Lovers: Part 1–Winners, Dreadnaught Theatre Company, at the Athenaeum Theatre. First performed in Dublin in 1967, Brian Friel’s Winners is meant to be the first half of a two-part evening. The second half–Losers, about an unhappily married middle-aged couple–acts as a reminder of what the two happy high school sweethearts in the first play might […]
Tag: Vol. 31 No. 46
Issue of Aug. 15 – 21, 2002
Posted inArts & Culture
Battle Scars
Battle Scars, Fillet of Solo Festival, Live Bait Theater, through August 24. The title ties together two pieces with little in common. Lotti Pharriss’s Fear Itself is much the stronger, as Pharriss–in gas mask and apron festooned with alarming press clippings–explores the way irrational fears suddenly became rational on September 11. A convert to Catholicism […]
Posted inMusic
Spot Check
KEVIN COYNE 8/16, SCHUBAS Though there is a wholesome European looseness of line about the art of Englishman Kevin Coyne, his wonderful music is strongly rooted in old American weirdness. The painter, poet, fiction writer, occasional actor, and former drug counselor has been at it since the 60s, when he sang white-boy blues in the […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Dolly Parton
When Dolly Parton began her association with the Nashville indie label Sugar Hill in 1999, she had little to prove. Long one of country music’s most prolific and intelligent songwriters, not to mention a chart-topper, a successful actress, and a slick businesswoman, she had already done it all. But, as with so many other country […]
Posted inArts & Culture
End of the World Party
End of the World Party, Bailiwick Repertory. Chuck Ranberg’s predictable but charming play, part of Bailiwick’s annual Pride series, is centered around a beach house named Ill Repute in the gay mecca of Fire Island, New York. The seven male characters–all types we’ve met before–include Will (Cade Wenthe), a hypochondriac who’s afraid he’s infected with […]
Posted inNews & Politics
So Many Fixtures, So Little Time
The Skokie Public Library is bustling this weekend. On Saturday, August 17, the library, which has just added a third floor and is in the midst of a major renovation, will auction off desks, shelves, light fixtures, file cabinets, and other furnishings and fixtures that won’t be used in the new quarters. The goodies include […]
Posted inNews & Politics
City File
Ask your state representative why he or she voted to make it illegal to photograph or videotape animals at a factory farm. According to Bill Berkowitz, writing for the July 18 Working for Change (www.workingforchange.com), in April the Illinois House of Representatives passed House Bill 5793 by a vote of 118-0. According to the Peoria […]
Posted inNews & Politics
West Side Stories
Ma went to the doctor and found out she had high blood pressure. The doctor gave her medicine. She finished the bottle, and she felt good, so she never got any more. She just quit. She figured that what she took made her better, so she didn’t need any more. Then one day she went […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Dream House
Every addition to Ernesto Serrano’s home is a little piece of his mind.
Posted inMusic
Conventional Thinking
Fairport Convention Fairport Unconventional (Free Reed) Fairport Convention are celebrating their 35th anniversary as a group this year–and on Fairport Unconventional, a four-CD box set issued in commemoration, it’s clearer than ever that the fascination with history that gave them their glory has become their trap. They’re the progenitors of British folk rock, which draws […]
Posted inFilm
Unified Theory
h2etropolis **** (Masterpiece) Directed by Fritz Lang Written by Lang and Thea von Harbou With Gustav Frohlich, Brigitte Helm, Alfred Abel, Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Fritz Rasp, Theodor Loos, and Heinrich George. The internationalism of filmic language will become the strongest instrument available for the mutual understanding of peoples, who otherwise have such difficulty understanding each other […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Straight Dope
In 1994 I read an article in the British music journal the Wire that claimed that compact discs have a life expectancy of ten years. I have seen references to an article in Scientific American making the same claim and heard that this has been confirmed many times by other studies. The only thing is, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Pelt
A few years ago, in the course of a Web search on avant-garde violinist Tony Conrad, I came across a hilarious work of fiction describing two mountain geezers discussing a Conrad appearance at an old-time fiddlers’ convention (and approving of it, though amused). The piece had apparently run in the local newspaper in Wytheville, Virginia, […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Street-Fightin’ Men
Bookended by Marina City to the south and the glittering American Medical Association tower to the north, the sidewalks along State Street between the river and Illinois see their share of well-heeled traffic. But the stretch is also close to several construction sites, this newspaper’s office, a few corner-bar-type establishments that still water a regular […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Into the Great Wide Open
The spirit of the slain Northwestern basketball coach guides the adventuresome program at the Ricky Byrdsong Not Just Basketball Camp.