Articles tagged with: Chicago Shakespeare Theater
Theaters serve up holiday stew of 3 Scrooges filled with laughs, lessons, gravy and graves
Review: Chicago’s holiday offerings include Three Scrooges — not a show, but a trio of shows all based on “A Christmas Carol.” And yes, there’s some slapstick in it, even ribaldry, depending on which flavor of Dickens you choose.
‘The Tempest’ at Chicago Shakespeare: Magic rules on Prospero’s island, by wand and word
Review: In double magic that beguiles ear and eye with levity and levitation, Chicago Shakespeare Theater has invoked a rare vision of the Bard’s lyrical play of vengeance transcended by forgiveness, “The Tempest.” Co-directed with no slight imagination and great sleight of hand by Adam Posner and the magician Teller (he of Penn and Teller fame), CST’s season opener is pure enchantment – as credibly human and affecting as it is vibrant, fanciful and fresh. ★★★★★
Theater 2015-16: Presto! Chicago Shakespeare season blows in with super-magical ‘Tempest’
8th in a series of season previews
‘Sense & Sensibility’ at Chicago Shakespeare: Austen’s beloved sisters glow in new musical
Review: You can just as easily chart a path from Jane Austen to Stephen Sondheim as you can from Austen to Disney, and thus it is not surprising that Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s artistic director Barbara Gaines should create the world premiere production of Paul Gordon’s diverting new musical based on Austen’s first published novel. “Sense and Sensibility” tells the astonishingly vital story of two sisters of marriageable age – one a yin to the other’s yang – in the 1790s. ★★★★
Role Playing: Siobhan Redmond sees re-formed Lady Macbeth as valiant queen in ‘Dunsinane’
Interview: “I have no idea what it’s really like to be a queen, to run a country, or to have a child,” says the veteran Irish actress Siobhan Redmond, who portrays Lady Macbeth, rethought as Gruach in David Greig’s “Dunsinane,” currently produced by National Theatre of Scotland at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. “But the audience must believe that I have the weight of Scotland on my back.” Yes, Lady Macbeth lives.
Am I sleepwalking, or is that Lady Macbeth? Scottish troupe brings sequel, and it’s a doozy
Review: Surprise! Lady Macbeth didn’t die, after all. And how lucky for us that Scottish playwright David Greig decided to revive Macbeth’s formidable spouse, who now even has a name: Gruach. This very grand dame is the gravitational force of Greig’s “Dunsinane,” a thriller of a play brought to rugged, abundant life by the National Theatre of Scotland at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. ★★★★★
Chicago Shakes’ ‘Macbeth’ for young adults explores the dangers of unchecked ambition
Preview: Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” is a tale told by an idiot full of…no, wait a sec. That’s not right. The idiotic tale is life – life itself, which Shakespeare’s reckless, overreaching, murderous Macbeth has messed up beyond redemption. In its 75-minute reduction of the Bard’s Scottish play aimed at junior high and high school students, Chicago Shakespeare Theater explores themes of power and evil, personal accountability and the dire consequences of rash action. “Macbeth” opens Jan. 24 at CST.
With fine, broad brush, French troupe paints absurd and logic-challenged world of Ionesco
Review: It was an aha moment, in French. The final madcap flourish of “Ionesco Suite,” the Paris ensemble Théâtre de la Ville’s nonstop 80-minute pastiche drawn from Eugène Ionesco’s absurdist plays, now in a brief run at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, sent my mind reeling back through the decades to my college days. ★★★★
‘Lear’ at Chicago Shakespeare: A worthy king rules over concept that Frankly doesn’t sing
Review: Were it not for Larry Yando’s crushing turn in the title role, Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s “King Lear” would amount to little more than an ill-advised concept played out by a cast that largely misses both the pulse and the pressure of Shakespeare’s language. Setting aside for the moment this production’s manifold curiosities, at its core reigns the regal figure of Yando, whose portrait of Lear – as imperious fool stripped to his humiliated soul – is an experience not to be missed. ★★★
Theater 2014-15: Chicago Shakespeare bounty runs gamut from ‘Lear’ to Jane Austen musical
Fifth in a series of season previews: Chicago Shakespeare Theatre honors its namesake this season with an autumn production of “King Lear,” the fantastic adventures of “Pericles” and a contemporary sequel to “Macbeth” that wryly ponders the chaos that befalls Scotland upon that usurper’s demise. Capping the season will be the world premiere of the musical “Sense and Sensibility,” composer-lyricist Paul Gordon’s adaptation of the Jane Austen novel.
Cornwall’s Kneehigh troupe revisits ‘Tristan’ with antic comedy and double take on Yseult
Review: Imagine that consummate romantic legend of heroic Tristan and beautiful Isolde, thrust together into illicit love by circumstance and a potion, as a tragi-comedy. No? Can’t conceive of that? Then you have yet to see the visiting Kneehigh theater company’s outlandish “Tristan & Yseult,” which now bounces about the boards at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. ★★★
‘Gypsy’ at Chicago Shakespeare: This Rose puts fresh blush on Sondheim’s star-gazer
Review: Chicago Shakespeare Theater has given us a “Gypsy” for our own time, one that embraces the difference that 55 years have made since the brassy blockbuster first strutted onto the stage. As directed by Gary Griffin, it’s a gritty roadshow musical with a surprisingly contemporary and tender heart. ★★★★★
With Sir John Falstaff as an overstuffed delight, CST romps in ‘Merry Wives of Windsor’
Review: You never know what pared-down, free-wheeling adaptation of Shakespeare you’re going to get at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. But even for CST, its 1940s setting of “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” complete with a musical track of period pop tunes, takes fast-and-loose into a new dimension. It’s also a complete delight. ★★★★
Chicago Shakespeare returns Bard to parks with merry madness of ‘Comedy of Errors’
Preview: What could be funnier, or crazier, a more riotous lark than Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s touring production of the Bard’s “Taming of the Shrew” in parks across Chicago last summer? The answer well may be this summer’s CST encore: 26 free performances in 18 parks of Shakespeare’s madcap farce “The Comedy of Errors.”
Role Playing: Ora Jones had to find her way into Katherine’s frayed world in ‘Henry VIII’
Interview: Ora Jones, so assured and imposing as Queen Katherine in “Henry VIII” at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, was just as confident she had blown her audition for the part. And that wasn’t such a bad thing, she thought – because Katherine’s great speech in her trial scene, the very audition piece that Jones would come to deliver with authentic majesty, had left the actor essentially mystified.
‘Henry VIII’ at Chicago Shakespeare: Depicting the king in kindly tint, as Elizabeth’s forebear
Review: ★★★★
Role Playing: Dion Johnstone turned outsider Antony to bloody purpose in ‘Julius Caesar’
Interview: The actor who portrays Marc Antony in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” draws one of the greatest speeches in the Bard’s canon: the dramatically pivotal funeral oration for the slain Caesar. But that opportunity, says Dion Johnstone, whose eloquent and driven Marc Antony fires the current production at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, comes freighted with compact and perilous challenges. “From the moment Marc Antony enters the Senate and sees Caesar’s bloody corpse, with Brutus and the other assassins all still there, he’s in serious danger,” the actor says. “And despite his overwhelming grief, he has to think fast.”
Chicago Shakespeare Theater texts ‘Caesar,’ modernized and picture-perfectly true to Bard
Review: ★★★★
When Beethoven speaks, a struggling pianist listens and everybody learns about the Titan
Preview: What if Beethoven could speak? Suppose that titanic composer just popped into the room where a young pianist was wrestling with a sonata and offered, on the spot, the ultimate master class. You might have something very like pianist-composer-Beethoven impersonator Bruce Adolphe’s “Leave It to Ludwig” – an entertaining stage show aimed squarely at youngsters but authentic and serious enough, even when it’s very funny, to illuminate the subject of Beethoven for adults as well.
Your drama is waiting: Chicago Theatre Week offers citywide smorgasbord at savory prices
Report: Tickets will be $15 and $30.
The New Season: Chicago Shakespeare offers a walk ‘In the Park with George’ and a premiere
15th in a series of season previews: Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s 2012-13 season will extend artistic director Barbara Gaines’ deep exploration of the Bard with “Henry VIII” as associate artistic director Gary Griffin adds a Sondheim encore to last year’s hit production of “Follies.” And Gaines will direct what she calls “the funniest play I ever read” in the Chicago premiere of David Ives’ comedy “The School for Lies,” a romping modern spin on Molière’s “The Misanthrope.”
Chicago angels boost young actors with gift of training at Stratford Shakespeare Festival
Dorcas Sowunmi succeeds E.B. Smith.
Chicago Shakespeare’s lean and brisk ‘Timon’ zooms in on crash-and-burn of a needy Midas
Mega-rich tycoon falls low. 4 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.
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.
Role Playing: Diane D’Aquila’s twice regal portrait as lover-monarch in ‘Elizabeth Rex’
Interview: Diane D’Aquila, who brings Queen Elizabeth I to regal and vulnerable life in Timothy Findley’s “Elizabeth Rex” at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, says acting in this gripping, keenly honed production “is a like a dance out there, and it’s scary as hell.”
Marriage of true minds: Chicago Shakespeare brings the Bard to Chicago Symphony’s party
Preview: Barbara Gaines directs actors from Chicago Shakespeare Theater in concerts Jan. 5-14 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Mark Elder, featuring music inspired by the Bard.
Sondheim’s ‘Follies’ at CST: Broadway glitz and glamour, with all the endearing bruises
At Chi. Shakespeare Theater. 5 stars!
