Northlight Theatre What is so impressive about Arnold Wesker’s Love Letters on Blue Paper is how much tension the play derives from what the characters don’t say. As in the film 78 Charing Cross, the simple writing of a letter becomes an action as powerful as any plot could want. […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Drinking in America
DRINKING IN AMERICA Soho Stage The only experience I’ve had with monologuists (as I guess they’re called) is with Spaulding Gray, whose work I love. I’ve never seen him in person, but I’ve read Swimming to Cambodia and seen the movie, which was marvelous, and I’ve read his other book of monologues, Sex and Death […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Faces on the Wall
Some of them are full of life. Some of them are starting to fade.
Posted inArts & Culture
Little Malcom and His Struggles Against the Eunuchs; Stepping Out
LITTLE MALCOLM AND HIS STRUGGLE AGAINST THE EUNUCHS Famous Door Theatre Company at Stage Left Theatre STEPPING OUT Steppenwolf Theatre Company Two British plays, minor but not uninteresting, written by two minor but not untalented playwrights two decades apart–20 years in real time, but light years in sensibility. David Halliwell’s 1966 Little Malcolm and His […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Field & Street
Last weekend the Chicago Rare Bird Alert reported three sightings of bald eagles in the Chicago area–one near Waukegan, one in Du Page County, and one at Palos, where four birds were seen. These may not seem like large numbers, but the four birds sighted at Palos tied the one-day high count for the Chicago […]
Posted inArts & Culture
A Fire Was Burning Over the Dumpling House One Chinese New Year
A FIRE WAS BURNING OVER THE DUMPLING HOUSE ONE CHINESE NEW YEAR Igloo Baby Jane was a junkie and this is her story, as told by Horace, a young man who fished her out of chaos one evening and fell in love with her. It’s a rambling story, and not all that dramatic. It’s not […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Investing in art: What’s the link between community development and cultural affairs?
Abena Joan Brown used pluck and perseverance to create the ETA Creative Arts Foundation; but to build a theater, she needed money. That’s where Nick Rabkin came in. “It will cost more than $1 million to put this all together,” says Brown, ETA’s president/producer. This year the group completed its sprawling 202-seat theater in the […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Hair
HAIR at the Vic Theater One look at the cast of this production and you realize that Hair is a ridiculous anachronism. I mean, they’re all dressed up in fringed vests and bell-bottoms and headbands, trying hard to look like hippies, but they really don’t have a clue. They’re too young. They don’t know about […]