Barrett Deems resembles a rooster. His Adam’s apple sticks out a mile, and he is improbably thin. On this Tuesday night at the Elbo Room, Deems turns his back to his band, which appears to do fine without him, and faces the audience, right index finger keeping a steady tempo. In his red pullover sweater […]
Tag: Vol. 22 No. 29
Issue of Apr. 29 – May. 5, 1993
Posted inArts & Culture
Let the Dolly Do the Work
LET THE DOLLY DO THE WORK Curious Theatre Branch Imagine yourself a theatrical producer searching for hot new Chicago talent. You’ve heard of this Beau O’Reilly character and his cohorts at the Curious Theatre Branch: they have a reputation for crossing boundaries, experimenting with forms–you know, arty stuff, the kind you’d like your name associated […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Pantomime/Stand-Up Tragedy
PANTOMIME Court Theatre The challenge of making a political statement in mainstream theater is to preach to the converted without beating them over the head. At the Court and Body Politic theaters, the contention that race- and class-based injustice still exists around the globe won’t meet with much argument. Keeping the audience entertained and interested […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Field & Street
Spring is happening right outside my windows. Unfortunately, I seem to be spending all my time inside my windows. I get a few glimpses. A great blue heron flew over my backyard. Robins have built a nest just under our eaves where the drainpipe makes a 45-degree turn. A wasp tottered around my office windowsill […]
Posted inArts & Culture
24 Hours: Elegy
24 HOURS: ELEGY Jennifer Bartlett at Richard Gray Gallery, through May 6 I admire painters, especially these days. They show a healthy bad attitude by continuing to work in a medium the art-world cognoscenti have been administering last rites to for the past couple of decades. And among this never-say-die group, it’s hard to think […]
Posted inMusic
The English Sound
CHOIR OF SAINT PAUL’S CATHEDRAL at Cathedral of the Holy Name, April 19 Their monarchy may be in big trouble, and their economy may be in shambles. But when it comes to choral music, the sun still has not set on the British Empire. The balance of trade is definitely in their favor; through recordings […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Big Goddess Pow Wow III: The Empress Provoked
They are the reigning goddesses of the Chicago performance scene: Paula Killen, Marcia Wilkie, Cindy Salach, Rennie Sparks, Jenny Magnus, Liz Phair, 1992 international poetry slam champ Lisa Buscani, and the WAC Drum Corps. They don’t mess around. Not with their art, not with their politics. Last year, at the Big Goddess Pow Wow II, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Great Guitars (Charlie Byrd, Herb Ellis, Tal Farlow)
Don’t even question it: buy your ticket, take your seat, and relax in the knowledge that even if two of them were inexplicably to forget how to play, you’d still get your money’s worth. (The fret set already knows what to expect, so don’t be surprised to find the place lousy with open-mouthed guitarists.) Charlie […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Act of Hope
MY QUEER BODY Tim Miller at Beacon Street Theatre & Gallery, April 15-17 One of the most engaging aspects of performance art is that, most of the time, it’s so deeply personal. The artist onstage doesn’t so much play a character as some aspect of his or her self. This has its risks, of course. […]
Posted inArts & Culture
My Fair Lady
MY FAIR LADY at the Chicago Theatre “Who knows?” Alan Jay Lerner said to Herman Levin, producer of My Fair Lady’s 1956 Broadway premiere, as they tried to pinpoint the reason for their creation’s phenomenal success. “It may have been the chandeliers that did it.” Lerner was joking, of course (or half-joking, in the superstitious […]
Posted inArts & Culture
In the Flesh
What do you do when you have a hit show whose powerful impact is due partly to the tiny space it’s performed in? That was the dilemma faced by director-playwright Charley Sherman, whose inventive horror drama In the Flesh was aided considerably in its original run last fall by the intimacy of the Organic Theater’s […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Theater Notes: puppets from hell
Looking for a different way to make puppet shows, Blair Thomas went to hear Argentinean puppet master Javier Villafane speak in New York last year. Villafane, now in his 90s, said he had been inspired by Federico Garcia Lorca to become a puppeteer: Villafane took a wagon full of marionettes and hand puppets into the […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Two Rooms
TWO ROOMS Oil-Can Productions at Cafe Voltaire The strengths and weaknesses of this company’s first professional production reflect those of Lee Blessing’s play. A very moving story, about a hostage and his wife who remain spiritually connected though physically separated, is weakened by heavy-handed portraits of the ineffectual government agent and ambitious journalist who claim […]