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John Mulaney Says Middle Aged Men Don’t Make Friends–OK, Boomeron March 4, 2020 at 2:12 pm

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John Mulaney Says Middle Aged Men Don’t Make Friends–OK, Boomer

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John Mulaney Says Middle Aged Men Don’t Make Friends–OK, Boomeron March 4, 2020 at 2:12 pm Read More »

Greg Dulli Returns With New Solo Album “Random Desire”on March 4, 2020 at 2:29 pm

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Greg Dulli Returns With New Solo Album “Random Desire”

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Greg Dulli Returns With New Solo Album “Random Desire”on March 4, 2020 at 2:29 pm Read More »

Day of Absence gets a rare revival with Congo Squareon March 3, 2020 at 10:50 pm

Day of Absence is a show with one joke and two audiences. The joke is revealed in the title: one day, all the people of color disappear from a Southern town. This provides an occasion for some rather gentle satire of white people’s helplessness and cluelessness once they lose their entire heretofore invisible support structure. For a Black audience, at least the audience at the Congo Square Theatre Company’s press opening of the show, the predictable jokes–white people don’t know how to comfort their own babies; white people can’t drive themselves or throw out their own garbage; white people are confounded by an African American woman’s having short hair today and long hair tomorrow–are riotous. It must be pleasant to see people who’ve ridiculed you be ridiculed in turn; but “pleasant” is not the same as “funny.”

The second audience is white people, for whom the show is intended as a mirror into our own ugliness. White audience members are supposed to be made uncomfortable. Perhaps at its debut in 1965, the show performed its function; but for a reasonably liberal audience in Chicago 55 years later, it’s too easy to dismiss the portraits of white people as well-deserved comeuppance for those other white people–the ones named Clem, with southern accents and MAGA hats–and remain comfortably sure that we are the exception. The play just isn’t harsh enough to evoke anything else.

There’s another layer of joke beyond the central conceit: every white character (that’s all but one in the play) is played by a person of color in whiteface; author Douglas Turner Ward called Day of Absence “a reverse minstrel-show.” But whiteface fails as commentary on the disgrace of blackface: the latter is insulting, and intended to be, a joke played on people who couldn’t defend themselves. This was a point still struggling to be heard in 1965, even after Ralph Ellison’s pivotal 1958 essay “Change the Joke and Slip the Yoke” condemned blackface; so the use of whiteface at that time was clever, and even slightly subtle. Today, though, we recognize blackface as a punch in the nose, while whiteface is just makeup. To the extent that it comments on white people at all, it’s a joke played on people who have no need for defense.

The idea of a day of absence remains vibrant. Women in Mexico are currently organizing one to highlight the government’s indifference to violence against women, and it was an annual event for many years at Evergreen State College in Washington, where students of color stayed off campus to discuss issues of equity and inclusion. The tradition came to an end in 2017 when it finally succeeded in its purpose of making white people uncomfortable: the nonwhite organizers announced that to observe the day that year, whites would be excluded from campus. In protesting this decision, one faculty member wrote, “There is a huge difference between a group or coalition deciding to voluntarily absent themselves from a shared space in order to highlight their vital and underappreciated roles . . . and a group encouraging another group to go away. The first is a forceful call to consciousness, which is, of course, crippling to the logic of oppression. The second is a show of force, and an act of oppression in and of itself.” The professor did not address what should happen when the “forceful call to consciousness” loses its force.

All the actors, under the direction of Anthony Irons, do a fine job with the agitprop script, which includes significant updating–references to “POCs,” pronounced “pox,” and allusions to Latinos, including jokes about ICE. I would have preferred if Ann Joseph, as the Mayor, had varied her delivery more: when you start out yelling, there’s really no place to go but louder. But her speech to the absentees–including an embarrassing anecdote about her “Mam-nanny”–is a tour de force. And when the white people have a complete meltdown and start picketing, there are two sides to every sign: “Come back and we’ll stop” [reverse] “AND FRISK.” Kudos to Sydney Lynne Thomas for her scenic and property design.

But Day of Absence, at least in this iteration, is less a condemnation of racism than a historical artifact. I’m glad to have seen it, but it hasn’t changed the way I look at the world–and I know it was supposed to. v






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Day of Absence gets a rare revival with Congo Squareon March 3, 2020 at 10:50 pm Read More »

Hedda Gabler: A Play With Live Music shows us a woman fighting for her voiceon March 3, 2020 at 11:15 pm

Lauren Demerath rages, leers, screams, flirts, and, best of all, sings her way through an unforgettable turn in the title role of Jacqueline Stone’s unique new musical adaptation of the 1891 Henrik Ibsen play, Hedda Gabler: A Play With Live Music. A newly-married woman returns from a honeymoon abroad already bored with her milquetoast academic of a husband (Huy Nguyen) and plots to wreak havoc in the lives of acquaintances and old loves just to feel alive.

Hedda Gabler is a selfish schemer but it is impossible to not feel sympathy for her situation. She’s a woman who is chafing under the constraints of a staid conventional society and justifiably enraged (from our contemporary viewpoint, anyway) to be losing her maiden name, and, thus, her own identity. Her complicating others’ lives as a way of fighting the prospect of becoming an invisible appendage to a dull man’s life may be wrong but it is also completely understandable.

Kevin V. Smith nearly matches Demerath’s intensity as one of Hedda’s old suitors, but this is Demerath’s show. Her best allies are the versatile trio of musicians, led by the production’s composer, Wain Parham. They play in eerie white death masks for much of the running time, but emerge to the forefront once the inevitable tragic end nears. Ibsen’s original intent might have been to explore mental illness, but in this evocative reframing, it is the story of a woman fighting just to have her voice heard. It is a story which is sadly all too familiar in 2020. v






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Hedda Gabler: A Play With Live Music shows us a woman fighting for her voiceon March 3, 2020 at 11:15 pm Read More »

Here Lies Henry is daringly strangeon March 3, 2020 at 11:40 pm

Interrobang Theatre Project presents a revival of Daniel MacIvor’s daringly strange one-person show, Here Lies Henry, starring Scott Sawa in the title role, directed by Elana Elyce. Suspenders, jitters, throwback mustache and all, Sawa delivers a bravura performance as either the worst inspirational comic of all time; a soul in purgatory who keeps blurting out unsavory disclosures involving past awkwardness and possible murder; a pathological liar; or some fiercely winning jumble of all three. You have to hand it to Henry. To be sure, his impromptu eight-part treatise on the art of lying is cogent. His dance rendition of Britney Spears’s “Toxic” is graceful. His affection towards the “mother” (a word he can’t pronounce without giggling uncontrollably) strikes us as genuine. But he’s for sure not well. This becomes all too apparent, if it wasn’t already, by the fourth or fifth time he screams out, leering with his entire face, “This is fun!” What is? Talking into the void? Brazen negative pathos? Acting itself?

As with many solo pieces, the destabilizing effects of solitude are front and center here. It’s hard to believe in story or dramatic tension when you’re the only person in the universe. Luckily, there is such a thing as putting on a show. By the 75th straight minute of staring into Sawa’s unbelievably expressive face, you realize what this play is truly about. Henry, a huckster without wares, dead or alive, phantom or flesh, is an actor. His mouth and body are doing their own thing. We watch, weirded out with joy. v






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Here Lies Henry is daringly strangeon March 3, 2020 at 11:40 pm Read More »

I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter is a resonant coming-of-age storyon March 3, 2020 at 11:45 pm

There is a moment in I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter where Ama (Charin Alvarez), mother of protagonist Julia, deliberately rips pages from her daughter’s prized journal in half. It’s an act of desecration that makes us gasp. But as Julia learns, her mother has had so much torn apart in her own life as a working-class Mexican immigrant that the symbolic lashing out may be one of the few ways she has to channel her own grief and rage. And though the relationships here are ruptured and cannot be put back together as they were, there is always a chance for a child to later reconstruct the parts of their parents’ story that can’t always be seen clearly through the emotional haze and hormones of adolescence.

Adapted by Isaac Gomez from Erika L. Sanchez’s bestselling young adult novel, this Steppenwolf for Young Adults offering (directed by Sandra Marquez) packs a lot of hard truths into its 90-minute running time. Anchored by a breathtakingly vulnerable performance from Karen Rodriguez (an acting muse to Gomez for several years now) as Julia, it’s alternately funny and heartbreaking, harsh and compassionate.

Julia tries to figure out the secrets left behind by her seemingly perfect now-dead older sister, Olga (Dyllan Rodrigues-Miller) and deal with her growing attraction to Connor (Harrison Wegner), a wealthy white boy from Evanston. With the help of her friends and a sympathetic teacher, she also learns to trust her voice as a writer. A trip to her family’s small hometown in Mexico throws a blinding light on the sacrifices her parents made.

The entire cast is terrific, but ultimately it’s the mother-daughter relationship that resonates strongest here. Alvarez and Rodriguez bring bruising anger and galvanizing grace to their performances. It may well make you weep. v






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I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter is a resonant coming-of-age storyon March 3, 2020 at 11:45 pm Read More »

Middle Passage is part voyage of the damned, part picaresqueon March 4, 2020 at 12:00 am

Lighting out for the territory, as Huck Finn put it, may be central to the American dream of liberty, but it’s also a false narrative of freedom. We see that clearly in Ilesa Duncan and David Barr III’s Middle Passage, adapted from Charles Johnson’s 1990 National Book Award-winning novel, which hit the boards with Pegasus a few years ago under the title Rutherford’s Travels. It’s now back under the original moniker at Lifeline under Duncan’s direction.

Rutherford Calhoun (Michael Morrow), a freed slave from Illinois in 1829, follows his licentious bliss to New Orleans, where he meets a governess, Isadora (Shelby Lynn Bias) who wants to make an honest man out of him. Escaping both Isadora and his debts lands him on a ship, the symbolically named Republic, bound for Africa to pick up a cargo of human beings.

What transpires is a battle for Rutherford’s soul and identity. Is he one with the white crew, who plot to take control of the ship? Does race, if not tribal affiliation, require him to help the Allmuseri, the group of captured Africans planning their own revolt? Or should he play both sides against the middle and serve as spy to Patrick Blashill’s Captain Falcon?

A mix of the historic and the swashbuckling with a scosh of magical realism, this production captures what is most arresting about Johnson’s original story. Morrow is splendid as the callow Rutherford forced to grow up and (in one mystical segment) confront literal ghosts of his past. If he sometimes seems like a cipher in the mix of larger-than-life characters surrounding him, that too is a reflection of how a Black man must negotiate what to reveal and what to hide about himself for the sake of his life and liberty. v






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Middle Passage is part voyage of the damned, part picaresqueon March 4, 2020 at 12:00 am Read More »

Mrs. Warren’s Profession confronts our hypocrisies about sex workon March 4, 2020 at 12:05 am

To get an idea of just how convoluted the legal and moral attitudes toward sex work are in the United States–the self-professed global leader of civil liberties–consider the 2017 trial of Jeffrey Hurant. Under arrest for his role as CEO of RentBoy.com, Hurant stood before a judge in federal district court, who praised his contributions to the queer community, namely, providing a safer avenue for escorts to manage their own business. Then, the judge sentenced him to six months in prison.

Having premiered in London at the turn of the 20th century, George Bernard Shaw’s two-act family dramedy about a daughter coming to terms with the source of her family’s wealth is a prescient and holistic exploration of capitalism, exploitation, self-empowerment, gender dynamics, and the hypocrisy of “polite” society. Ironically, the fact Mrs. Warren’s Profession is so layered and thoughtfully written is likely what led to its initial ban and its subsequently halted performances by censors–there’s something to provoke and challenge audiences from every viewpoint.

Michael D. Graham’s production of Melanie Spewock’s adaptation includes plenty of the costumey, English Department-style foppishness often featured by Promethean Theatre, but at its core is a biting, whirlwind performance by Elaine Carlson in the title role. Carlson’s read on Mrs. Warren’s larger-than-life personality, humor, righteousness, and ultimate disillusionment exemplifies the proscenium-sized grandiosity of Shaw’s best characters–even in cozy blackbox. v






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Mrs. Warren’s Profession confronts our hypocrisies about sex workon March 4, 2020 at 12:05 am Read More »

Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman is Gorey-meets-Kafkaon March 4, 2020 at 12:15 am

Once upon a time, in a room that looked like a fifth-grade classroom after a firebombing followed by an era of mildew, a man named Katurian (Martel Manning) was being questioned. Katurian was a writer of stories that felt like Edward Gorey had infiltrated the dreams of Franz Kafka. In a totalitarian dictatorship such as he was in, the resemblance of recent child murders to the themes of his writing has been taken as practical proof of his guilt. “We like executing writers. . . . You execute a writer, it sends out a signal, y’know?” says good cop Tupolski (Cyd Blakewell). Bad cop Ariel (Gregory Fenner) is less concerned with messaging than with the noble use of excessive force, an obsession pegged to his “problem childhood.”

Amid the interrogation and torture, the theme of Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman (2003) is storytelling itself–what we write, and why, and what happens when the sense we make of senseless things like loss becomes the trap of a flawed existence, rather than an escape from it. Under Laura Alcala Baker’s direction, Gift Theatre’s production tensely renders the darkness and the wonder of McDonagh’s brilliant nightmare. Katurian’s relationship with his abused brother Michal (Jay Worthington) roams from protection to disillusionment, sometimes burdened by and sometimes made divine by love, representing the best and worst of characters who never lose touch with their human qualities in a world with no happy endings. Inspired use of puppetry (designed by Daniel Dempsey) brings Katurian’s stories, which structure the work, to life. v






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Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman is Gorey-meets-Kafkaon March 4, 2020 at 12:15 am Read More »

Haven hands us an extra-tense Titus Andronicuson March 4, 2020 at 12:30 am

Titus Andronicus is a bloody tale about the illusion of peacetime. Despite being a child of the Clinton administration, I didn’t realize it until I sat through Haven’s latest production at the Den, directed by Ian Damont Martin. But that’s exactly what keeps the show relevant. Haven handily rises to that occasion, loading the show with contemporary commentary about race, gender, legacy, and violence that expands the Bard’s work in rebellious form. Here, I saw the tragedy of liberal politics, the failures of political reconciliation without institutional change.

In this rendition, an artful and highly choreographed battle between the Romans and Goths kicks off the story, which leads victorious Titus (Colin Jones) back to Rome and the emergence of Saturninus’s (Christopher Wayland Jones) rules. The rest of the juicy plot follows an ever-growing cycle of vengeance verging on Grand Guignol.

From Sarah Espinoza’s gorgeous and brassy sound design to Gabrielle Lott-Rogers’s brutal, brilliant performance as Marcus, this adaptation blows it out of the water. This is truly an intricate and tight take. From the top, costume designer Lilly Walls’s use of color in the show is apparent: the Romans are Black actors donning elaborate black costumes; the surviving Goths–all white actors–are in blood-soaked white tatters. It’s a smart reversal of the harmful tradition that treats whiteness as “pure” and Blackness as “dirty.” The gendering of the roles is also defiant and chaotic, complicating Shakespearian masculinity in profound ways. The revenge might be served in piping-hot pie crusts, but this production’s ability to draw out classic bleak humor while offering fresh themes really brings the heat. v






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Haven hands us an extra-tense Titus Andronicuson March 4, 2020 at 12:30 am Read More »