Mitchell Oldham

Karam’s definition of misfit is joyfully much more elegant and nuanced than any contemporary dictionary’s.  Here he shows us that they can be and often are blazingly bright, mesmerizingly poignant and flat out funny.

Speech & Debate kneads you into the lives of three fascinating high school kids grappling with some very serious issues.  Issues that may very well prove to be primary determinants of their futures.    They’re revealed to us in stages.  First, we notice their keen intelligence.  Then we discover how fearlessly they seem to resist convention.  Later, we’re slightly surprised to see how much they defer to those same conventions.

Diwata (Deanalís Resto) becomes the energy force that so beautifully drives the production.  Before she arrives on stage, we get an over the shoulder glimpse of another one of the three, Howie (Trevor Bates); in a scintillatingly suggestive texting spree with an older man online.  And we’re also rather explosively introduced to Solomon (Darren Patin); a precocious, socially awkward student reporter out to expose hypocrisy. They all prove to be relentless personalities who pursue their individual truths with dogged resolve.  That it all appears so unconscious is all the more impressive.

An aspiring actress who posts her theatrical proclivities on her blog, sometimes while drunk, Diwata is wildly appealing. She has the confidence of Muhammed Ali in an America Ferrara chassis.   What she may lack in talent, she more than makes up for in passion. Passed over time and again for school productions, the drama teacher becomes her arch-enemy, her nemesis with a “receding hairline” and a dangerous secret who we never meet.  It’s her antipathy for him that morphs into the link that brings the three teens together as conspirators and unlikely friends.

Brown Paper Box Co. merits recognition for so well living up to its mission of creating “challenging and inspiring theater that focuses on the text”.  As young and kinetic as Speech & Debate is, it’s the language and personalities that make it both memorable and wonderful.  The stage is quite bare save for a few classic classroom desks like those found in 99% of the high schools across the country.  Beyond that, some very spare and effective projections onto the back wall give additional context to the progression of the story.  Virtually nothing interferes with the power of the spoken word or the craftsmanship needed to deliver it effectively.

Not only was the story quintessentially current and reflective of a world where our private lives, with a few well thought out clicks of a mouse, are easily discovered and exposed; it flowed with a perfectly plausible rhythm.

Self-awareness and self-acceptance bloom at different stages in different lives.  Maturity is allowing one another the space for the transformation to happen. In Speech & Debate, these young misfits give the world a lesson in doing it right.

Deanalís Resto’s Diwata is one of a kind.  Darren Patten’s Solomon kept you guessing if he would ever get beyond his fear of himself to self-actualize and Trevor Bates’ Howie was a case study in innate teenage cool.  One can hardly wait to see how each of these very talented actors will transform themselves in future projects.

Speech & Debate

February 2 – March 4, 2018

Brown Paper Box Co.

5451 N. Broadway

Chicago, IL  60640

www.brownpaperbox.org

Entering its 26^th year, Eclipse enjoys the distinction of being the only theatre in the Midwest to focus exclusively on the works of a single playwright every season.  By choosing to mount contemporary adaptations of  plays by William Inge, Eclipse will be reintroducing modern audiences to a writer considered to be “one of the most important voices in American Theatre”.

Encouraged to pursue his interest in writing for the theatre by Tennessee Williams, Inge went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for his play Picnic performed in 1953 and an Oscar for his original screenplay, Splendor in the Grass.  Come Back, Little Sheba, The Boy in the Basement, and The Dark at the Top of the Stairs are also included in his portfolio.

According to Eclipse Theatre Company Artistic Director, Nathaniel Swift, “William Inge’s plays are personal and political, grounded in family and community relationships, and his stories resonate with a powerful artistic vision of America and what it means to be American.  We plan to show a wide range of William Inge’s writing, including award –winning dramas and rarely produced plays.”

Eclipse will be performing:

Natural Affection                                                     April 12 – May 20

Bus Stop                                                                  July 12 – August 19

The Dark at the Top of the Stairs                             November 15 – December 16

All performances will be held at:

The Athenaeum Theatre

2936 N. Southport Ave.

Chicago, IL  60657

www.eclipsetheatre.com/

The Black Ensemble Theatre (BE) has a tradition of delivering solid theatre by telling compelling stories through song.  In Sammy: A Tribute to Sammy Davis Jr., song and dance act as ornamentation to a drama depicting exceptional innate talent and steely perseverance in the face of raw bigotry.

Typical of a good BE show, a well told history lesson accompanies generous doses of infectious music. In Davis’s tribute, the audience is reminded what it was like to be an extraordinary talent living in a rigidly confining world.  Born in 1925, Davis’s birth preceded the civil rights movement by almost 40 years.  The bite of racism did not spare him because he was born and raised in NYC.  Jim Crow may not have made it to the Big Apple but the color line sure did.  Much of the ridicule Davis faced can only be called horrific.  Despite that, his fame at the height of his career in the 50’s and 60’s stood on par with the established Hollywood deity of the day.

BE’s tribute splendidly recounted his success as a crooner who could make other people’s hits even bigger hits and who parlayed his success as singer into Broadway and Hollywood bank.  As diminutive as Bruno Mars and as ubiquitous as Snoop Dog, he seemed to be everywhere during his time in the sun.

Glimpsing more of the captivating talent that characterized Sammy Davis Jr.  during this tribute would have elevated the show’s appeal.  The tiny 5’ 5” bon vivant sang in the lower registers and could control a song the way Zeus commands thunder. Dancing professionally on stage well before most kids start kindergarten, by the time he came of age his acumen as a dancer was oil slick and reached master class level.

The essence of all of those gifts made it to BE stage.  As the production flowed, the cast mellowed more comfortably and effectively into their roles.  Although Michael Adkins took on the role of Davis, other actors shared the duty of covering the many songs that Davis single handedly embedded into a generation. From Mr. Wonderful, to I’ve Gotta Be Me and finally with Kenny Davis’s bravura rendition of Mr. Bojangles, the review of Sammy Davis’s discography nostalgically revisited another time when the coda for excellence was very much different than it is today.

Even though mild cases of first night jitters peeped through, the cast displayed aplomb as it recounted through song, dance and dialog the components of a remarkable life.  Emily Hawkins, making her first appearance on the BE stage, commanded attentive admiration for a singing voice that easily and beautifully filled the room and her sumptuous acting.  In one sequence in which she portrayed May Britt, Davis’ Swedish born second wife, she effortlessly displayed how the craft of acting gets done.  With bags packed and a heart leaden with regret; she was announcing she was leaving Davis.   The whole theater sat captivated by her performance.

Skillfully juxtaposing laughter and tears is a BE hallmark.  Sammy:  A Tribute to Sammy Davis Jr. was no exception.

Sammy: A Tribute to Sammy Davis Jr.

Through January 21^st,  2018

Black Ensemble Theatre

4450 N. Clark St.

773-769-4451

www.blackensemble.org,

With the theater’s relaxed vintage décor and an air of the provocative pervading the space, the evening took on a pleasantly subversive air as ten local authors read from some of the best literature this and a few other countries have produced.  All of it, once banned.

The range of selected books included the expected and the unexpected; from the Tropic of Cancer to Shel Silverstein’s Dreadful.  And despite the varying levels of reading proficiency, the power of the words retained the heat of potency and power.

To sweeten the pot, even formerly banned songs made it into the show and sagely included the timeless and timely Strange Fruit, Billie Holiday’s masterwork exposing the savagery of lynching written by poet, Abel Meeropol.

The benefit’s high-energy smack talking emcee, writer and actress Karin McKie, kept the flow moving at a slick clip with her pithy intros and irreverent commentary; always reminding the audience that democracy abhors complacency.

Nancy Bishop, 3CR’s editor led off with her reading from a book written in 1934 and rebuked for its “notoriously candid sexuality”, The Tropic of Cancer.  With its thoroughly unbridled language and explicit depictions, the book was also one of the first to test the mettle of this country’s right to free expression.

Storyteller and performing artist, Ada Cheng, has a quietly magnetic stage presence that telegraphs simmering depth.  Selecting a book banned for its depiction of bullying, alcohol abuse, violence and homosexuality, The Absolute True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie is the story of a 14-year-old reservation kid who’s encouraged and agrees to attend an all-white school.  Her excerpts from the book, written in 2007, reflect the realities of our blossoming millennium with all of its hard edges and abrasive expressions.  Things get rough.  Cheng ended her reading with a question.  “Why do we ban people’s lives”.

Northwestern professor Bill Savage still reacts viscerally to his selection even after 30 years of teaching it to college students.  As he noted in his introduction, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has been controversial since Twain wrote it in the late 1800’s.  Back then it was just considered tawdry and common, not worth reading by anyone respectable.  Now its pilloried because the language it uses rings as profoundly racist to modern ears.  The passage he read however drilled down to the essence of human character and the capacity to do what’s right despite the expectations of convention.

Books get banned for lots of reasons but there seems to be recurrent themes that invite intense scrutiny and eventual censorship in the United States.  Sex that does not conform to established norms, matters of race that challenge the status quo and coming of age stories that question or examine too intently the established order; as does Lolita in the first case, To Kill a Mockingbird in the second and Persepolis in the third.

All of the benefit’s readings packed a wallop and made one wonder what price one would pay to keep the freedoms we enjoy vibrant and pliant.   And they reminded all those in attendance that such a question is not simply an intellectual one.

We Read Banned Books:  An ACLU Benefit

October 2, 2017

7:00 PM

Public House Theater

3914 N. Clark

Spurred by the 2015 death of local actress Molly Glynn who passed away from injuries incurred while biking with her husband, the Third Annual Chicago Theater Bike Ride: Love Hard will kick off with a ceremony at 11am on Saturday, September 9^th  at Foster Beach, 5200 Lake Shore Drive.  Bikers roll out at noon and a community potluck BBQ begins at 1:30pm.

Funds raised by the Love Hard bike ride will help the theater community pay for funeral expenses and other costly unforeseen emergencies like apartment fires.  To date, the ride has raised and distributed more than $23,000 in support of The Actors Fund of America and The Emergency Aid Fund.

Recent losses have been particularly painful for the theater community following the brutal killing of actress Andrea Urban in May and the unexpected death of Steppenwolf’s incomparable Martha Lavey who positively impacted scores in the city’s theater community.  The event’s website, http://www.lovehardbikeride.org, provides images and bios of all of those lost from the community since 2015.

Organizer Carmen Roman states this year’s goal is 200 riders and $15,000 in proceeds.  She also reiterates that the ceremony and bike ride on the 9^th are as much about celebrating and supporting each other as it is about remembering.

Minimum ride donations are $25.  All other donations, now and ongoing, can be made to http://www.lovehardbikeride.org/donate.html.