The Rocky Horror Show, Stage Two Theatre Company, at the Estonian House. The Rocky Horror Show is the campy 1973 musical that inspired the 1975 cult film. The plot, for those who don’t already know it, involves a young, clean-cut midwestern couple (David Tibble and Sarah B. Lukey in this production) whose car breaks down […]
Tag: Vol. 32 No. 43
Issue of Jul. 24 – 30, 2003
Posted inNews & Politics
Face the Music
I’m kind of amused by all the criticism published in the letters section regarding Peter Margasak’s column. Though he is a competent writer who has a pretty good grasp of the music scene around here, he comes across as mean-spirited, biased, and academic. I recently read the book Sound of the Beast: The Complete Headbanging […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Trib’s Business Blunder/News Bites
Trib’s Business Blunder Last week the Tribune demoted the columnist who’s arguably the paper’s best. Colleagues of David Greising protested that moving his column from page one to page two of the Business section was perverse and self-defeating, and the stated reasons for it were unworthy of the Tribune. Greising himself made it clear that […]
Posted inFilm
When Is a Musical Not a Musical?
A Woman Is a Woman ** (Worth seeing) Directed and written by Jean-Luc Godard With Anna Karina, Jean-Claude Brialy, Jean-Paul Belmondo, and Marie Dubois. Even after 40 years I’m still not sure how I feel about A Woman Is a Woman (1961), Jean-Luc Godard’s third feature. The first time I saw it, as a college […]
Posted inColumns & Opinion
Savage Love
Dear Readers: I’m on vacation. I’m actually sitting on the beach as I write this, knocking back margaritas and watching my boyfriend’s tan lines come in. But you know what? I’m still thinking about you and your problems. I’m always thinking about you and your problems–and isn’t that just like me? While I may get […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Buddy DeFranco
With the arrival of bebop and its emphasis on the darker, meatier timbre of paired trumpet and sax, the clarinet–the instrument that had ruled the swing era–suddenly seemed out of place. Then Buddy DeFranco got hold of it. After working with some of the most famous swing bandleaders in the early 40s, DeFranco was still […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Lil’ Kim
Like so many of her male counterparts, Lil’ Kim fixates on sex less as a source of pleasure than a means of wielding power. (Sometimes I wonder if Kim has ever had an orgasm. Sometimes I wonder if she’s even considered the possibility.) Male dominance being what it is, however, even her dimmest Y-chromosomed adversaries […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Call of the Wild
I knew his life involved addiction, danger, and despair. So when he advertised for a driver to help him peddle his videos, naturally I jumped at the chance.
Posted inArts & Culture
An Adult Evening of Shel Silverstein
An Adult Evening of Shel Silverstein, Fat Kid Productions and Outside the Box Theatre Company, at Athenaeum Theatre. In most circles Shel Silverstein is known as a writer of children’s books, but he got his start as a writer and cartoonist for Playboy, and the magazine’s contradictions cling to him like stale cigar smoke. He […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Bailiwick Repertory Directors’ Festival: “GLBT Briefs”
The final installment of Bailiwick Repertory’s 2003 showcase of emerging directors focuses on gay- and lesbian-themed works. The series runs through July 30 at the Bailiwick Arts Center, 1229 W. Belmont. Performances take place Monday-Wednesday at 7:30 PM; each evening features three or four short plays. Tickets are $10 per evening. For reservations and information, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Masses Are Asses
The Masses Are Asses, Chicago Art Theatre, at Heartland Studio Theater. As staggering a combo of virtuosic and wretched as I’ve seen, this Pedro Pietri play may just set a new standard for audience frustration. The first half is dizzying, dazzling, a tour de force of whip-smart wordplay and nimbly shifting scenario whose surreality camouflages […]
Posted inNews & Politics
More Than a Handful
When my autistic son is good, he’s very, very good. But when he’s bad, it’s horrid.
Posted inMusic
Spot Check
THE LOCUST 7/25, FIRESIDE BOWL This San Diego quartet has just released a new album, Plague Soundscapes (their first on Anti-). Cramming 23 songs into just over 20 minutes, it’s as stimulant-addled as you could want: close kin to hardcore but lighter, faster, and, in its own yappy, short-lived way, more abusive. It’s also rather […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Elements of Style: getting a charge out of a bag
Roommates Jane Palmer and Marianne Fairbanks were eating breakfast in their loft one Monday in January, discussing a deep frustration with feeling powerless. Though it would be another month before George Bush would liken the millions of protesters around the world to a “focus group,” the futility of appealing to a president bent on war […]
Posted inArts & Culture
A Midsummer Night’s Dream/Short Shakespeare! “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Will Act for Food, at WNEP Theater and Short Shakespeare! “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Chicago Shakespeare Theater. Shakespeare’s craziest comedy can take a directorial licking and keep on ticking, as both of these productions prove. Will Act for Food director Daniel Shea reimagines the play as a Twilight Zone episode, with […]