In his preface to Quentin Crisp’s brilliant memoir The Naked Civil Servant Michael Holroyd points out: “To the English, Mr. Crisp has appeared as one of the more flamboyant inventions of Evelyn Waugh; but his world is closer to that of Samuel Beckett.” Therein lies the source of Crisp’s paradoxical appeal: behind the campier-than-camp appearance […]
Tag: Vol. 22 No. 1
Issue of Oct. 15 – 21, 1992
Posted inArts & Culture
11 Minutes Max!
11 MINUTES MAX! Bailiwick Repertory at the Theatre Building October 9, 16, and 23 There’s always a certain atmosphere about the really good late shows, especially performance-art ones. They feel clandestine, like you’re going to a blind pig. Only the people in the know go. And those who don’t–well, tough for them. 11 Minutes Max!, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Every summer I make a pilgrimage to Spring Green, Wisconsin, about 40 miles west of Madison, to catch the American Players Theatre. This wonderful repertory theater, founded in 1979 by a band of plucky exiles fleeing the increasingly inhospitable New York theater scene, has over the years earned a glowing reputation for their intelligent, unpretentious, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Reshuffling at Art Expo/Hubbard Street’s New Name/11 Winning Wines/Woman Without Country: K.D. Lang Sells Out
Newest combatant in the art-fair wars is Mark Lyman, who is revamping the Lakeside Group, producers of the original Art Expo. Head honcho John Wilson, spurned by dealers, has removed himself from day-to-day operations.
Posted inMusic
Rootless people: James McMurtry runs from the wasteland
Texas singer-songwriter James McMurtry inevitably is identified in the press as the son of novelist and screenwriter Larry McMurtry (Lonesome Dove, Terms of Endearment, The Last Picture Show). To some extent, these references are merely the consequence of having a famous parent, and McMurtry can probably give thanks that he labors in a far less […]
Posted inArts & Culture
John Fahey
Guitarist John Fahey survived what Utah Phillips called “the great folk music scare” of the 60s to establish himself as a contemporary virtuoso of traditional acoustic guitar. He’s probably best known as a blues musician, archivist, and scholar; he was instrumental in the rediscoveries of Bukka White and Skip James, his Takoma Records eventually became […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Le dortoir
In 1988 Montreal’s Carbone 14 performance company brought its rivetingly physical yet poetic Le rail to the International Theatre Festival of Chicago. That same year founding director Gilles Maheu unveiled Le dortoir (“The Dormitory”), which only now is receiving its Chicago-area premiere in a brief engagement by the touring troupe. Specializing in an emotionally expressive […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Mitos, Suenos y Encuentros
MITOS, SUENOS, Y ENCUENTROS Grupo Zopilote and Latino Chicago Theater Company at the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum Revisionist history certainly seems to be the rage these days–just look at the flood of films, plays, and books on Columbus’s voyages to the Americas. Such reclamations of history can be exciting and important events, as long-silenced […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Modern Insanity
ELEKTRA Lyric Opera Though he lived until 1949, Richard Strauss is generally regarded as a relic of the 19th century. Grounds for this view are found in his sumptuous musical idiom for Der Rosenkavalier and his various tone poems. Strauss retained his distinctive and emphatically tonal mode of expression until the end of his life, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Moonie the Magnificent/Pie Story Theatre
MOONIE THE MAGNIFICENT Famous Door Theatre Company PIE STORY THEATRE Emerging Artists Project at the Theatre Building Philip E. Johnson, aka Moonie the Magnificent, claims to have been influenced by the internationally renowned Avner the Eccentric, but Johnson’s maskless clown resembles him only in his onstage silence. Johnson’s act–a medley of juggling, rope walking, acrobatics, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Flaming Creatures
Forget everything you might have heard about the late Jack Smith’s legendary, bisexual, orgiastic, super-low-budget experimental 1963 masterpiece–a lot more is going on here, artistically and otherwise, than either Jonas Mekas or Susan Sontag ever suggested. This 45-minute film, rarely shown over the last two decades, holds up amazingly well as much more than just […]