Man and Superman, Rogue Theater, at the Playground Theater. George Bernard Shaw’s domestic epic is amusing even without its famous philosophic parable, “Don Juan in Hell.” Director Kerstin Broockman has dispensed with that third-act interlude, cut two characters, and streamlined the dialogue, reducing Shaw’s four-hour tour-de-talk to a much more bearable two. The result is […]
Tag: Vol. 32 No. 47
Issue of Aug. 21 – 27, 2003
Posted inNews & Politics
Still in the Dark/The New Contrarians/News Bites
Still in the Dark Let me make a prediction. In about two weeks newspapers across America will observe the second anniversary of September 11 by offering localized answers to the great national question: are we safer? I expect these stories because the subject’s so obvious and so important, and taking it up is so manifestly […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Big Bad Wolf! (vs. Lord Underwearface Von Schtinker)
Big Bad Wolf! (vs. Lord Underwearface Von Schtinker), Second City Children’s Theatre. This show’s goofy chase scenes, sing-alongs, and requests for audience suggestions might be enough in themselves to delight children. But success is guaranteed when kids are asked to stick on a set of whiskers and join in a mustache dance with a villain […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Pop Psychology
Pop Psychology, at the Mercury Theater. “Dr.” Tony Rogers and director Michael D. Starcevich have moved their sing-along relationship seminar from Davenport’s Piano Bar & Cabaret to this much larger venue. Here the sound system and acoustics nicely amplify Rogers’s Michael Stipe-ish voice throughout his tongue-in-cheek pep talk and original songs about bridging the gap […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Jazz Institute of Chicago Club Tour
The Chicago Jazz Festival doesn’t kick off until August 28, but festival week gets off to its traditional start the night before with the 20th annual club tour. For $20 ($17 in advance), participants get unlimited access to 13 venues, along with free bus transportation along three routes. The tour includes the city’s most reliable […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Day of Wrath
Carl Dreyer made this extraordinary 1943 drama, about the church’s persecution of women for witchcraft in the 17th century, during the German occupation of Denmark. He later claimed that he hadn’t sought to pursue any contemporary parallels while adapting the play Anne Petersdotter (which concerns adultery as well as witchcraft), but he was being disingenuous–Day […]
Posted inNews & Politics
News of the Weird
Lead Stories As straphanger Joyce M. Judge, 42, stared out the window of a Boston subway car during morning rush hour on July 30, she started dripping profusely, and a minute or so later, a baby fell out from underneath her skirt. According to witnesses (some of whom vomited at the sight), Judge at first […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Critical Condition
Prisoners are supposed to get decent health care. If they don’t, the consequences can reach far beyond the prison walls.
Posted inArts & Culture
Blood on the Walls
Killer Shots: A Photographic Response to War at Catherine Edelman Gallery, through August 30 For “Killer Shots,” Catherine Edelman spent five months gathering 35 images of war and its aftermath by 22 photojournalists, relocating them from the pages of magazines and newspapers to the white walls of her River North gallery. Freed from the agendas […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Chicago Baseball 2003 Consumer Confidence Index
A Scientific Compilation of Fan Sentiment, Plottng Hope Against Time
Posted inNews & Politics
Reader to Reader
Two women got on the elevator with me. First woman: What are you doing this weekend? Second woman: Well, it’s Sammy’s birthday, so we’re going to have a little party. I got him a birthday hat and a birthday bib. And I’ll make him a nice steak dinner. And I have to stop at the […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Passion
Over the past two years the Ravinia Festival has been doing Stephen Sondheim right, delivering splendid revivals of Sweeney Todd and A Little Night Music. This weekend’s concert staging of Passion marks the halfway point of Ravinia’s “Sondheim 75,” a five-year tribute to the revered Broadway composer (the series culminates in 2005, when he turns […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Rich Get Richer
In reading your article “More Than a Little Change” [August 15], two items made me stop and wince and reread the article in surprise. The first problem is probably a mathematical error by your writer, but it makes me wonder. In the article she states that Mr. Davis was arrested on average three to four […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Calendar Sidebar
For her new exhibition, “Feather-stitch,” Dani Leventhal has an unusual collaborator: her cat. At 1:30 each day for the run of the exhibit, which opens Tuesday, August 26, Leventhal will meticulously dissect one of 22 songbirds killed by her cat over the last year and preserved in the artist’s freezer. “It’s a process that’s done […]