THE NIGHT OF THE IGUANA Goodman Theatre Not much seems to happen in Tennessee Williams’s The Night of the Iguana, now running in a magnificent, revelatory revival at the Goodman Theatre. In this 1961 play no one is led off to the madhouse; no glass menageries come crashing down; there are no abortions or castrations, […]
Tag: Vol. 23 No. 24
Issue of Mar. 24 – 30, 1994
Posted inNews & Politics
Harding’s Due
Editor: Alan Boomer’s “Sports Section” for March 4 offers some of the most intelligent commentary I’ve seen on the class and sex stereotyping that has dominated reporting on the Harding-Kerrigan affair and on women’s sports in general. But I think that Boomer fails to give Tonya Harding her due as an athlete. To call someone […]
Posted inMusic
Acetone
Neil Young’s influence on a disillusioned generation rears its head again in this young LA trio. On their debut album, last year’s Cindy (Vernon Yard), Acetone bashed away at loose grooves, Mark Lightcap’s guitar staggering drunkenly through the wreckage left by Steve Hadley’s frantically splashing drums and Richie Lee’s rumbling bass. “Pinch,” with its refrain […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Phair Madness?
Album of the Year? I demand a recount! After weathering a veritable hurricane of critical hyperbole for most of the year, I decided to purchase the Liz Phair CD [Hitsville, January 3] and see for myself just how good Spin magazine’s album of the year was. My reaction after repeated listenings: it’s no good. Indeed […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Chicago Chamber Musicians
The Chicago Chamber Musicians are a curious bunch. Staffed mostly with CSO first-chairs, this chamber collective of seven core members ought to have established a strong presence in the city by now. One reason it hasn’t, I think, is its generic repertoire: sure, it’s nice to hear Larry Combs playing his clarinet and Gail Williams […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Standing on My Knees/New Anatomies
STANDING ON MY KNEES Thunder Road Ensemble and Mary-Arrchie Theatre Company at Mary-Arrchie Theatre NEW ANATOMIES Strawdog Theatre Company John Olive’s Standing on My Knees presents a refreshingly demystified account of the risks undertaken by those whose work requires them to delve into the darkest corners of the psyche. Catherine has recently been released from […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Appeasement American-Style
In Harold Henderson’s “The City File” column (March 11) Dwight Conquergood, speaking at a Northwestern conference on race and the media, is quoted as saying that “Labeling someone a gang member licenses the most rabid racism and class bias.” I don’t know who Conquergood is, but he sounds like a PR spin doctor hired by […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Straight Dope
Your column about infant circumcision [January 28] contained erroneous information. The enclosed remarks by Dr. John Taylor should clarify that “God’s little mudguard” is not basically ordinary skin. It is a highly specialized organ that serves several distinct and important purposes. Arguments about penile cancer and urinary tract infections may be enough to scare American […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Marcus Mengele, MD
Dear Editor: The question concerning Dr. Josef Mengele [November 26] is was he an ethical physician? Were his experiments useful? Mengele delved in hereditary conditions of human pathology. He was a genetic engineer before the term became current. Today, they play with genetics and experimentation for profits and awards. Mengele attempted to understand what caused […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The City File
Department of tact. Graham Grady, the city’s new building commissioner, who wants to increase city demolitions of abandoned buildings from 751 last year to more than 1,200 this year: “Contrary to stereotype, I think most city employees are basically good people who are capable of quality work. But there are some knuckleheads” (Chicago Enterprise, March/April). […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Robin Lakes Rough Dance
It’s not every choreographer who’d devote an evening-length work to food. But with Mouth, a suite of dances examining the relationships between eating and the family, eating and sex, eating and our culture, Robin Lakes not only confronts the subject, she exhausts it. Happily she doesn’t take a programmatic approach–Lakes is just an intelligent person […]
Posted inNews & Politics
On Books and Buildings
Dear editor: In his February 4 Reader article on the Chicago Public Library, Ben Joravsky, quoting a survey by “Chicago Public Library Advocates,” a self-proclaimed watchdog group from two north-side libraries, states that many of Chicago’s neighborhood libraries are “in dire need of renovation or repairs.” Certainly more renovation is needed for the City’s libraries, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Restaurant Tours: the hot and the spotty
Up to now Chicago has never had a real brasserie–those brightly lit, lively, spacious restaurants Paris is full of, where hearty Alsatian dishes merge with high spirits and free-flowing wine and beer. (The word actually means “brewery.”) Brasseries are where you often come with a crowd, any time of night, to eat a full meal […]