See this show for the fine performances and inventive production design, not for its plodding, incredible plot. Director Barbara Gaines leaves the ending of Shakespeare’s “comedy” open–will the virtuous Isabella take vows as a novitiate or a wife?–offering modern audiences some hope that at least one woman will find happiness outside marriage. But Gaines’s decision […]
Tag: Vol. 34 No. 19
Issue of Feb. 3 – 9, 2005
Posted inArts & Culture
Passing Fancy
Inspired partly by King Vidor’s The Champ, this silent 1933 masterpiece by Yasujiro Ozu takes place in a Tokyo slum, where a slow-witted, good-hearted, heavy-drinking day laborer (Takeshi Sakamoto) tries to deal with his rebellious son (Tokkan Kozo). It opens with one of the funniest stretches of slapstick Ozu ever filmed, though the remainder is […]
Posted inMusic
Gnat, Meet Cannon
Cecilia Gonzalez doesn’t want to fight the recording industry. She doesn’t have a choice.
Posted inArts & Culture
Love Letters
Patty Duke, the ex-child star who brilliantly portrayed Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker, today lives in rural Idaho and earns a solid living from television movies and the occasional Broadway show. What would motivate her to come to the Chicago suburbs to perform at a small nonprofit venue? “When you have the opportunity to […]
Posted inArts & Culture
I’m a Female . . . Seeking a Male
Diana Mucci-Beauchamp’s interviews with 100 single men distinguish her debut script from other ruminations on the ruminated-to-death subject of dating. The guys at the play’s central location–an airport bar–alternately reinforce and disprove the notion that men want only sex, food, and football, relaying stories that range from surreal (one man gets sex when he dresses […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Moaners
I loved Moaners singer-guitarist Melissa Swingle in her old band, Trailer Bride; steeped in rural southern beauty and despair, they sounded like they were slowly drinking themselves to death in a decaying frame house, staring at the stars through the holes in the roof. Swingle formed her North Carolina-based duo, the Moaners, with drummer Laura […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Closer Than Ever
Rich in regrets, this astute 1989 compilation of never-produced songs by Richard Maltby Jr. and David Shire (creators of Baby) offers a slew of bittersweet ballads for nonlovers, antilovers, and mature lovers. Nick Bowling’s staging for Porchlight Music Theatre Chicago features five superb performers (a number that allows for the strategic odd person out) who […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Black Comedy and Pale Pink Politics
Gregory Burke’s Gagarin Way, a Fringe fave making its U.S. premiere, is funny but politically naive.
Posted inArts & Culture
Martha Nussbaum
On November 3, millions of Americans staggered through the motions of giving a shit about the job, the kids, the dog, and the gas bill. “How did this happen?” they asked each other numbly. “How are we going to survive another four years?” Dennis Loy Johnson, cofounder of small, Hoboken-based Melville House Publishing and proprietor […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Fidelio
Beethoven’s only opera is a masterpiece, yet it hasn’t been performed in Chicago since 1981. Few sopranos can do a great Leonore, and Florestan, who doesn’t appear until late in the show, has to sing an extremely demanding aria without having warmed up. Beethoven struggled from 1805 to 1814 with this tale of hope, love, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Misdirecting the Troupe
Writers Theatre gives Nick Whitby’s acclaimed antiwar play its North American premiere, but Kate Buckley’s interpretation doesn’t do the script justice.
Posted inArts & Culture
Qwel
On The Harvest (Galapagos4) local rapper Qwel and producer Maker do just about everything right: their 2004 collaboration has positivity without that cheesy uplifting vibe and gangsta-rap energy without the rabies. Qwel talks big about change–teaching people verbs instead of selling them nouns, to paraphrase the PR–but he rarely sounds disgusted with the here and […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Appearances Are Everything
At the end of his first year as an MFA student, Robert Horvath received a disastrous critique. He’d been painting the same sort of imagery for years, encouraged by his instructors at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to continue making landscapes with anatomically correct hearts floating over them. Then, in the spring of 2000, […]