Page 3 | Chicago On the Aisle | Chicago performing arts and other splendors -- best bets in music and theater reviews for cultural travelers and local enthusiasts

‘An Iliad’ at American Players Theatre: Of rage, ruin and the cherished legacy of endless wars

Aug 4, 2015 – 10:36 am |

Review: Rage, beyond expression or reason or appeasement, rips through the timeless modernity of “An Iliad,” the dramatic distillation of Homer’s epic by Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare that now echoes against the near walls of an intimate space at American Players Theatre in Spring Green, Wis. This fraught opus of glory and gore bristles in the one voice but many personas of Jim DeVita, playing the Poet who frames the perpetual folly of war in the single appalling, ever repeating travesty that was Troy. ★★★★★

Musical ‘Pippin’ shines as a high-energy revue, but circus atmosphere covers a meager plot

Aug 3, 2015 – 6:43 pm |

Review: The musical “Pippin” is an eye-popping crazy-quilt of commedia dell’ arte, dazzling choreography and Cirque du Soleil acrobatics draped over a thin plot about finding the meaning of one’s life. The show’s most appealing qualities come together in the national tour now playing the Cadillac Palace Theatre. But as a musical drama that aspires to something more than glitzy revue, this once-forgotten venture wanders well wide of the mark. ★★★

Grant Park Orchestra lets virtuoso banners fly with (quiet) indoor Bruckner Sixth Symphony

Aug 2, 2015 – 7:29 pm |

Review: Knowing that Bruckner outdoors at the Pritzker Pavilion stood no chance against the sonic assault from nearby Lollapalooza, the Grant Park Music Festival moved its July 31 and Aug. 1 performances into the Harris Theater. The festival orchestra’s account of Bruckner’s Sixth Symphony, conducted by Christoph König, allowed the audience to appreciate just how good this ensemble really is.

As James Conlon epoch winds down at Ravinia, familiar fanfares of Mahler and rumble of trains

Jul 24, 2015 – 4:28 pm |

James Conlon at Ravinina July 22, 2015 (Patrick Gipson)

Review: Since becoming music director of the Ravinia Festival in 2005, James Conlon seems to have learned that a roaring Metra train, whose tracks pass near the Ravinia pavilion, can compete even with the great Chicago Symphony Orchestra. So on July 22, Conlon, now in his last season as leader of the orchestra’s summer residency, simply waited patiently at the podium with an amused smirk while, mid-Mahler, a train clattered into a station and eventually rumbled past.

‘Grand Concourse’ at Steppenwolf: Soup’s on, but it’s boiling over with angst, anger and evil

Jul 22, 2015 – 7:00 am |

Review: The fascination of Heidi Schreck’s play “Grand Concourse,” now at Steppenwolf Theatre, lies not so much in the personal crisis of a nun whose faith is wavering as it is in the human response of a good person directly affected by unmitigated evil. That moral dilemma keeps us hanging on through the last syllable, or rather sigh, of this well-made drama. ★★★

‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ at American Players: Estwhile beauty meets beast, and he’s not kind

Jul 16, 2015 – 8:43 pm |

Review: She is a fascinating character, indeed one of the iconic personas in all of theater, Blanche DuBois, the fallen Southern belle of Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire.” The undying question is, Why? What’s so intriguing about this dame with the checkered past? Perhaps it’s her vulnerability, or her delusion, or her sheer refusal to go quietly into middle-aged oblivion. I think that’s the thing, her feisty pluck, that makes Tracy Michelle Arnold’s Blanche so compelling at American Players Theatre in Spring Green, Wis. ★★★★★

‘All Our Tragic’ at The Hypocrites: In a fresh spin on Greek tragedy, laughter and pause for dessert

Jul 12, 2015 – 12:16 am |

Review: A hit with audiences last season, “All Our Tragic,” adapted by Hypocrites artistic director Sean Graney, is a marathon retelling of all the surviving Greek plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. It has been reworked and remounted at The Den Theatre, running full-length on Saturdays and Sundays from 11 a.m. to just past 10:30 p.m. – in eight acts with seven intermissions and food breaks (included with ticket). It’s a sweeping immersion: prodigious, clever, insightful and riveting. ★★★★

From father to son, the sorrows of Catfish Row become cherished pleasure for Bobby McFerrin

Jul 10, 2015 – 10:46 pm |

Bobby McFerrin conducts Porgy and Bess at Ravinia Festival 2015 (Patrick Gipson)

Review: In “Porgy and Bess,” the 1959 film version of Gershwin’s musical, the singing voice of Sidney Poitier’s Porgy was dubbed in by Robert McFerrin, a Metropolitan Opera star and Bobby’s father. At the start of the Chicago Symphony’s Ravinia Festival residency, it was the younger McFerrin’s turn to take a serious run through an opera he literally grew up with.

‘Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike’: Lighting up Chekhov with laughter at Goodman

Jul 8, 2015 – 9:05 pm |

Review: I hate going here, I really do, because it’s going to sound like home cooking, but the hysterical truth is – and everything about this is hysterical – that the Goodman Theatre romp through Christopher Durang’s “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike” roundly eclipses the production I saw last season in New York. Directed by Steve Scott, this show is so smart and tight, so killingly funny, that seeing it just once may not be possible. ★★★★★

Knights, Dawn Upshaw celebrate folk influence on classical music with ranging fare at Ravinia

Jul 7, 2015 – 10:40 am |

Review: Composers have long been fascinated by folk music. From Josquin des Prez’s late 15th-century “Missa L’homme armé,” based on a popular French tune, to Donnacha Dennehy’s Irish music-inspired “Grá agus bás” from 2007, folk songs have often made their mark on classical music, either through direct transcription or simple inspiration. On July 5 at Ravinia’s Martin Theatre, the iconoclastic chamber orchestra the Knights, joined by the likewise singular soprano Dawn Upshaw, gamboled through some of the vibrant repertoire that has emerged from composers’ attraction to folk music.

‘Good People’ at Redtwist: Down on her luck, Boston Southie seeks hope behind lace facade

Jul 3, 2015 – 5:32 pm |

Review: Margie’s life is hard, like the “g” in her name. It’s all she’s ever known. She grew up in the rough-and-tumble projects of Boston’s south side – a real “Southie.” She doesn’t have much, but at least she has a job; well, had a job. As we look in on Margie’s lot in David Lindsay-Abaire’s “Good People,” now staged with potent intimacy at Redtwist Theatre, she’s about to be fired. ★★★★

Musical Stars and Stripes will fly all summer as Grant Park celebrates American composers

Jul 3, 2015 – 5:00 pm |

Preview: The season programming of a major orchestra may offer a preponderance of German, Russian, and French music, but at this year’s Grant Park Music Festival, Americans make a greater showing. Now in its 81st season, the free Festival in downtown Millennium Park embodies the exploratory spirit of composers who have sought to create an intrinsically American music.

‘Goldfish’ at Route 66: As compulsive gambler, Francis Guinan lifts a loser to grace

Jun 30, 2015 – 4:30 pm |

No matter how wretched his luck, Leo (Francis Guinan, right) always has a tormented rationale for son Albert (Alex Stage). (

Review: Leo lives for those bets that feel good. You’d think winning would be the high, but no. When he has placed a bet that feels really good, Leo can breathe. Never mind that his luck is seldom good, or that his college-age son has minded this financially and spiritually broken, irreducible addict since the lad was little more than a child. Such is the starting point of John Kolvenbach’s eloquent, albeit painfully plain-spoken, play “Goldfish,” a sleeper gem of the season in a sparkling production by Route 66 Theatre. ★★★★

‘The Who & The What’ at Victory Gardens: It’s ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ meets ‘Other Desert Cities’

Jun 25, 2015 – 10:22 pm |

Review: Ayad Akhtar’s third play, “The Who & The What,” which now occupies the stage at Victory Gardens, shares with its masterly predecessors — “Disgraced” and “The Invisible Hand” — the core issue of conflict between Muslim heritage and mainstream American culture. But this time, Akhtar’s work verges on ethnic sitcom. ★★

‘Moby Dick’ at Lookingglass: A man’s obsessive drive to annihilate a whale surges to electric life

Jun 22, 2015 – 7:45 pm |

Review: Translating a great novel into a successful stage work is hardly a mere matter of reformulation. They are different beasts, novel and play. All the more marvelous, then, is David Catlin’s imaginative, poetic, indeed galvanic adaptation of Herman Meville’s “Moby Dick” for Lookingglass Theatre. ★★★★★

CHICAGO WINE JOURNAL: Classic art of Jaboulet’s new Chapelle mistress

Jun 20, 2015 – 1:46 pm |

The Hermitage Hill provides ideal conditions for Syrah, the stuff of Jaboulet's La Chapelle.

Tasting Report: Since my earliest forays into French wines, the brightest stars in my firmament have consistently included the patrician Hermitage La Chapelle produced by Paul Jaboulet Aîné in France’s Northern Rhône Valley. So it was little short of enchanting to step back through time at a vertical tasting of this great expression of Syrah at a recent Chicago seminar sponsored by Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate.

Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony salute the Blackhawks’ Stanley Cup win with a rousing ‘Chelsea Dagger.’

Jun 19, 2015 – 3:16 pm |

And it's just his size. Maestro Riccardo Muti after a mean rendition of 'Chelsea Dagger' in honor of the Chicago Blackhawks Stanley Cup. 6-18-2015 (Todd Rosenberg)

Video: The Blackhawks’ victory parade ended a block away from Symphony Center in downtown Chicago, but Riccardo Muti was still in the mood to celebrate.

Grant Park Orchestra, led by ‘goalie’ Kalmar, heats up Beethoven to kick off festive summer

Jun 18, 2015 – 5:40 pm |

Carlos Kalmar and Grant Park Orch, opening night June 17, 2015 (Norman Timonera)

Review: Chicago’s getting everything right at the beginning of this summer season. The day after the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup, the weather was picnic perfect at Millennium Park, where the free Grant Park Music Festival got underway. Thousands laid down their blankets on the great lawn at Pritzker Pavilion. Even the curse of the overture “Drip” – rained out two seasons running – was finally broken. Check out our top festival picks.

New York Aisle: Philharmonic tops off season with rare bounty of Honegger’s ‘Joan of Arc’

Jun 16, 2015 – 9:33 am |

Review: From his earliest days as music director of the New York Philharmonic, Alan Gilbert has indulged New York audiences with an end-of-the-season extravaganza, This year’s offering was Honegger’s dramatic oratorio “Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher,” a work rarely performed if only because of the magnitude of forces, starting with adult chorus, children’s chorus, 11 sung roles, and two lead actors.

From al fresco staging of Williams’ ‘Streetcar,’ American Players promise summer of surprises

Jun 12, 2015 – 12:23 am |

Preview: In her second summer as artistic director of American Players Theatre, Brenda Devita can claim her fingerprints alone on the scheme of eight widely ranging plays that will run in repertory well into the autumn. And DeVita embraces that authorship with pride, starting with the company’s first go at Tennessee Williams’ monumental tragedy “A Streetcar Named Desire.” “We’re taking it outdoors,” she says, referring to the starry-domed 1,148-seat Up-the-Hill Theatre.

CHICAGO WINE JOURNAL: Aged Burgundian glory from three négociants

Jun 10, 2015 – 12:08 am |

Mulling Wine: By chance or perhaps my natural gravitation, I just completed a sort of hat trick – meal accompaniments from three of my favorite Burgundy producers, all of whom fall into the somewhat misunderstood category of négociants.

Role Playing: Francis Guinan embraces conflict of father who fled from grim truth in ‘The Herd’

Jun 9, 2015 – 5:26 pm |

Interview: The alienated, indeed despised husband and father Francis Guinan portrays in Rory Kinnear’s marvelous first play “The Herd,” at Steppenwolf Theatre, elicits deeply ambivalent feelings, and not just from the audience. Guinan admits he also sees the guy in decidedly conflicted terms.

CHICAGO WINE JOURNAL: Burgundy-style Pinot Noir from an Oregon star

May 27, 2015 – 3:35 pm |

Tasting Report: Since its founding in 1989, Domaine Serene in Oregon’s Willamette Valley has emerged as one of the top producers of Pinot Noir in a region famous for that wine. In a horizontal tasting with friends of four different Domaine Serene bottlings from the 2011 vintage, it became readily apparent why this house continues to enjoy such high esteem.

Role Playing: Sophia Menendian reached back (but not far) as plucky Armenian refugee of 15

May 26, 2015 – 6:03 am |

Interview: The most disarming, lovable character I’ve seen on a Chicago stage this season has to be 15-year-old Seta, refugee of the Armenian genocide and mail-order bride in Richard Kalinoski’s “Beast on the Moon,” played with big-eyed, open-hearted exuberance by Sophia Menendian, who’s all of 20. She says she captured Seta’s buoyancy by recalling her own unbridled spirit as an adolescent.

CSO’s ‘French Reveries and Passions’: Spirit and imagination set crown on a dream festival

May 24, 2015 – 12:09 am |

Night falls on 'Pelleas et Melisande' at Chicago Symphony May 2015 (Todd Rosenberg)

Festival Review: It’s that time of the year when orchestras change their pace, kick back a bit and come a-bloom with new ideas in the spirit of the warming clime. Thus the New York Philharmonic celebrates its 50th season of Concerts in the Parks, the Cincinnati Symphony’s May Festival gets underway, the Boston Symphony is deep into its Pops concerts. But the place to be this season is in the Windy City, where the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is midway through an extravagant multidimensional festival “French Reveries & Passions.”

CHICAGO WINE JOURNAL: A new Spanish horizon for old-vine Garnacha

May 23, 2015 – 12:11 am |

Spain's Cariñena DOP (NextGrapeGrape.com)

Tasting Report: With the dramatic emergence of Spanish wines in recent years, Grenache has gained familiarity in its Spanish robes as Garnacha – which might lead one to assume that the “two” grapes are one and the same. Indeed they are, and yet there’s a world of difference between them. That became clear during a Chicago seminar last week presented by Spanish producers of Garnacha from Cariñena, a small appellation long overshadowed by the likes of Rioja and Ribera del Duero.

Role Playing: Lindsey Gavel’s distressed Masha, in ‘Three Sisters,’ began with a touch of cheer

May 21, 2015 – 7:01 am |

Interview: Lindsey Gavel knew, heading into her performance as Chekhov’s unhappily married Masha in “Three Sisters” with The Hypocrites, that sorrow-on-sleeve was not the way she wanted to go with it. She decided instead to put a happy face on Masha’s heavy heart – and created a nuanced portrait of a woman caught between her longing for real love and the empty reality of her life.

‘Side Man’ at American Blues Theater: Honey pours from a trumpet, bile from a bitter wife

May 18, 2015 – 10:36 pm |

Review: Everything that is so remarkable, so rich and treasurable, about Chicago’s far-flung storefront theater scene is embodied in American Blues Theater’s resonant and poignant production of Warren Leight’s “Side Man.” Eloquently directed by Jonathan Berry, this model of tight, smart ensemble acting is well worth adjusting the calendar to catch, but it runs only until May 24 and will not be extended. ★★★★★

CHICAGO WINE JOURNAL: The pleasures (and alluring price) of Chablis

May 18, 2015 – 10:35 pm |

Tasting Report: Somewhat to the northwest of the heart of what we think of as Burgundy – that is, the glorious Côte-d’Or with its world-famous Pinot Noir and Chardonnay — lies the appellation of Chablis. Technically, Chablis is part of Burgundy, though it’s more like an island. Or perhaps an unfavored stepchild. But for wine lovers, especially devotees of Chardonnay, Chablis is a discovery-in-waiting.

CHICAGO WINE JOURNAL: It’s Chicago-sur-Rhône at Robert Parker soirée

May 15, 2015 – 11:43 am |

Rhone-style wines will be presented in four different master tastings on May 23 at Chicago's Park Hyatt Hotel. (Courtesy Robert Parker's Wine Advocate)

Mulling Wine: Wines of the Rhône Valley in southeastern France – and others modeled after them from sundry parts of the world – will be spotlighted, explained and, not least, savored in a series of “master” tastings followed by dinner May 23 at Chicago’s Park Hyatt Hotel. The public event is being presented by Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate.