Nervous Breakdown One of the more endearing quirks of the Nervous Center is that the performances, which take place in the basement of the boho Lincoln Square coffeehouse, never completely manage to drown out the footsteps of the patrons upstairs. But lately owners Richard and Ken Syska, brothers who’ve scraped by for more than five […]
Tag: Vol. 30 No. 10
Issue of Dec. 7 – 13, 2000
Posted inArts & Culture
La Posada Magica
La Posada Magica, Transplant Theater Company, at the Athenaeum Theatre. Rooted in the Latin Christmas tradition of community reenactments of Joseph and Mary’s search for shelter, this show has a darker edge than many holiday productions. The young heroine of La Posada Magica, Gracie, takes a supernatural detour from the procession singing of faith and […]
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The Firebird Alights
Maria Tallchief signed on to do a cameo as legendary Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova in the 1952 Busby Berkeley-Esther Williams swimsical Million Dollar Mermaid, then started to worry about authenticity. Her boss and first husband, New York City Ballet founder George Balanchine (another Russian), sent her to Pavlova’s onetime understudy, Muriel Stuart, to learn Pavlova’s […]
Posted inNews & Politics
This Land Is Their Land
A small band of Native Americans have held their own against prejudice and displacement for almost 200 years. In the current fight over their right to open a casino in New Buffalo, bet on them to win again.
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Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
BIG RIVER: THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN, Apple Tree Theatre. This 1985 Broadway hit was originally conceived partly as a vehicle for tunesmith Roger Miller and partly as a showcase for designer Heidi Landesman’s sweeping depiction of the Mississippi River. Apple Tree’s intimate vest-pocket production should by rights draw audiences more deeply into Mark Twain’s […]
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Clear Signal
WNIB owners Bill and Sonia Florian finally decided the cash was too good to pass up.
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A Roaring Tragedy
A Roaring Tragedy, TinFish Theatre. The play’s premise sounds like a joke–“There’s this dysfunctional Yugoslavian family, see?” And its characters are a textbook sitcom clan, complete with a harried housewife who burns the dinner, a trigger-happy brother who drinks too much, and a lazy Elvis-obsessed teenage son. The plot revolves around the release of senile […]
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Funny Girl
Before the kids, writer Amy Krouse Rosenthal was just another subversive chick. Now she picks brain lint in coffeehouses.
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St. Germain
St. Germain Young French DJ and producer Ludovic Navarre–who’s released two albums of ambient jazz et cetera as St. Germain, a name he shares with his five-piece band–has attracted a mob of sycophantic fans masquerading as reviewers, and collectively they seem to think his recent Tourist (Blue Note) is our era’s answer to the Miles […]
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Roasting Chestnuts, A Christmas Spectacle
Roasting Chestnuts, A Christmas Spectacle, Noble Fool Theater Company, at the Storefront Theater. The holiday staple of a singing star hosting a schmaltzy Christmas TV special is an easy target for parody. In Roasting Chesnuts the star host is Gina Oswald, who welcomes to the show her estranged husband and less successful siblings–all once famous […]
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Samson
Dramatizations of the Holocaust usually fall prey to histrionics or stylistic excess, but this stunning 1961 portrayal of a Jew’s wanderings through occupied Warsaw is the exception that proves the rule. The simple, almost deadpan style of director Andrzej Wajda is neatly matched by Serge Merlin’s superbly even performance as the profoundly disoriented Jakob Gold, […]
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Donald Harrison with Christian Scott
DONALD HARRISON WITH CHRISTIAN SCOTT Jazz inspires an avid gamesmanship among its practitioners and fans: the cognoscenti all but foam at the mouth at the prospect of finding the “next big thing,” be it a tradition-shattering idiom or a flamboyant young soloist. Those on the lookout for the latter–who want the chance to say they […]
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Tomato Box
TOMATO BOX “Tomato Box” is an oddly clunky, utilitarian name for percussionist Michael Brenneis’s quartet. It belies the frequent delicacy of their postmodern chamber improv–delicacy that survives bassist Henry Boehm’s arco shrieks, the occasional police siren, and the battery of hubcaps and kitchen utensils Brenneis uses alongside his small conventional trap set. In groups like […]
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The Santaland Diaries
The Santaland Diaries, Roadworks Productions, at the Chicago Cultural Center. The dominant monologue of the three in this one-man show is something like Springtime for Hitler, seemingly calculated to repulse most audiences. Sentimental theatergoers won’t warm to the cheerless “The SantaLand Diaries,” and the cynical folk who might like it probably aren’t attending the holiday […]
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Active Cultures: Richard Hoosin steps into the light
The lamp sits on a table behind the sofa in Thom Niforatos’s Glen Ellyn living room. It has a tree-trunk base–a nod to art nouveau designer Louis Comfort Tiffany–and a shade of green and purple stained glass studded with seashells and inset with images of grape clusters, scarabs, and red-eyed dragonflies. A commission by Chicago […]