There’s nothing especially innovative about Keyshia Cole’s debut, The Way It Is (A&M)–Mary J. Blige is its obvious inspiration–but that doesn’t stop it from being one of my favorite R & B albums of the year. At just 21 the Oakland native has a solid grip on her protean voice, favoring an almost conversational middle […]
Tag: Vol. 35 No. 3
Issue of Oct. 13 – 19, 2005
Posted inNews & Politics
Parks or Parking
Ben Joravsky might have been a bit more inquisitive about the issues at stake in the South Loop rather than simply transcribing the complaints of next-door neighbors and the developer’s defense [The Works, September 30]. For one thing, the Near South Community Plan says nothing about a park on the northwest corner of Polk and […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Chicago Artists’ Month
Most exhibits cited in the program for this city-organized observance are listed under Galleries, here or at www.chicagoreader.com. For a full schedule, see chicagoartistsmonth.org or call 312-744-6630. October 16-22 is also Illinois Arts Week (state.il.us/agency/iac), and Arts Week Evanston runs October 15-23 (cityofevanston.org). Among this week’s Chicago highlights: Chicago Art Open Exhibit of work by […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Steel Magnolias
The essence of Robert Harling’s 1987 play comes through in this production despite some underdeveloped supporting characters and flaws in delivery, like wildly uneven dialects and muddy diction. Set entirely in a true-to-life salon, Steel Magnolias celebrates the deep bonds shared by six small-town women who sustain each other through joy and sorrow. Allison M. […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Corporation, Inc.
The petty grievances of life in a cubicle should be funny and resonant, and past productions of this long-form improv show have been positively reviewed. But the night I attended, the painfully awkward ensemble stumbled away from character-based comedy and searched desperately for something, anything, to get a laugh from a cool audience. The roles […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Our Iraqi Occupation
To the editor, Tori Marlan’s excellent story [“How I Learned to Hate the War,” September 30] about “Jake,” the returned national guard soldier who had been an interrogator in Iraq (and the nicest things ever said about the Chicago Police Department in the pages of the Reader), leads me to three comments not much related […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Bombshell Catastrophe!
Peter Krinke and Michael McKeown’s “comedic play” begins with a motley assortment of characters crammed into an old-fashioned bomb shelter. The tale of how they got there gets told in flashback and involves naive scientists, corporate greedheads, unscrupulous government officials, beautiful women, and the “cosmetic imperative” to all be as good-looking as possible. The story […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Treatment
Friday 14 GHOSTFACE On “Be Easy,” the first single from his upcoming Fish Scale, Wu-Tang MC Ghostface spits none of the surreal word clusters that inspired blogger Jay Smooth to set up a “Ghostface Killah vs. Random Spam Text” quiz. (Readers had to identify lines like “nice DNA, scroll genetics” as either Ghost quotes or […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Down With the Chinese Tyrants!
Chicago’s latest free weekly has a simple editorial message.
Posted inArts & Culture
Louie and Ophelia
Romance in middle age can be complicated. It may mean balancing children, ex-spouses, jobs, ambitions. In Gus Edwards’s charming tale, warmly directed by Paul Carter Harrison, a working-class black couple fall in love and struggle to maintain a relationship without giving up their old dreams, habits, and commitments. Ophelia is a cold go-getter fiercely devoted […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Down With the Chinese Tyrants!
Our fearless aldermen take on the Red menace.
Posted inArts & Culture
Suzanne Dado and Sarah Haas
In more than 20 years of watching dance I can’t remember a single work devoted to sexual abuse. Plenty skirted the issue, often in a titillating way. But none focused full bore on the victims. That’s odd, since abuse is a violation of the body so overwhelming and fundamental it seems only a bodily representation […]
Posted inMusic
The Six-Year Itch
After two solo jaunts and a few false starts, Janet BEan and Catherine Irwin have finally made a new Freakwater record.
Posted inArts & Culture
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
I first heard violinist Nikolaj Znaider live in 2003, when he performed Schoenberg’s concerto with the CSO under the baton of Daniel Barenboim. He was incredible. He made this difficult work, with all its technical challenges, graspable, playing with great emotion, musicality, and an intensity and purity of tone that made for an exceptional balance […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Orpheus Descending
With a recurring role on Law & Order and regular bookings in east-coast regional theaters, Carmen Roman doesn’t turn up in Chicago much these days. But she’s returned for what may be the performance of a lifetime in Tennessee Williams’s tragic swoon Orpheus Descending. Roman plays Lady Torrance, an Italian immigrant stuck in a loveless […]