Theater Reviews

Eye to eye theater, theater that allows audiences near absolute proximity to the performance is both seminal and thrilling.  When it’s done as well as Upended Productions take on Louis Carroll’s childhood classic, Alice in Wonderland, it’s simply delightful.

 

Upended’s Alice has been considerably sassed up and given so many creative spins that the whole experience can be wonderfully dizzying.  The “show” is a walking journey through a small slice of Evanston where fantastical, if sometimes slightly rough hewn, adventures lie behind every door.

 

There’s something refreshingly organic about traipsing from small business to small business and finding the nook in each one where a little story telling magic is happening.  The cast is made up of a rotating army of folks.  Some more permanent than others.

 

The audience, a maximum of 15 people, is given ground rules for the 90-minute escapade by a white rabbit who also acts as guide.  Rabbits change frequently and on this outing the teacher rabbit (Caitlan Savage) was up.  On the bossy side, her gruff chiding was all bark and no bite.  Showing up a few minutes late to let everybody assemble and chill in the Alice vibe created in State Farm’s back office, the meet up spot, her colorful opening spiel hinted at how interesting this sojourn was going to be.

As tempting as it is to give a blow by blow of every stop (chapter), highlights should work well enough to provide a good feel for the experience.  The first chapter was in Sketchbook Brewery a couple of doors south.  We were a motley crew and the brewery’s patrons looked with bemusement as we clamored down the back steps for a puppet show hosted by a meek self-deprecating mouse (Kevin Ayles) getting the business from a couple of pint sized stick puppets manned by Risha Hill and Jermaine Thomas.  If you remember the book, you’ll probably know who the actors are parodying.  If not, it’s just fun watching them go through their schtick.

 

One overwhelming highlight was Chad the bird (Josh Zagoren), a hand puppet.  Think intellectually gifted savant super charged on too much adrenaline with an extraordinary gift for word play.  To say Chad was “yomazing” doesn’t do him justice.

 

Consistent throughout the Alice performance, central nuggets of the original plot were respectfully retained and then often overlaid with a distinctly contemporary and highly sophisticated sensibility.  All the while making it quite accessible to children as young as six.

 

There was a stop in an alley to encounter a slightly imbalanced magician and a very memorable swing through Cultivate, a posh plant emporium.  There, the Queen (Quinn Hegarty) regally and imposingly presided while lip syncing Annie Lenox.  She was a nice queen and gave everybody a rose.  Downstairs two adorable young ladies jabbered barely intelligible; but highly entertaining,  gibberish before sending us on our way.

I think it was the patio stop after the quick but enchanting tea party at the train station that threatened to tip the scales and tilt the performance into the land of “for mature audiences only”.  The peril never materialized which made Laura McKenzie’s performance all the more delicious for her stunning ability to keep the razor safely tucked away between her tongue and her cheek.  She was marvelous.

 

By the time we wound up at a pretty cool local bookstore (Squeezebox Books and Music) where a tag team of good cop bad cop was doing a great job confusing us, every member of the audience, young and not so young, were smiling unabashedly and basking in the restorative powers of fantasy.

 

Placing a name on this type of performance is an extreme challenge.  Is it immersive? Or do you call it environmental because it so participatory?  Perhaps the best description would be to simply call it absolute fun. And you would be very hard pressed to find to a better way to spend a Saturday afternoon in the 10,856 square miles that make of Chicago.

 

But catch it soon.  Alice closes on October 21^st and there’s no guarantee it will be reprised next year.

 

 

Alice

 

Upended Productions

 

Runs Saturdays and Sundays through October 21

Tours begin at 1 p.m., 1:15 p.m., 1:30 p.m., 1:45 p.m., & 2 p.m.

 

Meet at LaCapra State Farm office, 829 Chicago, Evanston, IL

 

$25 for single tickets; $17 for students and seniors with ID

 

www.UpEndedProductions.com

 

224-999-2942

As Artistic Director for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Glenn Edgerton often finds himself on the lookout for choreography that helps his company fill a particular niche.  One that is different, diverse and unique.  A longtime admirer of respected contemporary choreographer William Forsythe, Hubbard Street has extensively performed Forsythe’s pioneering vision of contemporary dance that integrates narrative and message in non-conventional ways.

 

Opening its 41^st Fall Series Thursday night at the Harris Theatre, the company’s efforts to forge new directions in dance was on full display with the presentation of a single performance piece broken up into three parts.  Each unit created by different choreographers.  This kind of collaboration is revolutionary on its own and the unusual approach was then extended by incorporating a common theme revolving around environmental degradation.

Hubbard Street Chicago has worked with choreographers Lil Buck and Jon Boogz in the past.  This premiere marks their first affiliation with Emma Portner whose star in the dance world is on the climb.

As integral as music is to any dance performance, the September 27^th debut also placed the musical component of the program in remarkably high relief.  Featuring work of the Grammy award winning ensemble Third Coast Percussion, the musicians performed on stage with the dancers and remained a strong visual link to the dance itself.  Primarily vibraphonists, Third Coast Percussion’s work is highly distinctive in the way it’s able to beautifully fuse the energetic and the ethereal; making it very much reminiscent of the work of Steve Reich with whom they’ve also collaborated.

 

Although producer and composer DeVonte Young custom developed the music for the Hubbard Street performance, Third Coast Percussion maintained jurisdiction on its arrangement.

Dance, music and score seemed equally integral to the performance as they all came together to create a singular brand of theater.  Launching on Jon Boogz and Lil Buck’s There Was Nothing, a darkly primordial take on creation, a mood of anxious reflection was established that would remain in place throughout the evening.

 

Also consistent through much of the performance, a single dancer kept drawing the eye to her energy and easy craftsmanship.  Rena Butler’s intuitive grace became central to the telling of a tale intended to highlight the urgency of sustainability. This is an imposing theme for a dance company to take on and one that can be challenging for audiences to not only synthesize; but also accept as entertainment.

 

To maintain continuity, there was no intermission in the 80-minute program.  Piece flowed seamlessly from one to the next.  Perfectly Voiceless, the second featured work, opened by using sound to establish a sense of curiosity and wonder with dancers eventually mounting the stage to provide their own expression to the surreal mood created by the irregular ringing of bells.

Emma Portner’s contribution, For All Its Fury, was the most intriguing for its daring construction.  Opening with couples dancing in distorted configurations, symbolic references emerged on the hazards of plastic and ended on the creative imaginings of an endangered world still clinging to hope.  The work was impressive for its ambition.

 

Dance as a vehicle for social commentary will always have a place. The message and the clarity of its delivery will define how well audiences respond to it.

 

 

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and Third Coast Percussion

Fall Series

September 27, 29 + 30    2018

Harris Theatre

205 E. Randolph St.

Chicago, IL  60601

www.harristheaterchicago.org

The human soul may have its own physiology.  How else do you explain two people experiencing the same hardships and responding to them completely differently.  One may succumb to the pressures of emotional or physical privation and either retreat from life or allow cynicism to lead them down a path of self-harm.  The weight of the same difficulties may make the other even more resistant to defeat and fight with even greater ardor to succeed.  Refugee busboys become restaurant titans and musically inclined street urchins become entertainment legends.  In David Cale’s case, a refusal to live the expected life set him off on a journey of self-discovery leading to self-actualization and fame.  His one-man show playing at the Goodman Theater through October 21^st is an emotionally scenic and unsparing drive through his life.  An autobiographical explanation for living life fully.

We’re Only Alive for a Short Amount of Time is an oddly constructed vehicle to carry this message of transcendence.  Like so much of the British writer and performer’s work, there are recurring themes that link back to his childhood in the little English industrial town of Luton where no body ever leaves. You either worked in the making of cars or the production of hats and then you died.

 

Cale doesn’t attack the core of his narrative head on but chooses to surround it with elaborately detailed biographical sketches of the people who make up his family.  It takes a while to understand that his ultimate focus is on the older of the two sons who has an endearing love for and interest in birds.  And Liza Minnelli.  He not only analyzed himself by re-entering his skin of decades ago, he also inhabits that of his mother and father and becomes them as they fall in love, lose the love they have for one another and embark on loudly unhappy lives together.  When one takes the life of the other, Cale’s treatment of the aftermath is stunning for its honesty and for the toughness of its candor.  A gifted storyteller, his impersonations of others take on an eerie reality.  This was especially true during the sequence exploring his father’s culpability in his mother’s death.  Its poignancy enhanced the otherness quality of Cale’s persona.

 

Beautifully accompanied by five musicians, the performer often uses song to add dimension and another layer of texture to the emotions and dramas he’s portraying on stage. With the song, The Feral Child, he encapsulated the essence of the dystopian odyssey that was once his life.

 

 

We’re Only Alive for a Short Amount of Time

September 15 – October 21, 2018

Goodman Theatre

170 N. Dearborn

Chicago, IL  60601

312-443-3800

www.goodmantheatre.org

Just on the western collar of Chicago, there’s a beautiful exercise in bravery being re-enacted just about every weekend this month.  The  one woman show, Big Giant Love, is part of a series the Madison Street Theatre in Oak Park is mounting this season showcasing the “power of one”.

 

In these doubting quivery times, when so many question whether their individual efforts bear any consequence, the power of one has the scent of a deceptive premise.  How appropriate that, in this case, the reality of that power comes in the form of a mother.

 

In many ways, Maureen Muldoon probably considers herself just a regular mom.  Four kids and a husband living in the suburbs doing her family thing.  But what Ms. Muldoon has that sets her apart from torrents of moms are some exceptional skills.  A professional actress and a natural storyteller, she’s capable of creating a very personal story that opens up and becomes an ongoing harrowing adventure with still unknown endings.  She’s a mom whose 14-year-old, also very smart and very brave, has announced through a sign on her bedroom door that she is actually he.

 

In less capable hands, this odyssey in staged spoken word could easily spell disaster. It could slide into cliché or become mired in sentimentality.  Here it bristles with intellect, embraces the unknown, finds electric joy in humor and trusts the future.  It’s also like a fist sheathed in velvet pounding on iron demanding action.

 

Muldoon is much too smart to dwell entirely on the sexual evolution of her child.  She takes her time to let you know who she is first by disclosing in vignettes how her roots shaped her.  Raised resolutely Catholic and hailing from a family that sings its way through choppy seas, you begin to discern how she became so gifted, so gutsy and willing to go there for the right reason.

 

This performance is as much about how the story is told as it is about the story it tells.  Each is dependent on the other. And reflection makes them even more enchanting together.

 

Muldoon may have a point that the east and west coasts offer more accommodating soil to nurture those whose growth as a person does not conform to convention.  But, as 14-year-old Ulysses learned in the recently released film Saturday Church discovers, parts of Brooklyn might as well be in the Bible Belt for some kids confronting the irrevocability of their sexuality.  Which suggests that the soil within the family is ultimately the most crucial.

 

In her “attempt to tell the truth about love”, Ms. Muldoon gave everyone present one giant gift. A gift that came with a directive: to use your voice.

 

Big Giant Love

August 31, 2018

September 2 – 7 – 9

September 14 – 15^th

September 21 -23

Madison Street Theatre

1010 Madison St.

Oak Park, IL  60302

708-406-2491

^{www.mstoakpark.com}

Linda’s playing at Steep Theatre through the 15^th of this month and if you want to see something that will nourish your mind for days to come, you might want to drop by and check it out.

 

It’s very very female.  Exceedingly muscular.  And it completely chucks convention for the sake of honesty which makes It all the more delightful.

 

Playwright Penelope Skinner must have pondered long and hard about her protagonist.  Linda’s a woman who’s built a dazzling career on pure guts and brains.  No fancy education, no family, no name, no mentors.  A singular force.   When we meet her she’s also a woman who’s reached a certain age and relishes in it the way the king of the hill relishes dispatching the next challenger to his dominion.  A splendid specimen of ability and strength.

 

The home front isn’t as impressive.  Personalities as large as hers are seldom dominant in a single sphere and her control is just as complete in her personal life.  A daughter from her unexplained youth is biracial, beautiful and broken.  Her younger daughter Bridget (Caroline Phillips) from her current husband has some of her mother’s qualities.  She’s challenging and ambitious.  We don’t know if she can back up either of those traits with talent or brilliance, but she’s fifteen and promising.  Her husband Neil (Peter Moore) might as well be on a leash.  A schoolteacher who’s put together a band in his mid-life years to add some pizzazz to his existence, he knows to keep his head down and just say yes to whatever he’s asked or and to whatever he’s told to do.  Linda’s not cruel really.  But you can tell her elbows could draw blood if called to the task.

 

Despite that you feel an affinity for all of them.  Especially Alice (Destini Huston), the elder daughter who’s been modern day crucified for no compelling reason at all and can’t shake the shame.  One of her assailants, a former friend, is now a contender for her mother’s throne.   Amy’s (Rochelle Therrien) every bit as ambitious as Linda and has an operating mode that includes a much heavier dose of malice.  She proves as dangerous to the mother as she was for the daughter.

It’s not only the delicious density that Skinner builds into her plot, it’s also the way director Robin Witt orchestrates the action that makes the unfolding of this tale so softly riveting.  You’re waiting for that terrible moment to just happen and can’t be quite sure just when it will. As you wait, you are feted with a story that’s woven as finely as a custom couture gown with the actors acting as the thread.

 

Cindy Marker as Linda reigned over her role like a master architect.  Building her character brick by brick until you were convinced of her indomitability….until it crumbles.  Omar Abbas Salem as Luke, with his clever eyes and intoxicating tongue, beautifully exposed the hazards of falling under the spell of bright and handsome men.

 

What Skinner has done in this fascinating character study is show how human fallibility is unrelentingly gender neutral.  That knowledge could help us understand and accept each other more easily.

Linda

Closes September 15^th, 2018

Steep Theatre

1115 W. Berwyn

Chicago, IL   60640

773-649-3186

Taking a radical approach to experiencing live theater, Southern Gothic now playing at the Windy City Playhouse through July removes the barrier of distance between the action and the audience.  It’s not a new idea, but immersive theater remains a groundbreaking concept and one many audiences would love to see emulated.

Built around a solid storyline, a young couple is throwing a birthday party for the husband’s sister are setting the stage for a night of emotional intrigue.  Ultimately eight couples will make up the festivities.  Set in 1961 Ashford Georgia, physical aspects of the play have the look and feel of a southern version of Leave It to Beaver with so much French rolled hair, strands of pearls and post war order.  Most of the couples have an intimate knowledge of one another.  Some are holding secrets.  Others are surreptitiously plotting to achieve prestige and power.  The rest are simply struggling to survive but can’t afford to show it. Written by Leslie Liautaud and directed by David Bell, it’s a soap opera in microcosm where the façade of good manners can’t hide the deception proliferating just below the surface.

Using a house-like structure with four rooms, all built within the theater as the stage, the audience is cued to join the party when Ellie (Sarah Grant) opens the side door.  The gesture is a signal to come inside and the audience complies by climbing the steps and entering like wary cats.  Before that, they looked on through the home’s windows from the outside as Ellie and her husband, Beau (Michael McKeogh) tidied the house and prepared appetizers for the party.  Once the audience joined them, they became invisible guests.  The goal of this technique according to Amy Rubenstein, the play’s Artistic Director and Co-Creator is “to give our audiences a new theater-going experience, breaking down the barriers between audiences and performers in exciting ways”.

 

It’s a bold conceit to invite the audience onto the set while a play is going on and one that works sensationally well here.  Complete with a functioning front door and a realistic back yard, the sense of authenticity is keen as well as the notion that what you’re experiencing is a kind of hyper-reality.

 

There’s a full-size kitchen, living room, dining room, and bathroom with plenty of action going on in each one of them.  Limited to 28 people, the audience is encouraged to move around and see the play unfurl and progress from different vantage points. You’re not intended to see and hear everything in every space.  Southern Gothic is structured in such a way that the trajectory of the plot remains consistent in every room.

Creators have also made it possible for you to stay seated in one spot if you like.  But it would be like going to a real party and remaining stationary in one place.  You lose dynamism and much of the collective energy of the event.  If you just stayed in the living room watching Suzanne’s (Brianna Borger) pretentious antics you might miss Lauren (Christine Mayland Perkins) back Ellie against the kitchen sink with a ruinous threat.  Or if you never leave the dining room, you’d miss hearing who was intentionally undermining the financial well-being of the party’s hosts.

 

Perhaps to suit the style of the production, characters are vivid and starkly drawn.  Charles (Brian McCaskill) enters the party with a huge deficit when most of the audience witnesses his humiliating and abusive behavior toward his wife at the rear of the house before coming into the party.  His behavior doesn’t improve much once he’s inside.

 

Over Tom Collins cocktails offered to the audience after the play, an effort to stimulate conversation following the performance, a woman confided how every female in audience wished they could get their hands on Charles to teach him a lesson.  Her comment was visceral enough to let you know she wasn’t entirely joking.

 

Proximity in this environment can add so much to one’s investment in both the characters and the plot.   Sometimes you’re standing directly behind an actor during a scene.  You’re close enough to smell their cologne and see the full purpose in their eyes as they portray someone else’s life.  If you’ve never acted before and will never do so, you get a human sense of what it is to perform in a profession built on creative craftsmanship.

When champagne is offered by the hosts to the other actors, stage monitors brings trays of champagne to the audience.  You can eat the chips on the table or help yourself to cheese and crackers.   For the most part, spectators were too intent on following what was unfolding in front of them to care too much about the food.

 

And, set in the south as it was, creators made sure to inject a racial component when one of the guests brings along his girlfriend of color.  Cassie (Ariel Richardson) is much like the rest of them.  Well educated, polished in the social graces, and a professional working as a journalist for the local paper.  The impeccability of her breeding however doesn’t deter the slurs being spoken out of ear shot in the kitchen.

 

With its whiffs of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf hanging in the air, the drama and intrigue may have been far greater than you’d experience at a typical middle class birthday party.   But even in some of the most sedate gatherings, underlying rivalries, jealousies and perilous secrets can still fester.  Southern Gothic brings them to the surface and ultimately reminds us how common they are.

 

Southern Comfort

Windy City Playhouse

3014 Irving Park Rd.

773-891-8985

Closes July 29th