HAKAN HAGEGARD Swedish baritone Hakan Hagegard doesn’t have Pavarotti’s flash or Ben Heppner’s power, but he doesn’t need them: though he’s had moderate success on the operatic stage, he’s found his niche in more intimate settings. In 1975, seven years after debuting as Papageno in a Stockholm production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute, he reprised […]
Tag: Vol. 29 No. 42
Issue of Jul. 20 – 26, 2000
Heavenly Hash
The Lark Eclipse Theatre Company at the Athenaeum Theatre By Kelly Kleiman Julie Daley’s performance as Joan of Arc is reason enough to see Eclipse Theatre Company’s production of The Lark, adapted by Lillian Hellman from a verse play by Jean Anouilh. Daley is marvelous: down-to-earth, straightforward, and natural yet utterly persuasive in a part […]
Savage Love
I was really surprised at the advice you gave to Orgasmless in Seattle, the horny girl going off to France. It was so sensible! I can’t help but think that if it had been a gay boy going to France you would have told him to have as much fun as possible–just remember to shrink-wrap […]
Terror in the Mountains/ Keeping It Clean/ News Bite
By Michael Miner Headline geeh The incident at Roaring Hell Creek Road left survivors who can tell us what happened. Lots of survivors, come to think of it, as no one suffered bodily harm. But things got hairy. Two Saturdays ago a van stopped on the narrow bridge where Roaring Hell Creek Road crosses the […]
The Sweet Cheat
Time Regained *** Directed by Raul Ruiz Written by Gilles Taurand and Ruiz With Marcello Mazzarella, Catherine Deneuve, Emmanuelle Beart, Vincent Perez, John Malkovich, Pascal Greggory, Marie-France Pisier, Christian Vadim, Arielle Dombasle, Chiara Mastroianni, and the voice of Patrice Chereau. [A few years ago], I refused to direct Remembrance of Things Past. I wrote to […]
The Shadow
The Shadow, AKA Rachel Productions, at the Athenaeum Theatre. Few things are harder to imagine than life before television. Director-adapter John Hildreth takes the audience back to a radio-theater studio complete with live organ music, tableful of sound effects, flashing applause sign, and actors who vocally morph into innumerable personalities. The program? A reenactment of […]
My Life in Jeopardy!
Headline Schmeadline This is the subhead treatment. By Timothy O’Brien On a drizzly but warm May morning I push through the door of the Westin Hotel on North Michigan. I’m a little sheepish about asking the hotel staff for directions to the Jeopardy! tryouts, so I blunder into a Hispanic job fair, then through a […]
Tony Touch
TONY TOUCH Tony Touch has become one of New York’s most popular hip-hop DJs over the last decade, spinning in clubs and releasing more than 50 fast-paced mix tapes. But his first mix CD, The Piece Maker (Tommy Boy), is more than a digital version of one of his sets: He’s assembled an impressive collection […]
Sports Section
White Sox fans used the All-Star break as a three-day opportunity to talk themselves into some courage. The Sox had the best record in baseball at 55-32, as everyone pointed out. They were ten and a half games ahead of the Cleveland Indians in the American League Central Division. If they played barely .500 baseball […]
Chi Lives: a storyteller’s tale
Mark Kater was always determined to follow an unconventional path. As a teenager in Naperville he decided against college, which carried serious repercussions in the late 60s. “I was prime meat on the hook for the draft board,” he says. After receiving his draft notice in 1969, he enlisted in the air force and became […]
In Print: third time’s the charm
Fourteen years ago Raul Dorantes was on his way to a promising law career in Mexico when he decided to call it quits. “I just hated what I was doing,” he says. “I thought, I’m not going to be doing this all my life. I wanted to move from my hometown and my country.” He […]
Spot Check
CRICKET RUMOR MILL 7/21, HIDEOUT A lot of instrumental albums aim to conjure wide-open spaces, but this local trio’s second self-released CD, Molto, brings to my mind’s eye a cozy room full of recording equipment. The five glistening, melodic tracks, built from layers of percussion, guitar, bass, keyboards, and the occasional trumpet or chimes, unfold […]
Robert Ward
ROBERT WARD Guitarist Robert Ward helped found the Ohio Untouchables, a Dayton-based group that scored regionally in the early 60s on the tiny LuPine and Groove City labels–and that went on, after Ward left, to win international fame as the Ohio Players. But his most significant recording during that era was the 1962 epic “I […]
Stupid Kids
Stupid Kids Nicholas Ray’s 1955 film Rebel Without a Cause is both the inspiration and the principal referent for this fast-paced yet thoughtful Roadworks Productions offering. First seen in Chicago in spring 1999 (a year after its off-Broadway premiere) and now remounted as part of the Theater on the Lake’s summer season, John C. Russell’s […]
Ugly Jack
Ugly Jack, Nedwak Productions, at TinFish Theatre. Words to the wise: renting a professional space does not equate to mounting a professional production. Also, improv needs to be funny. Too bad no one told this troupe of neo-neo-neophytes before they launched this painfully vapid evening of “music-informed long form freestyle improv,” fed by interviews with […]