We are at Excalibur.
Tag: Vol. 31 No. 44
Issue of Aug. 1 – 7, 2002
Posted inArts & Culture
Art People: making the unseen unavoidable
On Chicago Avenue in Austin, among the vacant storefronts and businesses like Deno’s Hair Kingdom, S.B.M. Beef Inc., and Yoo’s Supermarket, hang a series of vivid acrylic four-by-six signs. An orange-and-white one reads “Black mothers proud to be” in large letters. The smaller text below says, “I’m showing them what a real role model is. […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Short Shakespeare! A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Rich with comic flourishes, Gary Griffin’s 80-minute family-friendly condensation of Shakespeare’s pastoral mating ritual for classical heroes, feuding fairies, and foolish mortals is surprisingly streetwise. Happily, Griffin’s cuts don’t cut deeply, and the shtick he’s added serves the characters and story well. Jason Denuszek’s punk Puck bursts into infectious rap while Felicia Fields as the […]
Posted inNews & Politics
News of the Weird
Lead Stories Last month a jury in Akron, Ohio, ordered the Para-Chem company to pay $8 million to two professional carpet installers who were severely burned in an explosion while using the company’s carpet adhesive indoors. One juror told the Akron Beacon Journal that he and his colleagues felt the warning label on the adhesive–“Do […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Roadside Attraction
Roadside Attraction, at WNEP Theater. Kelly Kreglow’s collection of comic vignettes boasts all the familiar emblems summing up what’s wonderful and awful about road trips: sport bottles, dust-covered Winnebagos, obsessive-compulsive map minding, the almighty bathroom break. It’s also about the tiny, precious moments that spring purely from the circumstance of traveling–the intense conversations and knock-down-drag-out […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Chicago Human Rhythm Project: Legacy
The first of three weekends in this festival of percussive dance, now in its 12th year, features contemporary Chicago artists taught or influenced by former famous tappers. Bril Barrett and Martin “Tre” Dumas of MADD Rhythms, for instance, studied at the Sammy Dyer School of the Theatre and Tommy Sutton’s Mayfair Academy respectively. But like […]
Posted inFilm
Swiss Ms.
A Swiss Rebel: Annemarie Schwarzenbach (1908-1942) *** (A must-see) Directed by Carole Bonstein. Over the past decade Swiss writer and photographer Annemarie Schwarzenbach has become a cult figure, known for her charm, her fascinating androgynous appearance, her outspoken lesbianism, and her journeys to Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, India, and Belgian Congo, places few Western women dared […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Othello
Othello, at Barat College of DePaul University. Scott Parkinson’s performance as Iago–an irresistible reason to see these free open-air performances of the Bard’s domestic tragedy–drives home the truth that the play’s greatest jealousy is Iago’s, not Othello’s. Delighting in disorder, the Moor’s ensign is often depicted as gratuitously and unnaturally evil, but Parkinson makes it […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Coyote Pretty
As this remount of their two-woman sketch-comedy show about romantic relationships makes plain, ImprovOlympic veterans Dori Goldman and Margaret Hicks are mistresses of the bizarre situation. Again we meet the Siamese twins looking for love at the gym, the succession of loser guys (played by Hicks) who woo Goldman during a speed-dating session, and Boston […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Mourning Beetle
How sad it is that our society has become so narrow-minded that they cannot enjoy a clean cartoon [Hot Type, July 26], yet the dirty ones are allowed in every venue. I am a 67-year-old woman, and it thrills me no end to have a man look at me and cartoons depict everyday life. Pretty […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Vagina Boat
The Vagina Monologues, which has been running at the Apollo Theater since the fall of 2000, recently welcomed Marcia Wallace (better known as Carol from The Bob Newhart Show) to its summer lineup. Previous Chicago casts have included Erin Moran (Happy Days), Loretta Swit (M*A*S*H), Kim Fields (The Facts of Life), Dawn Wells (Gilligan’s Island), […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Reeling 2002
Reeling 2002, the 21st Chicago Lesbian & Gay International Film Festival, continues Friday through Thursday, August 2 through 8. Screenings are at the Three Penny and Landmark’s Century Centre. Advance tickets can be purchased from 10 to 6 weekdays, noon to 5 Saturday, at Chicago Filmmakers, 5243 N. Clark; same-day tickets are available only at […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Some Advice for “Abby”
You’re damn right it was “way past time” for Jeanne Phillips to acknowledge that she’s been doing Abby’s column for the last 15 years [Hot Type, July 19]. I wrote “Dear Abby” a letter in 1997 and got a response. It was typed on stationery that had a cameo head shot of Pauline Phillips, the […]