THE THREESOME, Janus Theatre, at the Athenaeum Theatre. If this sporadically funny Eugene Labiche play is any indication, farce should not be played on such a small stage–or perhaps the problem is director Terence Domschke’s ill use of the space. True, we’re drawn in when actors deliver asides since we can’t avoid eye contact with […]
Tag: Vol. 33 No. 31
Issue of Apr. 29 – May. 5, 2004
Posted inArts & Culture
International Pop Overthrow
The third Chicago edition of the International Pop Overthrow festival, curated by LA power-pop superfan David Bash, started April 16 and continues through this weekend. There are no advance ticket sales or festival passes; admission is $5 for afternoon shows and $8 for evening shows except for April 30, which is $10. For more information […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Blues Brothers Revival
THE BLUES BROTHERS REVIVAL, Chicago Center for the Performing Arts. The Blues Brothers began as a lighthearted homage by two white blues fans, John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, on Saturday Night Live. Simultaneously poking fun at white appropriation of black music and appropriating it themselves, the Blues Brothers were soon selling more records than any […]
Posted inArts & Culture
One Gets It, the Other Doesn’t
The Lady From the Sea Greasy Joan & Company at the Chopin Theatre The Lady From the Sea ShawChicago at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts In an 1887 speech, Henrik Ibsen startled his audience by announcing himself to be an optimist. His previous cheerless eviscerations of bourgeois norms in A Doll’s House, Ghosts, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Uli Troyer
On his debut recording, a six-track three-inch CD called Nok (Mego, 2000), Viennese electronic musician Uli Troyer sounded a bit like an emaciated version of Autechre: fractured rhythms slithered and stuttered across a barren, glitchy background only occasionally colored by faint digital ringing and pinging. Last year’s Rose de Shiraz (Deluxe) doesn’t forgo the choppy […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Andrea Marcovicci
A baby boomer who came of age listening to Joni Mitchell and Judy Collins with one ear and musical-theater luminaries Barbara Cook and Mary Martin with the other, Andrea Marcovicci long ago established herself as the finest American cabaret singer of her generation. Since her last appearance here, at the 2003 Chicago Cabaret Convention, she’s […]