WAITING FOR THE PARADE Ides of March Productions at Center Theater The simple, straightforward assessment of an audience member sitting near me was right on the mark. “This is a nice play,” he said. Waiting for the Parade, the first play staged by a group called Ides of March Productions, is a nice play. The […]
Tag: Vol. 19 No. 19
Issue of Feb. 22 – 28, 1990
Posted inArts & Culture
Rosalie Sorrels
Rosalie Sorrels is the kind of artist who gives folk music a good name: instead of wallowing in nostalgia for simpler times, she turns a joyfully poetic eye on the human condition as experienced by real people, often expressed as a gritty celebration of her own well-lived, sometimes tumultuous life. Whether painting a bittersweet portrait […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Three by Tudor
AMERICAN BALLET THEATRE at the Civic Center for Performing Arts February 6-17 Fifty years ago, Antony Tudor changed the face of ballet, and incidentally put American Ballet Theatre (then Ballet Theatre) on the map. Several years after the 1942 premiere of Tudor’s Pillar of Fire, Edwin Denby wrote that it “overwhelmed the audience at its […]
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On Exhibit: the golden agency of photojournalism
You can find whatever emotion you want in the retrospective exhibit of photojournalism from the Magnum agency, one of the world’s premier photo agencies for over 40 years. Want a look at the essence of anger, that sheet of red that slides up into your field of vision? Gaze for a while at Henri Cartier-Bresson’s […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Sports Section
The ninth round of the Tyson-Douglas heavyweight title fight was boxing reduced–or elevated–to its essence. It was one of the most exciting rounds I’ve ever seen, and, mind you, I saw it some few days after the fight had taken place. The champion, Mike Tyson, had floored the challenger, James “Buster” Douglas, at the end […]
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Family Knots
AWAKE AND SING! Eliot’s Rock Theatre One of the things director Peter Sellars said during his recent appearance at Northwestern University was that exactitude gives art “moral force.” The half-made, stock, or arbitrary gesture saps a work of integrity and power. In Sellars’s words, “You have to work hard and get it right.” The members […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Safe school zones: crime-weary neighborhoods pray for a sign
When gunshots were heard outside a Rogers Park grade school–the guns fired by drug dealers, some barely in their teens–nearby residents were convinced that they had to take control of their community. So, working through the Rogers Park Tenants Committee, they put together an antidrug campaign that called for education, rehabilitation, and cooperation with police. […]
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Vampire Lesbians of Sodom
VAMPIRE LESBIANS OF SODOM Edge Productions Royal George Theatre “You may one day marry and even have children but you will always be a homosexual . . . ALWAYS!”–Screen vamp Madeleine Astarte to screen idol King Carlisle, in Vampire Lesbians of Sodom What is this thing called Vampire Lesbians of Sodom? Definitely not a story. […]
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Rock ‘n’ Roll: scary mutant country monster
Even a big fan of Souled American has to admit that the band is and might always be an acquired taste. At Camper Van Beethoveen’s epochal show at the Vic last year, the Chicago foursome opened the show with its perfect melange of fractured country and coming-apart-at-the-seams rural blues; I’ve written before that Souled American […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Postcards From a Lost War
There were addled armchair mercenaries and intrepid millionaires with fruitcake dreams of empire. There were sex-crazed commandantes and the sultry spies who sent them to their deaths. There was a befuddled old Indiana farmer who found himself managing a
Posted inNews & Politics
News of the Weird
Lead Story In November, Phillip Shane Duncan, 18, and three partners were arrested for attempting to rob an all-night convenience store in Knoxville, Tennessee, at 4 AM. As a disguise, Duncan wore the box from a 12-pack of beer over his head and peered out of the two grip holes. The robbery failed when the […]
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Barrymore!
BARRYMORE! Kinetic Theatre Company We who play, who entertain for a few years, what can we leave that will last?–Ethel Barrymore, quoted in Little Girl Lost, by Drew Barrymore with Todd Gold Fuck the applause. Who’s got a drink?–John Barrymore, quoted in Damned in Paradise, by John Kobler I can’t think of a better subject […]
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Samuel Ramey
Currently the ne plus ultra bass of the Western world, Samuel Ramey is best known to Chicago audiences for his many Lyric Opera portrayals; what recital singing he has done has been mostly at big-bucks Lyric Opera parties. Now the true diversity and musicianship of this extraordinary artist can be heard in a single afternoon […]
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Survival of the Fit
ASHLEY BICKERTON at the Donald Young Gallery New York artist Ashley Bickerton’s latest sculpture is just the sort of work you would expect the Big Apple to export to its less glitzy neighbor. Many of these large floor and wall pieces, with their black leather, silver fasteners, and glass cases suspended by pulleys, look like […]