Concerts

Julie, a single mother of two played by Laure Calamy, lives in the Parisian suburbs but works tirelessly as the head housemaid for a five-star hotel located in the heart of Paris. Her daily routine begins by waking up the children and gathering herself for a lengthy, claustrophobic commute. Once she drops the children off with her discontented neighbor Madame Lusigny, played by Geneviève Mnich, Julie’s hectic morning has only just started. She rushes to work in a frenetic sequence of trains and buses, crammed with fellow commuters, and when she finally arrives at work, responsibilities swallow the remainder of her time. But Julie plans to secure a higher-paying job that would liberate her from this unyielding routine. With zero flexibility in Julie’s schedule, Full Time rapidly transforms into a subtle, adrenaline-packed horror film as her routine crumbles in the face of city-wide transit strikes.

Full Time delivers an unnerving, familiar story about our mundane routines. Director Eric Gravel’s film is a panic-inducing, hyper-realist thriller with the commute starring as its harrowing villain. The film draws attention to the mounting stress that accompanies change by showing the complete breakdown of Julie’s job and travel security. Simultaneously, Julie attempts to impress a new company, hide her intentions from her current bosses, and care for her children’s travel without reliable transportation. Although it feels strange that the film ignores the details of the transit strike, this generates a heightened sense of futility. What can we do when infrastructure breaks down? Gravel expertly captures the panic that occurs alongside displacement. Not to mention, Calamy delivers a wonderfully sympathetic and complicated performance as Julie. Despite lacking depth about the strikes themselves, Full Time offers a personal commentary situated against capitalism’s anchors, and to this capacity, the film succeeds in showing how people struggle under the weight of their occupations and debt. 88 min.

Music Box Theatre

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“Delhi is a gaping wound,” says Mohammad Saud in director Shaunak Sen’s Oscar-nominated documentary All That Breathes. The documentary opens at night, fixed on a horde of rats racing across an otherwise arid wasteland. For longer than expected, Sen leaves the audience with the vermin before introducing the skies, narrowing in on the black kite—a beautiful raptor essential to the city’s increasingly unstable ecosystem. Across the city, the black kites carry a reputation as a scavenger, subsisting on the city’s mountainous landfills, but despite this, Saud and his brother Nadeem Shehzad revere these birds. The brothers devote their lives to protecting these birds, working tirelessly to shield them from Delhi’s pollutants and healing thousands of injured birds in their infirmary. Despite the job’s thanklessness, the brothers have saved nearly 25,000 black kites. 

All That Breathes documents Saud and Shehzad’s devotion to the black kites, exploring the bird’s invaluable role in Delhi, but Sen composes a far more intimate narrative of the two brothers. The documentary, condensed into 90ish minutes from about 400 hours of rough rootage, captures a gentle, touching story of two brothers bound together by a similar devotion. However, Saud feels content working with Delhi and Shehzad hopes to leave for the United States to learn more and return with more knowledge. Saud views this as abandonment. The tension simmers as Salik—a volunteer enamored by the black kites—attends to the injured birds with a touching graciousness. All That Breathes teeters on the brink of sentimentality but never extends further than brief glances, because the unrelenting task of protecting Delhi’s fragile ecosystem remains. 

Sen captures a compassionate microcosm in the infirmary, persisting despite the intensifying sectarian violence and the collapsing Delhi ecosystem happening outside. All That Breathes presents a poetic, intensely beautiful story so precise that, at times, it feels staged but instead emerges from hours of painstaking care. And this film emphasizes the importance of that seemingly mundane yet infinitely important sensitivity, in spite of social, fraternal, environmental, or quotidian strains. 97 min.

HBO Max

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“Delhi is a gaping wound,” says Mohammad Saud in director Shaunak Sen’s Oscar-nominated documentary All That Breathes. The documentary opens at night, fixed on a horde of rats racing across an otherwise arid wasteland. For longer than expected, Sen leaves the audience with the vermin before introducing the skies, narrowing in on the black kite—a beautiful raptor essential to the city’s increasingly unstable ecosystem. Across the city, the black kites carry a reputation as a scavenger, subsisting on the city’s mountainous landfills, but despite this, Saud and his brother Nadeem Shehzad revere these birds. The brothers devote their lives to protecting these birds, working tirelessly to shield them from Delhi’s pollutants and healing thousands of injured birds in their infirmary. Despite the job’s thanklessness, the brothers have saved nearly 25,000 black kites. 

All That Breathes documents Saud and Shehzad’s devotion to the black kites, exploring the bird’s invaluable role in Delhi, but Sen composes a far more intimate narrative of the two brothers. The documentary, condensed into 90ish minutes from about 400 hours of rough rootage, captures a gentle, touching story of two brothers bound together by a similar devotion. However, Saud feels content working with Delhi and Shehzad hopes to leave for the United States to learn more and return with more knowledge. Saud views this as abandonment. The tension simmers as Salik—a volunteer enamored by the black kites—attends to the injured birds with a touching graciousness. All That Breathes teeters on the brink of sentimentality but never extends further than brief glances, because the unrelenting task of protecting Delhi’s fragile ecosystem remains. 

Sen captures a compassionate microcosm in the infirmary, persisting despite the intensifying sectarian violence and the collapsing Delhi ecosystem happening outside. All That Breathes presents a poetic, intensely beautiful story so precise that, at times, it feels staged but instead emerges from hours of painstaking care. And this film emphasizes the importance of that seemingly mundane yet infinitely important sensitivity, in spite of social, fraternal, environmental, or quotidian strains. 97 min.

HBO Max

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Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania will be a blockbuster due to its amazing cast, outstanding special effects, and family-friendly fare replete with enough funny lines and cameos to keep people entertained. Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is back, riding his fame after saving the world with the Avengers in Avengers: Endgame (2019). But when his daughter Cassie (Kathryn Newton) designs a radio to the quantum realm, the family all get zapped into a fantastical world populated with Oz-meets-Star-Wars-category creatures and delightfully mind-bending visuals. But what makes the Ant-Man franchise great is seeing him and Wasp traverse our world with their shrinking/growing tech. Instead, the whole film takes place in the green-screen world of the quantum realm; it’s heavy on the visuals with a fairly light, predictable Marvel story. We meet tons of creatures we want to know but barely learn anything about. Hope Van Dyne AKA Wasp (Evangeline Lilly) barely has a role and instead the film puts Cassie front and center along with Janet Van Dyne, the original Wasp (Michelle Pfeiffer), who somehow lived a full, crazy life as a “freedom fighter” in the realm for 30 years but has yet to tell anyone in the family anything about it, like the universe-threatening Kang The Conqueror (a terrifyingly excellent Jonathan Majors) or the entire reality of living creatures in the quantum realm. Corey Stoll makes an underwhelming anticipated appearance as M.O.D.O.K (if you know, you know), and post-credit scenes hint at a more interesting storyline to come. PG-13, 125 min.

Wide release in theaters

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Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania will be a blockbuster due to its amazing cast, outstanding special effects, and family-friendly fare replete with enough funny lines and cameos to keep people entertained. Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is back, riding his fame after saving the world with the Avengers in Avengers: Endgame (2019). But when his daughter Cassie (Kathryn Newton) designs a radio to the quantum realm, the family all get zapped into a fantastical world populated with Oz-meets-Star-Wars-category creatures and delightfully mind-bending visuals. But what makes the Ant-Man franchise great is seeing him and Wasp traverse our world with their shrinking/growing tech. Instead, the whole film takes place in the green-screen world of the quantum realm; it’s heavy on the visuals with a fairly light, predictable Marvel story. We meet tons of creatures we want to know but barely learn anything about. Hope Van Dyne AKA Wasp (Evangeline Lilly) barely has a role and instead the film puts Cassie front and center along with Janet Van Dyne, the original Wasp (Michelle Pfeiffer), who somehow lived a full, crazy life as a “freedom fighter” in the realm for 30 years but has yet to tell anyone in the family anything about it, like the universe-threatening Kang The Conqueror (a terrifyingly excellent Jonathan Majors) or the entire reality of living creatures in the quantum realm. Corey Stoll makes an underwhelming anticipated appearance as M.O.D.O.K (if you know, you know), and post-credit scenes hint at a more interesting storyline to come. PG-13, 125 min.

Wide release in theaters

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Julie, a single mother of two played by Laure Calamy, lives in the Parisian suburbs but works tirelessly as the head housemaid for a five-star hotel located in the heart of Paris. Her daily routine begins by waking up the children and gathering herself for a lengthy, claustrophobic commute. Once she drops the children off with her discontented neighbor Madame Lusigny, played by Geneviève Mnich, Julie’s hectic morning has only just started. She rushes to work in a frenetic sequence of trains and buses, crammed with fellow commuters, and when she finally arrives at work, responsibilities swallow the remainder of her time. But Julie plans to secure a higher-paying job that would liberate her from this unyielding routine. With zero flexibility in Julie’s schedule, Full Time rapidly transforms into a subtle, adrenaline-packed horror film as her routine crumbles in the face of city-wide transit strikes.

Full Time delivers an unnerving, familiar story about our mundane routines. Director Eric Gravel’s film is a panic-inducing, hyper-realist thriller with the commute starring as its harrowing villain. The film draws attention to the mounting stress that accompanies change by showing the complete breakdown of Julie’s job and travel security. Simultaneously, Julie attempts to impress a new company, hide her intentions from her current bosses, and care for her children’s travel without reliable transportation. Although it feels strange that the film ignores the details of the transit strike, this generates a heightened sense of futility. What can we do when infrastructure breaks down? Gravel expertly captures the panic that occurs alongside displacement. Not to mention, Calamy delivers a wonderfully sympathetic and complicated performance as Julie. Despite lacking depth about the strikes themselves, Full Time offers a personal commentary situated against capitalism’s anchors, and to this capacity, the film succeeds in showing how people struggle under the weight of their occupations and debt. 88 min.

Music Box Theatre

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Julie, a single mother of two played by Laure Calamy, lives in the Parisian suburbs but works tirelessly as the head housemaid for a five-star hotel located in the heart of Paris. Her daily routine begins by waking up the children and gathering herself for a lengthy, claustrophobic commute. Once she drops the children off with her discontented neighbor Madame Lusigny, played by Geneviève Mnich, Julie’s hectic morning has only just started. She rushes to work in a frenetic sequence of trains and buses, crammed with fellow commuters, and when she finally arrives at work, responsibilities swallow the remainder of her time. But Julie plans to secure a higher-paying job that would liberate her from this unyielding routine. With zero flexibility in Julie’s schedule, Full Time rapidly transforms into a subtle, adrenaline-packed horror film as her routine crumbles in the face of city-wide transit strikes.

Full Time delivers an unnerving, familiar story about our mundane routines. Director Eric Gravel’s film is a panic-inducing, hyper-realist thriller with the commute starring as its harrowing villain. The film draws attention to the mounting stress that accompanies change by showing the complete breakdown of Julie’s job and travel security. Simultaneously, Julie attempts to impress a new company, hide her intentions from her current bosses, and care for her children’s travel without reliable transportation. Although it feels strange that the film ignores the details of the transit strike, this generates a heightened sense of futility. What can we do when infrastructure breaks down? Gravel expertly captures the panic that occurs alongside displacement. Not to mention, Calamy delivers a wonderfully sympathetic and complicated performance as Julie. Despite lacking depth about the strikes themselves, Full Time offers a personal commentary situated against capitalism’s anchors, and to this capacity, the film succeeds in showing how people struggle under the weight of their occupations and debt. 88 min.

Music Box Theatre

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A murder trial transcript that went missing, not to be found until 2004—decades after the murder of Emmett Till. The Black Chicago teen whose unfathomable death in 1955 sparked the Civil Rights Movement didn’t get justice through a broken court system. Now, decades later, audiences can witness scenes from the murder trial of Till’s killers for themselves. This adaptation by G. Riley Mills and Willie Round was originally presented as a teleplay last February, in partnership with NBC5 and anchor Marion Brooks. That production won a Chicago/Midwest Emmy Award.

Trial in the Delta: The Murder of Emmett Till Through 2/19: Thu-Sat 7 PM, Sun 3 PM, DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center, 740 E. 56th Pl., collaboraction.org, $30-$55

Collaboraction artistic director Anthony Moseley, in his preshow speech for the live stage version on opening night, said roughly 2,000 people will witness this world premiere production. Suddenly that number felt altogether too small. Every person who can see this show should see this show. 

Distracting jury projection transitions aside, Trial in the Delta is an infuriating, painstaking piece of theater. Witnesses walk from the audience into the courtroom in each scene, making their way through the room full of onlookers. Your eyes can’t help but drift stage left to witness Kayla Franklin’s Mamie Till-Bradley sitting solemnly throughout the testimonies. My companion noted that the work would be invaluable teaching material for students learning about Emmett Till. The transcript reveals so much of the hateful rhetoric that took place within the court that shines a much-needed light on how whitewashed history can become without firsthand source material. 

Given the nature of this work, the ensemble holds steadfast to their roles as real people plucked from history. Collaboraction, even in this very limited run, has given Chicago a gift. Emmett and his family never really got the justice they deserved, but work like this will ensure that history does not forget. 

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A murder trial transcript that went missing, not to be found until 2004—decades after the murder of Emmett Till. The Black Chicago teen whose unfathomable death in 1955 sparked the Civil Rights Movement didn’t get justice through a broken court system. Now, decades later, audiences can witness scenes from the murder trial of Till’s killers for themselves. This adaptation by G. Riley Mills and Willie Round was originally presented as a teleplay last February, in partnership with NBC5 and anchor Marion Brooks. That production won a Chicago/Midwest Emmy Award.

Trial in the Delta: The Murder of Emmett Till Through 2/19: Thu-Sat 7 PM, Sun 3 PM, DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center, 740 E. 56th Pl., collaboraction.org, $30-$55

Collaboraction artistic director Anthony Moseley, in his preshow speech for the live stage version on opening night, said roughly 2,000 people will witness this world premiere production. Suddenly that number felt altogether too small. Every person who can see this show should see this show. 

Distracting jury projection transitions aside, Trial in the Delta is an infuriating, painstaking piece of theater. Witnesses walk from the audience into the courtroom in each scene, making their way through the room full of onlookers. Your eyes can’t help but drift stage left to witness Kayla Franklin’s Mamie Till-Bradley sitting solemnly throughout the testimonies. My companion noted that the work would be invaluable teaching material for students learning about Emmett Till. The transcript reveals so much of the hateful rhetoric that took place within the court that shines a much-needed light on how whitewashed history can become without firsthand source material. 

Given the nature of this work, the ensemble holds steadfast to their roles as real people plucked from history. Collaboraction, even in this very limited run, has given Chicago a gift. Emmett and his family never really got the justice they deserved, but work like this will ensure that history does not forget. 

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Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s musical Into the Woods premiered three years before Robert Bly’s Iron John sent men into the wilderness as part of the “mythopoetic men’s movement,” complete with sweat lodges, drum circles, chanting, and other rituals designed to restore a pre-industrialization notion of masculinity, combined with Joseph Campbell’s “hero’s journey” narratives. The musical seems to have outlasted the Iron John fad, and I don’t think it’s just because it’s one of the more accessible works in the Sondheim canon.

Sure, it’s based on familiar fairy tales, including the stories of Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Cinderella, and Jack and the Beanstalk, into which book writer Lapine wove the original story of a childless couple: the Baker and the Baker’s Wife. The couple’s desire to placate the next-door witch by obtaining four items (a red cloak, hair as gold as cornsilk, a silver slipper . . . well, you see where this is going) is what sends them to the forest, where—at least in the first act—permanent magic seems to overcome temporary darkness. Grandmothers pop up out of the innards of wolves, none the worse for wear. Princesses find their princes. A simple lad slays a giant after stealing his gold (and gets his dead cow restored to him, to boot). And a man and a woman finally get a baby.

Then the second act happens, and all hell (embodied as the widow of the slain giant) breaks loose.

Into the Woods Through 3/19: Wed 1:30 and 7 PM, Thu 7 PM, Fri 8 PM, Sat 3 and 8 PM, Sun 1 and 5:30 PM; open and closed captions Wed 3/15 7 PM, ASL interpretation Fri 3/17; Paramount Theatre, 23 E. Galena Blvd., Aurora, 630-896-6666, paramountaurora.com, $28-$79

But in watching the gorgeous revival of Into the Woods now onstage at Paramount Theatre in Aurora, new resonances and nuances I’ve not fully appreciated before came into view. Codirectors Jim Corti and Trent Stork certainly use the large stage and 16-piece orchestra to good effect: Jeffrey D. Kmiec’s scenic design, José Santiago’s lights, Paul Deziel’s projections, and Jordan Ross’s costumes look lush and fantastical (with special kudos to puppet designer Jesse Mooney-Bullock for creating Milky White, Jack’s beloved cow, and an astonishing horse ridden by Cinderella’s Prince). Kory Danielson’s musical direction is crisp, and Kasey Alfonso’s choreography manages to be both intimate and expansive as needed.

So on one level, it’s a cunning riposte to fairy-tale notions of happily ever after. But that’s far too easy a bar to clear. What I felt bubbling along under the surface throughout Paramount’s production was a quiet but urgent question that has only grown more important in recent years: in a society addicted to individualism, what do we owe to each other as members of a community, even when overcome with personal grief and loss?

Natalie Weiss’s Witch, whose long-ago curse is the catalyst for the journeys all the other characters take, is also the harsh conscience of the tale, particularly in “The Last Midnight” and “Children Will Listen.” In the former, she challenges the survivors of the giantess to face their own greed and selfishness. “No, of course what really matters/Is the blame/Somebody to blame.” (In the case of the Iron John movement, contemporary feminism came under attack as depriving men of their primordial purpose.)

A community built on transactionality, as we see in the first act, is ill-equipped for altruism. Or, as Larry Yando’s wry Narrator tells us, “These were not people familiar with making choices.” I know it’s cliche as hell to keep viewing theater through a pandemic lens, but that line hit me, as did so many other moments, as an encapsulation of what happens when people’s comfortable assumptions about how life should unfold run headfirst into unpleasant realities beyond their control.

This isn’t an overtly political rendering of the musical—that would be entirely tedious and tendentious. But it is a staging that, through both the strength of the performances and the spectacle of the setting, asks us to consider who we are in relation to each other, even (or especially) when we’ve been traumatized. There isn’t a weak link in the cast, but I especially enjoyed newcomer Will Koski’s naive Jack, Stephen Schellhardt and Sarah Bockel’s Baker and Baker’s Wife (so infused with a love that has matured into something neither quite recognizes until too late), Lucy Panush’s tough-girl Little Red, and (for pure comic relief) Alex Syiek’s glam-rock Wolf. Syiek is also excellent as Cinderella’s Prince, a fatuous man whose habit of looking backward before exiting the stage quietly illustrates how he’s torn between the comforts he knows and the new infatuations he craves. 

Into the Woods reminds us that we don’t need to go out of our way to find rituals for growth. The woods are everywhere. Getting through life is its own ritual. At some point, we decide if we’re the infallible heroes of our own story, bent on our mortal ambitions, or part of a larger ecosystem of flawed people coming to realize that “No One Is Alone.”

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