Severyn Ashkenazy, operator of the posh L’Ermitage hotel in Beverly Hills, was here scouting Chicago locations last week. Our “luxury” hotels, he says, “are really nothing more than upholstered Hyatts.”
Tag: Vol. 18 No. 50
Issue of Sep. 28 – Oct. 4, 1989
Posted inNews & Politics
Strip Story
To the editors: The dispute over the future of the strip of land running from Montrose to Irving Park between Graceland Cemetery and the Howard “L” [Neighborhood News, September 1] is made more interesting by a recounting of its history. The strip was never a road, at least in any dedicated sense. Rather, it was […]
Posted inArts & Culture
F.O.B.
F.O.B. Angel Island Theatre Company at Centre East Studio This production of F.O.B. represents a lot of firsts. It’s the midwest premiere of the first play by David Henry Hwang–who wrote it in 1979 and who is the author of the current New York hit M. Butterfly–and the first Chicago production of any of his […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Dreamer Examines His Pillow
THE DREAMER EXAMINES HIS PILLOW Penguin Island Theatre at the Prism Gallery John Patrick Shanley, who wrote The Dreamer Examines His Pillow, describes his play as “a heterosexual homily.” If this is the state of heterosexuality, then perhaps we’d all better throw in the towel now. Tommy (David Atkinson) is an unshaven, slack-jawed wastrel of […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Lighting Up
The heavy air rose off the subway tracks at Clark and Division, swirling burnt grease and rush hour into the faces of countless riders. Framed against a brown pillar stood a large woman and her tiny son. The boy, who couldn’t have been taller than two and a half feet, was wearing a miniature light […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Girl in a Swing
Alan (Rupert Frazer), a wealthy English antique ceramics dealer, becomes smitten with a German secretary named Karin (Meg Tilly) during a business trip in Copenhagen, proposes to her, and marries her after she joins him in England. Although they’re passionately in love, a number of unsettling and seemingly supernatural events–including dreams and apparent hallucinations–begin to […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Homecoming
THE HOMECOMING Steppenwolf Theatre Company “My lips move,” says Ruth, the enigmatic female outsider in the all-male household of Harold Pinter’s 1965 drama The Homecoming. “Why don’t you restrict . . . your observations to that. Perhaps the fact that they move is more significant . . . than the words which come through them. […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Special security: fed-up Uptowners hire their own cops
They’re fed up and they’re not going to take it anymore. In an effort to counter crime and mayhem in their streets, four community groups in Uptown have banded together to hire a private security force to patrol their neighborhoods. This unusual response was a long time in the making. Back in 1985 Turk Glazebrook, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Glass Mendacity
THE GLASS MENDACITY the Illegitimate Players at Victory Gardens Studio The Illegitimate Players have gone legit. In their new show, the comedy troupe have moved beyond the confines of cabaret and cable TV to a real theater; instead of the revue format of such previous efforts as Out on a Whim and Near North Side […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Relief Effort
“Pa’ la isla, broder, pa’ la isla,” shouted David Castro above the din. In front of the offices of the Puerto Rican Parade Committee at California and Division cars were passing, huge stereo speakers across the street were blasting, and the two cops were directing pedestrian traffic through a bullhorn. “For the island, my brothers, […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Shooting for the Green
It’s a long shot from Jackson Park to the $42 million PGA tour. Emanuel Worley, 28, is giving himself six more years to make it.
Posted inFilm
Priveleged Moments
REMBRANDT LAUGHING Directed and written by Jon Jost With Jon A. English, Barbara Hammes, Jim Nisbet, Nathaniel Dorsky, Janet McKinley, Kate Dezina, and Jerry Barrish. “The essence of Jean-Luc Godard’s La femme mariee,” John Bragin wrote in the mid-60s, “is the transmutation of the dramatic into the graphic.” While this formula doesn’t account for everything […]
Posted inMusic
David “Honeyboy” Edwards–White Windows; Big Daddy Kinsey and Sons–Can’t Let Go
WHITE WINDOWS David “Honeyboy” Edwards Blue Suit 102 It’s always interesting to hear what a blues traditionalist does to keep well-worn ideas fresh. Some veteran artists adopt a museum-piece approach, rehashing famous folk themes and affecting quaint “living legend” personas. The most adept rustic survivor from a bygone era was probably Big Bill Broonzy, who […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Home Remedy
A likable if minor low-budget comedy, written and directed by Maggie Greenwald, which focuses on two eccentrics who live in the same neighborhood in Paramus, New Jersey: a frustrated housewife and mother (Maxine Albert) and a narcissistic recluse (Seth Barrish) who cultivates boredom. The editing and dialogue have their moments of wit as this unlikely […]