The Turn of the Screw, Illegal Theatre Company, at the Performance Loft. With its unorthodox two-actor, multicharacter format, Jeffrey Hatcher’s adaptation of Henry James’s Victorian ghost story is catnip for actors and directors–prime fodder for audition monologues and malleable enough to accommodate all sorts of directorial indulgences. At the same time, Hatcher’s Turn of the […]
Tag: Vol. 31 No. 45
Issue of Aug. 8 – 14, 2002
Posted inArts & Culture
Hiking With Davy Crockett
Hiking With Davy Crockett, Theatre-Hikes, at the Little Red Schoolhouse Nature Center. Raised in Canada, I grew up with only a vague impression of Davy Crockett as an American frontiersman in a coonskin cap. Hiking With Davy Crockett, now being performed in an outdoor setting (though the preview I saw was inside the North Lakeside […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
In the fifth canto of the Inferno, Dante and his guide, the poet Virgil, enter the second circle of hell, where they meet Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta, condemned for adultery. In life Francesca had pledged eternal love to Paolo, though betrothed to his older brother, the knight Lanciotto Malatesta (some accounts call him […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Power Trio
My Dirty Little Secret Marianna Runge at Live Bait Theater, through August 24 Are You There, God? It’s Me, Kristin Kristin Garrison at Live Bait Theater, through August 24 Tastes Like Chicken Jonathan Pereira at Live Bait Theater, through August 23 Given the graveyardlike emptiness at most of the “Fillet of Solo Festival” openings last […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Too many Presidents/News Bites
Too Many Presidents Vernon Jarrett is 80. When the Chicago Association of Black Journalists was being created 26 years ago, the founders met in his living room. In gratitude for his services, CABJ later made him a member for life. Today he may or may not be performing his greatest service–leading an insurgency that’s either […]
Posted inArts & Culture
A Devil Inside
A Devil Inside, HyperWorld Theatre, at Link’s Hall. It’s not hard to see why the HyperWorld Theatre folks were attracted to David Lindsay-Abaire’s twisted comedy about an ineffectual young man reluctantly searching for his father’s killer: it’s filled with delightful surrealistic touches, such as a mother who’s secretly kept her dead husband’s feet pickled in […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Vance Kelly
Guitarist Vance Kelly was a teenage prodigy on the south-side blues circuit in the early 70s; in 1987 he hooked up with saxophonist and bandleader A.C. Reed, earning his first recognition outside the midwest, and in ’92 landed a spot on the roster of Austria’s Wolf label, where he remains today. Now 48, he’s developed […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Chicago Human Rhythm Project: Juba!
No one is saying that the Israeli troupe Sheketak is completely original: its inventiveness with props recalls Stomp, its macho posturing Tap Dogs, its playing of implements strung overhead Chicago’s own Jellyeye, and its mad onstage drumming and comic antics Blue Man Group. Still, the company’s three dancers and two musicians open up new vistas, […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Straight Dope
I have a question that only you might be able to answer. My brother claims to be well endowed enough that a former “girlfriend” says he bruised one of her ovaries. Now, nothing is totally impossible, but how likely is it that this could happen with normal human beings? Are there ANY cases of it […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Jim & Jennie and the Pinetops
While it might seem that anyone who can play a lick of banjo is likely to sell a bundle of records at the moment, in truth nearly all the bluegrass artists who’ve rolled into the limelight on the rails laid by the O, Brother sound track are deserving–from grand masters like Ralph Stanley to Nashville […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Bey Watch
In the Culture Club column of August 2 (“Artful Dodge”), I mistakenly identified Lee Bey, Mayor Daley’s deputy chief of staff, as a member of the advisory panel initially charged with selecting the artist for the proposed Soldier Field Veterans Memorial. However, Bey was–as I mentioned–part of the group of city officials who ultimately decided […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Calendar
Friday 8/9 – Thursday 8/15 AUGUST 9 FRIDAY Last year’s 5.7 percent hike in the number of Chicago murders–a significant portion of which involved teenagers, either as victims or perpetrators–spurred musician and composer Oscar Brown Jr. to approach the police department’s CAPS program about reviving Great Nitty Gritty, his 1983 musical performed by and for […]
Posted inMusic
Put ‘Em Together and What Have You Got?
The Best Bootlegs in the World Ever Various Artists (no label) Listening to The Best Bootlegs in the World Ever, a recent compilation of 17 “mashups,” is like visiting a bizarre parallel universe, one with a wilder and more dynamic rock scene than our own. Also known as “bootlegs,” “bastard pop,” and “missies,” mashups have […]
Posted inNews & Politics
More on “Heat Wave”
To the editor: I appreciate Harold Henderson’s thoughtful review of my book Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago [“City on the Hot Seat,” July 26]. But I can’t help but ask about the three questionable premises that organize his article. First, why does Henderson believe that the job of the social historian […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Fillet of Solo
Live Bait Theater’s showcase of one-person performances features old and new work by a slew of fringe artists, among them Stephanie Shaw, Lotti Pharriss, David Kodeski, Mark Gagne, Judith Harding, Karin McKie, and Kristin Garrison. The festival climaxes with a salute to the late James Grigsby, whose solo show Terminal Madness was Live Bait’s first […]