Beat Reporters Philip Reed has written a newspaper play about two scheming reporters and the dump they work in–the dingy pressroom of central police headquarters at 11th and State. Nightside is set back in the 1970s, before high technology butted in where it had no business going. “I guess they’ve even got computers in the […]
Tag: Vol. 19 No. 37
Issue of Jun. 28 – Jul. 4, 1990
Posted inFilm
The Man Who Thought He Loved Women
STRAPLESS Directed and written by David Hare With Blair Brown, Bruno Ganz, Bridget Fonda, Alan Howard, and Hugh Laurie. With his third feature–his second, Paris by Night, has yet to be released in this country–British playwright-turned-filmmaker David Hare consolidates his reputation as one of the most tiresome and pretentious contemporary directors. He combines musty dramaturgy, […]
Posted inMusic
Prince Igor
PRINCE IGOR Grant Park Symphony Orchestra at the Petrillo Music Shell June 22 and 24 Aleksandr Borodin is wonderful proof that one can be an extraordinarily talented composer and yet devote one’s professional life to something else completely. Borodin’s vocation as a physician and chemist as well as a composer and member of the nationalistic […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Warriors
Twenty boys with baseball bats, pit bulls, and acne–they careened up and down the street, shrieking and swinging the bats as they chased down a pair of interlopers.
Posted inArts & Culture
Improprieties
IMPROPRIETIES Phil Martini at the Dance Center of Columbia College June 21-23 During rehearsals for the concert “Improprieties” at the Dance Center of Columbia College, one of the dancers stood onstage while the lights were being adjusted. Bored, he started to strike dramatic Martha Graham-style poses. The other dancers teased him, shouting “Angst. Give us […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Steve Wynn
“Tears Won’t Help ” the first and most radio-friendly of the songs on Steve Wynn’s first solo album, Kerosene Man, begins with a churning-burning guitar figure that recalls “Still Holding On to You,” a song he wrote for his former group, the Dream Syndicate. The band was one of the best and most noted of […]
Posted inArts & Culture
International Theatre Festival: The Government Inspector
INTERNATIONAL THEATRE FESTIVAL The Government Inspector at the Blackstone Theatre People say our actors can’t talk. It’s the well-known cliche. While the British have been busy turning out bell-toned Oliviers–Stanley Holloways, at the very least–we’re supposed to have bred a line of Great American Inarticulates, from Cooper to Brando to, I dunno, maybe Malkovich. There’s […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Straight Dope
I am enclosing a copy of a recent column in Parade magazine by Marilyn vos Savant, who supposedly is listed in the “Guinness Book of World Records Hall of Fame” for “highest IQ.” A writer asks Marilyn for an answer to the following riddle: If a hen and a half can lay an egg and […]
Posted inArts & Culture
A Statue Come to Life
KRITHIKA RAJAGOPALAN and ABIOGENESIS MOVEMENT ENSEMBLE at the Blue Rider Theatre June 21 Krithika Rajagopalan’s art, on exhibit one evening only during the “Nights of the Blue Rider” festival, is unlikely to resemble anything you’ve seen before. It combines music, poetic texts, dramatic story telling, and dance as no single Western form does. Not only […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The City File
“It brought you in the showroom, didn’t it? Be it right or wrong, that’s the way everybody does it,” said Ralph Schneider, sales manager at Evanston Nissan, about the Sentra his dealership advertised for $4,495. Ah, but the fine print in the the ad’s footnote explains that that’s the price only “after your $2,000 trade-in […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Last Poets
This show should bring some historical perspective to the current rap-music furor; it may also refamiliarize contemporary audiences with the affirming message of liberation that lies at the roots of the form. The Last Poets were, along with Gil Scott-Heron, among the most important chroniclers of the urban revolt of the 60s and early 70s. […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Abortion and Contraception
To the editors. The June 1 issue of the Reader contains not just one but two pieces which reiterate cliched and largely unfair stereotypes of prolifers. Rose Pike [“Health: Whatever Happened to Birth Control?”] portrays antiabortion sentiment as the purview of a “religious right” fringe element which cannot abide the thought of any nonprocreative sexual […]
Posted inFilm
We Monsters
GREMLINS 2 THE NEW BATCH Directed by Joe Dante Written by Charlie Haas With Zach Galligan, Phoebe Cates, John Glover, Robert Prosky, Robert Picardo, Christopher Lee, Haviland Morris, Keye Luke, and Dick Miller. A cautionary tale set in a Frank Capra universe, Joe Dante’s original Gremlins (1984) gives us a kindhearted, unsuccessful inventor named Peltzer […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Art of Grieving
To the editors: I was impressed to read the article by Michael Bonesteel The Art of Dying (June 8) on the cover since I hardly find any articles concerning art. It is about time! I found the article very moving and was glad that Mr. Bonesteel had the courage to tell their story. I understand […]