John Patrick Shanley’s romantic comedy about two urban castaways who find solace together begins in a bar and ends in a bedroom. In this Slimtack Theatre Company production, both settings are part of director Michael Rice’s apartment–to make scene changes, the actors and audience move from one household area to another. Since this salon-theater show […]
Tag: Vol. 34 No. 32
Issue of May. 5 – 11, 2005
Posted inArts & Culture
City on the Page
An innovative deal between Columbia College and a fine-art publisher gets the work of Chicago photographers into book form.
Posted inArts & Culture
Absolute Macbeth
The Polarity Ensemble Theatre’s debut production, a drum-driven Macbeth, aims none-too-subtly at the “purging of a tyrant” and “redemption of a nation.” But surprisingly, the show’s hippie-agitprop-shaman elements–interpretive dance, ritual song, bloody sacrifice–are its tightest, cleanest, and most effective. The able and eager acting, however, isn’t quite a match for the demands of Shakespeare’s blackest […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Two Grooms and a Mohel
The puppets, size-27 psychic waitress, and physically violent counselor for gay couples all suggest that playwright Jay Paul Deratany is aiming for absurdity. But this show’s unbelievable central story line and superficial characters rob it of any truth: Deratany consistently glosses over anything of substance to get to the next (occasionally funny) joke. Ryan is […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Unobserved Life
Mildred Walker’s dark novels about quiet suffering under endless skies are in print again, alongside a new biography by her daughter.
Posted inArts & Culture
Gang of Four
Entertainment!, Gang of Four’s 1979 debut, took the classic elements of rock ‘n’ roll–bass, drums, guitar, vocals, and songs about desire–broke them into jagged pieces, and reassembled them into something that rocked fiercely even while challenging the genre’s conventions. Bassist Dave Allen and drummer Hugo Burnham played stiff funk grooves at punk velocity; guitarist Andy […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Age of Consent
MOB Productions makes its debut with Peter Morris’s 2002 play, structured as alternating monologues for a tacky showbiz mom and a young man serving time for a notorious murder he committed as a child. Though Morris tends to moralize on his themes–fame gained and innocence lost–the play proves a sensible choice for a brand-new cash-strapped […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Lighten Up!
Before Wendy McClure could get serious about a writing career, she had to quit taking herself so seriously.
Posted inNews & Politics
When Is a Landmark Not a Landmark?
The Wicker Park Histroic District includes Association House and the playground next to it, but open space in Wicker Park is a condo waiting to happen.
Posted inArts & Culture
Taraf De Haidouks
It’s been four years since the last dispatch from this brilliant Gypsy ensemble from the remote Romanian village of Clejani. Their live album, Band of Gypsies (Nonesuch, 2001), captured them in excellent form: they played high-velocity grooves that reeled like a bum loopy from slivovitz mixed with strings played by virtuosos who didn’t consider knockout […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Digging: An Exploration of the Roots of Conflict
The new Upstart Theatre Group’s ensemble-created hour-long performance collage explores human competition and cooperation. Directed by Courtney Davis and Ian Hannan, the piece has some clever and evocative moments: in one humorous interlude, someone enamored of her red rubber ball decides, in the spirit of the old poster, to set the thing she loves free. […]
Posted inMusic
But Who Will Think of the Record-Store Clerks?; A Record Label Called Record Label
Barry Phipps’s Tight Ship label does bands a favor by cutting out the middlemen.
Posted inArts & Culture
Breakbone DanceCo.
Atalee Judy’s brave new One, a revised multimedia dance-theater piece, is ambitious, passionate, and carefully executed. Clearly she aims to connect with the audience in this “series of dark, romantic, voyeuristic visions”–but her thoughts are all too plain. Video snippets set in castles or dilapidated modern buildings repeat without building in intensity, and the structure […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Thornetta Davis
Detroit singer Thornetta Davis began her career in the 80s singing in cover bands and blues groups. In 1991 she became a backup vocalist for MC5-influenced rockers Big Chief, and the band used her keening wail to good advantage on three albums before breaking up in the mid-90s. Their power chords and spiky metal-infused funk […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Major Dundee
Director Sam Peckinpah went over budget during production of this 1965 epic western and was fired, so this restoration, based on a scholarly assessment of his intentions, can’t really be considered a director’s cut. But it’s 12 minutes longer, its story is easier to follow, and its score is closer to what Peckinpah had in […]