Dear Letters Editor: We feel compelled to respond to Laura Molzahn and Achy Obejas’s review of Pepatian’s Familias in the Reader (Friday, May 19). Familias was presented May 11-13 as a work-in-progress at the Dance Center of Columbia College. We write not to defend a piece which speaks for itself, but to protest the ways […]
Tag: Vol. 24 No. 42
Issue of Jul. 27 – Aug. 2, 1995
Posted inNews & Politics
Who’s Responsible for This?
The worldview of the conspiracist is an appealingly simple one: Since all our problems stem from a single source, all we really need is one vigilant hero to set things right
Posted inArts & Culture
A Star Is Born
Victor/Victoria Shubert Theatre The problem with Julie Andrews’s career, conventional show-biz wisdom holds, is her goody-goody image. “I don’t want to be thought of as wholesome,” Andrews declared in 1966 after playing folksinging nun-turned-nanny Maria von Trapp in The Sound of Music, and in subsequent movies she seemed bent on proving her point: jumping into […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Good Old Social Darwinism
To the editors: Reading Michael Solot’s review of Mencken: A Life [July 7] made me nostalgic for those simpler times when gross racial and ethnic generalizations could be passed off as acerbic social commentary. It’s so stifling today, what with “crackpots” like Noam Chomsky cluttering up our social discourse with their “saint[ly]” distress over various […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Crazy for You
Endlessly ingenious musical staging by Susan Stroman, a hilarious, smart-alecky script by Ken (Lend Me a Tenor) Ludwig, evocative 30s-style sets by Robin Wagner, and above all a collection of great George and Ira Gershwin songs make for perfect escapist entertainment in this 1992 Broadway hit. And though this touring cast isn’t quite as top-notch […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Wait Until Dark
Wait Until Dark, Saint Sebastian Players. Featuring a terror-ridden blackout finale Commonwealth Edison would envy, this reliable 1966 nail-biter by Frederick Knott (who played the same tricks in Dial M for Murder) needs only to be properly tuned and timed to turn the audience inside out. And director Chuck Smith, in this well-oiled Saint Sebastian […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Alternative Stagnation
In response to Q101 Program Director Bill Gamble’s letter defending Jamboree ’95 [June 9], gee, Bill, it must keep you up nights knowing Q101 beat out B96 in being the first to play “All That She Wants” from Ace of Base, but try not to be so overly impressed with yourself. Your station has yet […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Body Politic Bows Out/Auditorium Suit Dismissed
The demise of the Body Politic marks the end of an era in Chicago theater, but it’s a new beginning for John Walker and Victory Gardens.
Posted inNews & Politics
News of the Weird
Lead Story An Associated Press dispatch from Thailand in January reported that a Bangkok mechanic named Somsong Thanopwattana ingests lube grease–he prefers 20/50 grade–and says it is good for his bowel movements. His doctor, however, has cautioned him against the diet, pointing to grease’s combustibility and warning him against passing gas close to an open […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Memories of the Future
Nacho Alfonso: Memorials at La Casa de Arte y Cultura, Calles y Suenos, through July 29 By Bertha Husband “Memorias” is the title Nacho Alfonso has given his exhibition of 20 works on paper, mostly ink and acrylic, now showing at La Casa de Arte y Cultura in Pilsen. Of course memories can take two […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Day in Court
It’s late morning at the Cook County Circuit Court Building in Skokie. In one of the small courtrooms along the broad center hallway a few people sit quietly in clusters on wooden pews, waiting for their cases to be called. Near the front of the room a black Chicago cop is lying back in his […]
Posted inArts & Culture
As You Like It
Back in my 20s, when I was so much older and wiser than I am now, Hamlet, with its moody, brooding hero and his dark death-obsessed soliloquies, was my favorite Shakespearean drama. But now that I’m midway through my 30s and that much closer to Hamlet’s “undiscovered country,” As You Like It is my fave–not […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Multiplex
When the great heat wave hit, I sought refuge in an air-conditioned movie theater. I perused the listings to find the film that would best be illuminated by my critical acumen. The choice was obvious: Species. Species is director Roger Donaldson’s followup to his remake of Sam Peckinpah’s The Getaway. That movie proved Donaldson is […]
Posted inNews & Politics
American Apartheid
While touting its imagined position as the world leader in human rights, our government continues to mete out the death penalty in a blatantly racist manner.
Posted inArts & Culture
Calendar Photo Caption
Chicago artist Hiroko Saito’s Ray, an acrylic painting framed by rubber balls, is included in “A Sight for Sore Eyes,” a show of “soothing new creations” at Ten in One Gallery, 1542 N. Damen. Other exhibitors include Yvette Brackman, Patrick McGee, Michelle Grabner, and others. It’s open 1 to 6 Thursdays and Fridays, noon to […]