THE DAY ROOM, at the Irish American Heritage Center. In a perfect world all but the most brilliant plays would be filed in a drawer and forgotten. Certainly this is what J. Sean Callan should have done with The Day Room, a long, unfocused, relentlessly undramatic two-act about life in a Dublin nursing home that’s […]
Tag: Vol. 27 No. 30
Issue of Apr. 30 – May. 6, 1998
Posted inMusic
Bruce Eisenbeil Trio
BRUCE EISENBEIL TRIO Most guitarists playing free jazz and improvised music these days favor either relentless blammo or spare plinkety-plonk. Right now the phenomenal Boston guitarist Joe Morris (who recorded an album with the local DKV Trio for Okka Disk last week) navigates the space between these polarities better than anyone–but watch out for New […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Phallo-Power-Babble
letinsky.qxd Dear editor, Let us see if we have this right: Fred Camper’s problem with Cindy Sherman (Photography, April 24)–undisputedly one of the most influential American visual artists of the last 20 years, certainly the most influential female artist of this period–is that she wears expensive designer shirts and says she likes trashy movies like […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Man Who Came To Dinner
THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER, Steppenwolf Theatre Company. Steppenwolf’s revival of George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart’s comic chestnut feels curiously old-fashioned–and not because it’s a 1939 play. This is the kind of show that dominated local theater some 30 years ago–a summer-stock staple efficiently performed by second-tier television and movie stars–before the off-Loop […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Hold Me
HOLD ME, Great Beast Theater, at Profiles Theatre. Jules Feiffer’s 1977 sketch comedy, like his earlier works The Explainers and Feiffer’s People, culls bits and pieces from his famous, now defunct weekly Village Voice cartoon. As such, the piece demands a cast able to leap into and out of Feiffer’s trademark edgy, neurotic, hilarious characters–most […]
Posted inMusic
Von Freeman Quartet with Robert Henry Johnson
VON FREEMAN QUARTET WITH ROBERT HENRY JOHNSON What becomes a legend most? In the case of Von Freeman, whose reputation began to spread beyond Chicago about 30 years ago and has yet to retreat, it’s a willingness to go beyond the tried-and-true: this performance will place him and his quartet onstage with San Francisco dancer […]
Posted inMusic
USA
USA There’s something beguiling about a group that can rock without trying too hard–early Velvet Underground, early Fall, even Chicago’s own legendary Shrimp Boat did it. It’s got a lot to do with the drumming: however rudimentary the results, you’ve got to find your own way to make the skins speak. How can you rock […]
Posted inNews & Politics
News of the Weird
Lead Stories In March the Oregon Lottery Commission awarded a $124,000 contract to a company to advise the commission on how to restore its gambling operations in case of a natural disaster, with a goal of having video poker back up within two hours. When critics suggested there might be more pressing problems after an […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Garbage In, Garbage Out
Despite a terrible environmental record and ferocious opposition, the Robbins incinerator keeps on cooking
Posted inArts & Culture
Where Is My Friend’s House?
Where Is My Friend’s House? It’s entirely possible that Abbas Kiarostami, who’s been making films in Iran for almost three decades, is our greatest living filmmaker. The problem isn’t that his films are esoteric, simply that they’re different from Western and other Iranian films alike, in the way they’re put together (without scripts and in […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Misplaced Anger
mccarte2.qxd As a “shrill” feminist, I feel compelled to explain something that isn’t apparent to either Mr. Camper [Photography, April 24] or Mr. Hayford [Performance, May 1]–the CULTURE is what teaches men this absurd idea of manhood and masculinity. The culture (read: Hugh Hefner, Bob Guccione, and others), those who BENEFIT FINANCIALLY from screwing up […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Police Scanner
Saturday, April 4, 11:00 PM Dispatcher: 1122? 1122: 22, squad. Dispatcher: 22– Monroe, apartment 1308. You know what? Don’t do anything 22, just hang on–we’re gonna call CHA and see if they can’t handle their work. 1122: Thank you very much, sir. Dispatcher: I ain’t makin’ no guarantees, we’re just gonna see….22, I tried, but […]
Posted inMusic
Kenny Burrell Quartet
KENNY BURRELL QUARTET Those jazz guitarists of the 1950s who built upon the legacies of saxist Charlie Parker and guitarist Charlie Christian (who cut a vital figure in the transition from big-band swing to small-group bebop) were a diverse lot. The group included Jimmy Raney and Tal Farlow, Wes Montgomery, and eventually Grant Green–but no […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Good Bones and Simple Murders
Good Bones and Simple Murders, at Stage Left Theatre. If the essays collected under the title Good Bones and Simple Murders are any indication, Margaret Atwood represents the branch of feminist writers perpetually afflicted with the pip. The personae she adopts–from Cinderella’s neglected stepsister to a cheerfully misandrist Martha Stewart manque to the inevitable rape […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Subsidizing the Rich
mier.qxd For two weeks in a row you’ve printed letters detracting Linda Lutton’s excellent piece, “Will Development Bury the Barrio?” [April 24]. I’m sick of hearing these morons with their oversimplified, jingoistic, conservative arguments. Is protesting a $500 million taxpayer subsidy of yuppie development at the expense of longtime city residents really getting in the […]