HOME AIN’T NOTHIN’ BUT A WORD, Hidden Stages Productions, at Blackwell Memorial A.M.E. Zion Church. However original the play’s criticism might have seemed when Hidden Stages first presented Margaret Smith Lowery’s agenda-packed Home Ain’t Nothin’ but a Word in 1993, in 1999 it comes across as a shrill jeremiad on American social policies governing the […]
Tag: Vol. 29 No. 4
Issue of Oct. 28 – Nov. 3, 1999
Posted inNews & Politics
City File
Need CPR in a hurry? Live in an integrated neighborhood. That’s the message from a study of 4,379 people who’d suffered a cardiac arrest and were cared for by Chicago’s Emergency Medical Services system during 1987 and 1988, published in the October issue of the Annals of Emergency Medicine. People who suffered cardiac arrests in […]
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Name Check
I read Lawrence Bommer’s October 22 review of Noises Off and have to offer a small correction. The faux play within the play was not “Noises On,” as Mr. Bommer asserts in his review, but “Nothing On.” Critics should be careful of the facts lest they impinge their credibility. The faux play, “Nothing On,” also […]
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Code War
Small theaters are suddenly being targeted by city inspectors. Is the city out to singe the fringe?
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Steve Dahl’s Bootleg: The Tale of the Tape/Getting Wired
By Michael Miner Steve Dahl’s Bootleg: The Tale of the Tape Radio is tricky to write about because it’s so loosely linked to reality. Names don’t come with faces, and you can’t always believe the names. Steve Dahl, to his credit, has a first name and a last, but the other key players in this […]
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Civic Orchestra of Chicago
CIVIC ORCHESTRA OF CHICAGO Though Duke Ellington occupies an unassailable place in the pantheons of jazz and popular music, even now, 100 years after his birth, many orchestras still consider even the most ambitious and Eurocentric of his works too lightweight for their repertoires. Fortunately for Chicagoans, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago (the CSO’s farm […]
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Learning Curve Casualties
Paul Vallas’s crackdown on “social promotion” may be keeping smart kids back.
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The Clink
THE CLINK, Rivendell Theatre Ensemble, at Holy Covenant United Methodist Church. Stephen Jeffreys’s poetic, word-heavy play is about life in the last days of the reign of Elizabeth I. And I can’t think of a worse place to stage it than the huge sanctuary of the Holy Covenant United Methodist Church, whose muddy acoustics swallow […]
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A Huge Horrible Failure
A Huge Horrible Failure, Annoyance Theatre. Director Gary Ruderman’s description of this play as about “a guy who tried to do something and failed” is too simple. Created through improvisation, the piece offers a whole assortment of sorry characters–all but one portrayed by Matt Dwyer and Dick Costolo–who present a collective image of failure that […]
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The Straight Dope
I work for a university library that receives massive amounts of federal government documents. The shipment I opened today included multiple translations of a pamphlet from the Department of Housing and Urban Development called Resident Rights and Responsibilities in Spanish, French, Ethiopian, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, and Creole. The last one stopped me, since I had […]
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In Performance: four poets on a mission
The four poets who make up the poetry collective I Was Born With Two Tongues emphasize their dual perspective from the outset. They frequently open their shows by saying they represent China, Cambodia, the Philippines, and Korea. Then they quickly add Baton Rouge, Jersey City, Glendale Heights, and Glenview. “One of our major preoccupations is […]
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Local Lit: Ted Cohen and the anatomy of the punch line
Try this one out at the office. A panhandler approaches a man on the street outside a theater. The man declines to give anything, saying, “Neither a borrower nor a lender be–William Shakespeare.” The panhandler replies, “Fuck you!–David Mamet.” Is this a funny joke? That depends on several variables, according to University of Chicago professor […]
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Single Steps
Jin-Wen Yu Dance at Link’s Hall, October 22-23 By Terry Brennan In Drumming Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker emphasizes multiplicity over individuality–the viewer is presented with multiple visions. Classical modern dance has a more traditional humanist orientation, focusing on the experience of the individual, an emphasis well illustrated in a concert by Jin-Wen Yu Dance at […]
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Love Is a Battlefield
What would Dorothy and Ernest Doubek do without each other?
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Black Gloves and Mirror Balls
From Panther to disco genius, Nile Rodgers keeps his own course.