Niagara Falls: Straight to the Top Paula Killen at Famous Door Theatre, through December 17 From the moment Monte Carlisle and Niagara Falls mount the Famous Door stage, it’s clear that Paula Killen’s latest show will continue her campy, over-the-top tradition, this time with a pinch of Gong Show and a dash of Vegas mixed […]
Tag: Vol. 25 No. 6
Issue of Nov. 16 – 22, 1995
Posted inNews & Politics
Rights of the Accuser
I was astonished to find in Erin Hogan’s piece on the masturbation criminal [October 27] that the state’s attorney, judge, defendant’s attorneys, and arresting University of Chicago and Chicago cops all made an issue of whether or not the U. of C. cop had the right to make an arrest off campus. Thought everyone knew […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Savoy-Doucet Band
Traditional music tends to crystallize people’s everyday experiences. Cajuns, the French-speaking minority in Louisiana, historically have had a pretty rough time of it; along with poverty they’ve long faced the deliberate suppression of their language and culture, and more recently the general homogenization of American culture has threatened their survival. Cajun music, with its stock […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Les Arts Florissants
The musical interludes between acts in Moliere’s comedie-ballets, in which ballet is incorporated into spoken comedy, are meant to augment and comment on the main plot. An exemplar of this 17th-century genre is his last play, Le malade imaginaire, a farce satirizing bourgeois pretensions and the medical profession. For the music Moliere turned to Parisian […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Three Nights of Glory
American Divine Dolphinback Theatre Company at the Theatre Building Let me say at the outset that American Divine, Dolphinback Theatre Company’s three-evening cycle of short plays by Joe Pintauro, is one of the best-acted and highest-quality non-Equity shows I’ve seen in off-Loop theater. Barely two years old, this ensemble displays a rare balance of technique […]
Posted inNews & Politics
No Insight
Dear Reader: Wyman’s article on Shannon Hoon’s death [Hitsville, November 3] could use a little research. The song from which Wyman quotes, “Skinned,” was written about a serial killer. For Wyman to try to turn these lyrics into Hoon’s personal philosophy is wrong. Wyman has no insight into this song, and his flippant quote does […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Shane McGowan & the Popes
“I ruined my life with drinking, bad wives, taking pills and cursing / Rock and roll you crucified me, left me all alone / I never should have turned my back on the old folks back home.” Those lines, howled with sarcastic, fuck-all glee by Shane MacGowan, are the spiritual center of his first solo […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Nights of the Blue Rider
This multidisciplinary performing arts festival, hosted by the Pilsen area’s Blue Rider Theatre, runs through December 17, with shows most Fridays and Saturdays at 8 PM and Sundays at 7 PM, as well as children’s matinees on selected Saturdays and Sundays at 3 PM. Most evenings feature two or more artists, with intermissions between each […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Fun With Agitprop
Anywhere Else Than Here Today Theater Oobleck at the Transient Theatre If all humanity were to disappear, the remainder of life would spring back and flourish. The mass extinctions now under way would cease, the damaged ecosystems heal and expand outward. If all the ants somehow disappeared, the effect would be exactly the opposite, and […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Masturbation Leads to Blindness
RE: “Jerked Around” by Erin “Did I mention I’ve been to France?” Hogan [October 27] In the spirit of your 7 page opus, I likewise wish to prevent unwitting witness to masturbation, and will therefore be certain to avoid reading future articles. The greatest irony of the piece was your failure to appreciate the countless […]
Posted inMusic
Different Drum
Chicago Sinfonietta at Rosary College, November 12 Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and Tallinn Chamber Orchestra at K.A.M. Isaiah Israel Temple, November 4 It sometimes seems that the big-time popular classical-music universe can support an almost unlimited number of professional piano and violin soloists. And it will harbor a somewhat smaller quantity of cellists and sopranos. […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Petty Crime
October 24, 10:15 PM, 1100 block of West 54th Street. Attempted robbery by two men and attack dog. The men instructed the dog to “get ‘im,” indicating the victim. One man beat victim with a stick, the other with his hands. Suspects were trying to steal victim’s collection of aluminum cans. October 31, 7:10 PM, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Birth of a $cientologist
Birth of a $cientologist, at Organic Theater Company Greenhouse, South Hall. Dane Hanson’s weakly written and performed one-man show lacks the satirical power to ruffle anyone’s feathers. Perhaps Hanson might have succeeded if he’d played just one or at most two roles, but instead he’s writer, director, producer, and performer. An outside eye might have […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Frank’s No Fun
Dear Tom Frank, I want to thank you for your insightful expose on those insidious and evil corporations which had the audacity to inflict fun, enjoyment and pleasure on people’s lives by renovating Navy Pier [October 13]. Can you believe those assholes? It’s really a sad day in America when close to a million people […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Unlocking the Grid
Skew: The Unruly Grid at Gallery 400, through November 30 Robert Smithson/Tony Tasset: Site/Nonsite at the Museum of Contemporary Art, through December 3 The forms of geometrical abstraction, from Mondrian’s grids and Malevich’s polygons to Barnett Newman’s stripes and Ad Reinhardt’s black squares, were seen by their creators not as metaphors for the visible world […]