Articles in Theater + Stage
Stratford Festival’s Shakespeare tradition echoes in the well-told tale of ‘Cymbeline’
Young love put to the test. 4 stars!
Shaw Festival: Catching America’s cultural swing to the syncopated beat of ‘Ragtime’
Turn of the century saga. 4 stars!
Sophistication meets innuendo: Shaw Festival puts fine edge on Coward’s ‘Present Laughter’
Matinee idol preens, pouts. 4 stars!
‘My Kind of Town’ reconstructs police torture scandal as a complicated drama of real life
Cops under gun at TimeLine. 4 stars!
Role Playing: Ian Barford revels in the wiliness of an ambivalent rebel in Doctorow’s ‘March’
Interview: He’s just making it up as he goes along, the Confederate turncoat portrayed by Ian Barford in Steppenwolf Theatre’s current production of “The March.” That’s what Barford likes about his opportunistic character called Arley. And in a sense, the actor says, he’s doing much the same thing on stage from night to the next, trying to track the pitch and roll of a soldier who’s trying to find his own meaning.
Amid war to win vote for British women, flames of passion illuminate ‘Her Naked Skin’
Suffrage at Shattered Globe. 4 stars!
Vivid characters and some great singing carry the day for ‘A Little Night Music’ at Writers’
Sondheim’s paean to love. 4 stars!
‘Melancholy’ cometh, draped in dolorous fun, as Grey Ghost Theatre bows with Ruhl’s play
Review: When Tilly shows up, she elevates the common funk to dolorous heights so seductive, transporting and rarified — cue the cello — that only the Japanese have a word for it, or is it the Scandinavians? This is Sarah Ruhl’s 2001 “Melancholy Play,” a gentle misery-loves-company fable of high wit. ***
ATC and About Face hang fresh ‘Rent’ sign on a production of street-level intimacy, energy
Musical classic, new again. 4 stars!
Theater Wit chases depression into sharp bite of comedy with Rosenstock’s ‘Tigers Be Still’
Bittersweet therapy with beast. 2 stars.
Goodman’s well-honed ‘Iceman Cometh’ slices through a boozy, painful cloud of pipe-dreams
Brian Dennehy, Nathan Lane. 5 stars!
Chicago Shakespeare’s lean and brisk ‘Timon’ zooms in on crash-and-burn of a needy Midas
Mega-rich tycoon falls low. 4 stars!
‘Pride and Prejudice’ at Lifeline: Mirroring Austen’s vivacious novel in memorable faces
A stew of great characters. 4 stars!
Strawdog taps 17th century vein of blood lust with Webster’s murderous ‘Duchess of Malfi’
Lust, greed and mayhem. 3 stars
Ian McDiarmid, revving the engines of anger, ready to take on Shakespeare’s raging Timon
Preview: The Scottish actor, a Shakespeare veteran, talks with Chicago On the Aisle about the dark and turbulent mindscape of “Timon of Athens.” The play opens May 2 at Chicago Shakespeare Theater.
Profiles explores psychological shadows as LaBute drops siblings in deep, dark woods
‘In a Forest, Dark and Deep.’ 4 stars!
It’s the Bard’s birthday! Simon Callow reflects on the fanciful weave of ‘Being Shakespeare’
Interview: As “the soul of the age” turns 448 on April 23, the celebrated actor talks with Chicago On the Aisle about his one-man play “Being Shakespeare,” presented by Chicago Shakespeare Theater at the Broadway Theatre through April 29.
Steppenwolf captures pulse and horror of war with Sherman’s march through Georgia
Doctorow’s novel on stage. 4 stars!
‘Fish Men’ at Goodman: When chess hustlers bait their hooks, slippery truth snaps at the line
Con game in the park. 3 stars.
‘Angels in America’ at the Court: Viewing AIDS and the yearning heart through a perfect lens
Tony Kushner’s classic soars. 5 stars!
Exploring the starry night at Adler Planetarium, ‘Starball’ will invite audience to shape new myths
Preview: The stars are dream-catchers and story-tellers. Humans have always thought so, hence the mythic characters and lore written into the constellations. But, hey, if the ancient Greeks could puzzle out stories in the stars, why can’t we – and have a ball doing it? No wonder the community myth-making adventure on tap April 19 at the Adler Planetarium is called “Starball.”
‘Butcher of Baraboo’ sharp on characters, wit but the dicey plot could stand another whack
Dark comedy at A Red Orchid. 2 stars.
‘We Are Proud to Present’ a play that crawls before it walks – and then knocks you flat
A stunner at Victory Gardens. 4 stars!
Remy Bumppo romp: Blessing’s ‘Chesapeake’ evades leash, mutes bark of political theater
Shaggy dog revenge story. 3 stars.
Role Playing: Chuck Spencer flashes a badge of moral courage in Arthur Miller’s ‘The Price’
Interview: Chuck Spencer relishes poking through the piled clutter during his first long, solitary, silent minutes on stage at the beginning of Arthur Miller’s play “The Price,” at Raven Theatre.
‘Cascabel’ flips theater on its head with cuisine, acrobatics and upside-down wine
High-wire fun at Lookingglass. 4 stars!
In ‘Freud’s Last Session,’ an ailing analyst wrestles with death and a Christian convert
Debating God at the Mercury. 3 stars.
It’s ‘The Seagull’ as smoke-and-mirrors romp in stylish Lunt-Fontanne frolic ‘Ten Chimneys’
Review: That master of the modern English comedy of manners, Noel Coward, might plausibly have written “Ten Chimneys,” the light-hearted toss of a play now occupying Northlight Theatre. It is so stylish, so wry, so – well, ephemeral. ***
August Wilson’s legacy resonates in vitality of African portraiture by playwright Danai Gurira
Report: All 20 precociously accomplished high school actors who took part in the August Wilson Monologue Competition at the Goodman Theatre were offered, as part of their winnings, free tickets to American playwright Danai Gurira’s “The Convert,” onstage at the Goodman through March 25. I hope they took the Goodman up on it. Wilson’s legacy is strongly continued with Gurira’s reflection upon her own African roots in a former capital of British colonialism.
Role Playing: Rebecca Finnegan finds lyrical heart of a lonely woman in ‘A Catered Affair’
Interview: So perfectly does Rebecca Finnegan blend her painful lyric pauses into the narrative flow of “A Catered Affair,” at Porchlight Music Theater, that you scarcely notice she has ramped up from speech to song. Then the swelling power of that voice grabs you, and you realize you’re watching something special: an accomplished actor who’s also a genuine singer.
