At 72 Ilja Hurnik is the grand old man of Czech music. Though little known outside his country, he’s taught for a long time at the Prague Conservatory, where his rather conservative taste and relatively tonal style put him in the good graces of the communist cultural commissars. As a concert pianist, he studied with […]
Tag: Vol. 24 No. 22
Issue of Mar. 9 – 15, 1995
Posted inArts & Culture
My 9 Naked Friends
Emerging Artists Project, at Turn Around Theatre. The teasing title is a crock–or, as one character puts it, “The whole naked thing is just a ploy.” Indeed, we’re meant to be embarrassed by the idea of naked bodies, just as the ten palpably nudophobic actors are. Sure, it’s OK to argue that nudity is not […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Reader to Reader
Reader to Reader Two weeks ago my mom was in from out of town and dropped her wallet in the taxi we took after dinner. I called Yellow Cab and reported the loss. I didn’t know the cab number, but I remembered the driver’s first and last name started with the same five letters, O-l-u-g-i…O-l-u-g-i….A […]
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Digable Planets
Digable Planets charmed most of the known world in 1993 with their ultragroovy rap single “Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)”; that song and its accompanying album, Reachin’ (A New Refutation of Time and Space), combined sweet melodies and daring, bebop-based instrumentation with a pretty devastating upbraiding of gangsta rap through gentle moods, delightful wordplay, […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Trib Buys Out Writers, Sells Out Readers/A Frank Farewell/News Bites
Trib Buys Out Writers, Sells Out Readers If the veteran journalists leaving the Chicago Tribune this month marched into some drowsing hamlet and set up shop, they could snap it awake with the liveliest weekly in America. The Tribune made going away irresistible, but not because these folks are senescent. They’re just damned expensive. Putting […]
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Oui Be Negroes In Can We Dance With Yo Dates?
Underground Theatre Conspiracy, at Sheffield’s. Just being a mostly black comedy troupe allows you to do jokes other companies can’t–like the crime quiz show where the prime suspect is always the black guy with the stocking over his head or a running gag about dances black people must never do in public (the bunny hop, […]
Posted inMusic
Spot Check
DEL THA FUNKy HOMOSAPIEN 3/10, B SIDE CAFE A linchpin of the Bay Area Hieroglyphics crew (Souls of Mischief, Casual, Extra Prolific, Pep-Love & Jay Biz), Del tha Funkee Homosapien is one of hip hop’s most fluid and most humorous freestyle rappers. Since he’s preparing to record a follow-up to 1993’s fine No Need for […]
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Night of Absurdia
Tinfish Productions, at the Greenview Arts Center. A manufacturing mogul is brought to his knees by the criticism of his employees. A job applicant is tortured and humiliated by his interviewer. An artist is coerced by a philistine patron to distort his creation beyond recognition. Two suburban couples spend a pleasant evening babbling vacuous nonsense. […]
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Ravishes
Real Work, Inc., at Cafe Voltaire. Two would-be porn kings might once have aspired to be serious filmmakers. They speak of Aristotelian unities, dramatic action, and “engaging the audience’s moral sensibilities.” One of them almost folds when a key piece of equipment malfunctions–“I have to get this in one take!”–but the prop in need of […]
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Wasted Youth
SubUrbia Roadworks Productions at the Theatre Building Our ImMEDIAte Family at Cafe Voltaire What would a group of go-get-’em Northwestern grads who’ve garnered six Jeff Citations and a handful of big-tuna foundation grants in a little over two years know about existential ennui? Apparently everything. Roadworks’s midwest premiere of Eric Bogosian’s grim Generation X portrait, […]
Posted inMusic
Soft Around the Edges
Aretha Franklin, Jerry Butler Arie Crown Theater, February 25 Soul music is a dying art form. Contemporary artists are producing emotionless interpretations of black musical traditions, since soul, rooted in the African American experience, is often considered too black to have crossover appeal. But the artistic compromise that crossover demands is a heavy one–less authenticity […]
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Secular Movements
Festival of Organ and Dance Kast and Company at Saint Thomas the Apostle Church, March 2 and 3 This year’s “Festival of Organ and Dance” in-cluded Maggie Kast’s third installment in her series of dances to be performed at Saint Thomas the Apostle Church. Forgoing a religious theme this year, Kast focused on dance–on moving […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Getting The Bugs Out
The resonant alto voice of Bernice Wilkins–mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, and director of the day-care center at the community building I manage–is on my telephone: “They’re back. The roaches.” In truth, the roaches never left, but the biweekly treatment and quarterly fogging have kept their profile low. The day-care center has 100 children; its small kitchen […]