The Green Cricket and Braising, at the Lunar Cabaret, Ragman, at the Lunar Cabaret, Si la gente quiere comer carne, le damos carne, at Pulaski Park. Most theaters say they encourage new work by “emerging authors,” but few do more than pay token attention, usually to a favored (and well-connected) few. Who can blame them? […]
Tag: Vol. 30 No. 50
Issue of Sep. 13 – 19, 2001
Posted inArts & Culture
Films by Lynne Sachs
These two poetic essays by Lynne Sachs offer the perfect antidote to PBS: there’s no omniscient narrator talking down to the viewer, reciting facts and explaining what to think, yet the story of each is perfectly clear. Investigation of a Flame examines the Catonsville Nine, who in 1968 stole records from a Maryland draft office […]
Posted inNews & Politics
TRG Music Listings
Rock, Pop, etc. concerts BOB ARCI Sun 9/23, 1:30 PM, Performing Arts Center, Triton College, 2000 Fifth, River Grove. 708-456-0300, ext. 3835. BACKSTREET BOYS Sat 9/22, 7:30 PM, Tweeter Center, I-80 and Harlem, Tinley Park. 708-614-1616 or 312-559-1212. DAVID BYRNE Fri 9/14, 7:30 PM, Riviera Theatre, 4746 N. Racine. 773-275-6800 or 312-559-1212. CABARET AT NOON […]
Posted inArts & Culture
She Found Her Calling
Years ago, Rita Simo (front) ditched the convent and started the People’s Music School Uptown. Now her successors Vincent Cinteno and Mary Ellen McGarry will need to get religion.
Posted inFilm
Copycat Crimes
Sexy Beast ** Directed by Jonathan Glazer Written by Louis Mellis and David Scinto With Ray Winstone, Amanda Redman, Ben Kingsley, Cavan Kendall, Julianne White, and Ian McShane. Most crime films owe a debt to Victorian melodramas. The past plays a big role. As characters lose control of events, the past becomes the reference point […]
Posted inNews & Politics
News of the Weird
Lead Stories In July a successful Hooters restaurant in Augusta, Georgia, had to file for bankruptcy protection after a jury penalized it $11.9 million for conducting an unsolicited-fax advertising campaign. An obscure 1991 federal law bans such faxes and sets a penalty of up to $500 per transmission (the Hooters sent out about 1,300). Such […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Young Dogs, New Tricks
An innovative assistance-dog-training program and inmates at Cook County Boot Camp are getting along great. That doesn’t mean the program has a future.
Posted inArts & Culture
Tripped Up
Shifting Landscapes Ole Ole Puppet and Dance Theater at the Harold Washington Library Center, September 6-9 If the second act of Ole Ole Puppet and Dance Theater’s Shifting Landscapes had been presented as act one and vice versa, the piece might have constituted a successful experiment with the flamenco tradition: stilling the frenetic feet to […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Onion City Film Festival
The Onion City Film Festival, an annual showcase of avant-garde films, began in the late 80s and continued through 1998. This weekend Chicago Filmmakers revives the festival with six programs of short films and videos, showing at Columbia College Ferguson Theater, 600 S. Michigan; Chicago Filmmakers, 5243 N. Clark; and Cinema Borealis, 1550 N. Milwaukee, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Gin Game
The Gin Game, Stage Actors Ensemble, at the Performance Loft. A clever cautionary tale about growing old gracelessly, D.L. Coburn’s bittersweet 1978 Pulitzer winner depicts two elderly survivors who get a last chance–and blow it. To escape from the living dead who slobber through life in their cheapskate nursing home, demure Fonsia and curmudgeonly Weller […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Steve Martin’s Zig-Zag Woman & Other Puzzles
Steve Martin’s Zig-Zag Woman & Other Puzzles, Safe Harbor Productions, at Live Bait Theater. The best part of this evening of five one-acts is the stuff that happens between them. Jim Carlson is great as the increasingly obsessive Joey, who communicates with an ex-girlfriend in a running gag that bridges the plays, and the ensemble’s […]
Posted inArts & Culture
My Cousin Rachel
My Cousin Rachel, Free Associates, at Live Bait Theater. Diana Morgan’s 1980 stage version of Daphne du Maurier’s 1951 novel captures little of its rich mystery and romance. And though Free Associates artistic director Susan Gaspar proclaims herself a du Maurier devotee, her plodding staging lacks the gothic atmosphere and erotic intensity of this Bronte-esque […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Histrionics: Four Plays by Women on Psychology, Sexx, and General Madness
Histrionics: four plays by women on psychology, sex, and general madness, Stockyards Theatre Project, at the Heartland Studio Theater. Four short plays address the search for self. The Narcissistic Personality Disorder Radio Show, by Silvia Gonzalez S., tunes in to radio talk-show host Natasha Woods (Claudia Vasilovik)–“not a licensed therapist, but…I’vedone a lot of research.” […]
Posted inArts & Culture
That’s Weird Grandma
After a monthlong hiatus, this show by the Barrel of Monkeys ensemble is back–and it’s still brimming with infectious fun, simple joy, and lots of laughter. In just under an hour, an enthusiastic ensemble of multitalented adult actors presents 17 hilarious songs and sketches based on creative-writing projects done by kids in Chicago’s public schools, […]