Museums can often feel like a cold, overly formal place. On one hand, that setting promotes an aura of respect around the artwork; on the other, it can lengthen the distance between the art and its viewer. “Duro Olowu: Seeing Chicago” is an antidote to that.

“You’re going to see color, and patterns, and texture–not just in the art but in the way things are presented on the pedestals and on the walls,” says Naomi Beckwith, senior curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, which organized the exhibition, one of the largest show ever put on at the MCA. Beckwith didn’t curate it, though; that role was undertaken by Duro Olowu, a Nigerian-born, London-based fashion designer. His namesake boutique in London was a harbinger of things to come–a mishmash of his own designs and a collection of pieces that appeal to his taste. The shop displays traditional and cutting-edge artworks alongside vinyl albums, books, tapestries, and decor objects. Anything goes, as long as he likes them. “He’s interested in flattening these distinctions that we may put up around art,” Beckwith says. “Like, what is fine art, and what is found art, what is inspired versus what is academic.”

“It’s like walking into the coolest museum shop with handpicked items that have been curated so perfectly by the master of all masters,” says Ikram Goldman, owner of the Ikram boutique in the Gold Coast and the person who first brought Olowu’s designs to Chicago. She met Olowu through a mutual friend in the early 2000s before he launched his label in 2004. Olowu presented his collection to Goldman in a hotel she was staying at in New York. “I remember thinking, ‘OK, I know he’s showing me these, but I know there’s a lot more magic where this came from.’ And it’s been that way ever since. He has a taste level beyond anyone I’ve ever known.”

Olowu grew up going back and forth between Lagos, Nigeria, and London. His father was Nigerian and his mother was Jamaican. The fourth of six siblings, he was raised in a large family that encouraged his artistic endeavors. Fashion has been a lifelong interest; his parents always valued the art of dressing well. His mother taught him early on how to compose a look, mixing high fashion and local West African fabrics. Once it was time to go to college, Olowu followed his father’s footsteps and studied to be a lawyer at the University of Canterbury in England in the 80s. He practiced law but began designing his own clothing and then launched his eponymous brand. He hit the jackpot when Vogue editor Sally Singer loved a dress he designed. Dubbed “The Duro dress,” it is fashioned in Olowu’s signature mix of vibrant prints and features a V-neck, empire waist, and wide sleeves, slightly evocative of a kimono. That dress led to him being named the Best New Designer at the British Fashion Awards in 2005. Since then he’s put together two critically acclaimed pop- up shops/art shows at Salon 94 gallery in New York and a blockbuster exhibit at the London Camden Arts Center in 2016 entitled “Making & Unmaking.”

Famous for creating unexpected yet harmonious combinations of vivid prints, Olowu also takes his tailoring seriously. According to Goldman, what makes his garments special is “a lightness in fabrics and extraordinary taste in color and print mix.” “He comes from a very authentic place and it translates in his collections,” Goldman says. “There is no one I know who makes clothes that are as flattering as Duro does. It all seems to fit beautifully on a body. Clearly [my clients] love him and they treasure his pieces–they come in just to get his things. He’s a treasure.”

The admiration, Olowu says, is mutual. “The manner in which the wonderful women of Chicago have supported my career in fashion and wear my womenswear collections which are sold there is really inspiring,” he says. “Like the city’s museums and private collectors, these women are enthusiastic, curious, and keen to explore new ideas in their original form. They also love quality over trend, something that is a wonderful and unique trait.” One of those women was Michelle Obama, who first discovered Olowu’s designs while her husband was running for president. She subsequently sported many of Olowu’s garments in official engagements and even got him to decorate a room in the White House for Christmas in 2015.

Now Chicagoans will have the opportunity to savor Olowu’s vision in a different way. “For me, both [curating and designing] require an intuitive eye and a free hand in order to reflect the real and cosmopolitan world we live in,” Olowu says. “I feel very lucky and inspired to be able to do both.”

Olowu’s London boutique serves as inspiration for one of the later sections of “Seeing Chicago.” Some of his designs are displayed in that area, but they are far from the central focus. The bulk of the exhibit consists of almost 350 objects, all borrowed from local public and private collections. Most of them belong to the MCA, but many come from places such as the Art Institute of Chicago, Block Museum of Art, South Side Community Art Center, the National Museum of Mexican Art, the DuSable Museum of African American History, and Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art.

“I began with the idea of exposing and showcasing the amazing MCA Collection, which exemplifies this city’s original approach to contemporary art and culture,” Olowu says. “But I soon realized that a much more generous and open approach to the city’s public and private collections was necessary to honestly and justly convey the unique sensibility of museums and collectors in Chicago. The duty and beauty of museums is to hold up a mirror to its audience regardless of social standing or class and create a unifying experience with local and international art in a way that is a source of pride for the people of the city. The MCA has given me the opportunity to create an exhibition that I hope is an example of this.”

Some of the featured artists include turn-of-the-century groundbreakers like Henri Matisse and Rene Magritte, and contemporary names such as David Hammons, Barbara Kruger, Ana Mendieta, and Fred Wilson. Even though there will be works from across the world, dozens of artists connected to Chicago will be on display. Amongst them are Dawoud Bey, Simone Leigh, and Kerry James Marshall as well as leaders of local movements AfriCOBRA and the Chicago Imagists. There will be rare surrealist art books by Duchamp, Giorgio de Chirico, and Salvador Dali. “That kind of international, or what we’ve been calling cosmopolitan and transcultural view of not only the history of art but also of the city, is very important,” Beckwith says.

The way Olowu displays his selection is an art in itself. Instead of the usual stark white cube, artworks are placed against colorful walls in shades of orange, purple, and teal. Paintings and photographs are installed vertically, or “salon-style,” in arrangements that promote unexpected conversations between the pieces.

“It’s so exciting for me to see a Matisse painting mirror an African sculpture. Starting to make those kinds of leaps into our imagination is going to be really incredible,” Beckwith says. “I don’t think we realize that when we go to museums, oftentimes the work that we see in one specific gallery or in one show is usually like for like. That is to say that all the works in African sculpture are in the African galleries. All the works by French painters of the late 19th century are in another gallery by themselves. All the pottery from Asia is either in the Asian gallery or in the decorative arts gallery. We began to separate things out in ways that feel logical, but what it doesn’t often allow is for things across cultures to speak to each other, or things across time periods to live with each other. Duro kind of ignored those basic art historical claims and just asked us to realize the affinities that art may have, across the country, across the world, across time.” v

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In 2017, young Latinx people entered the mind of Julia Reyes, the protagonist in Erika L. Sanchez’s New York Times bestselling novel, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter. Now through March 21, they can enter her world and serve as her confidant in the stage adaptation premiering at Steppenwolf, as part of the Steppenwolf for Young Adults series. (Sandra Marquez directs.)

The story follows teenager Julia, an aspiring writer from Chicago who is often seen as rebellious and a nuisance by her family, as she grieves the death of her older more traditional sister, Olga. She also attempts to find herself in a world that tries to keep her identity confined to specific boxes of what a Mexican American daughter should and shouldn’t be. Throughout this path of self-discovery, she faces adversity in mental health, domestic violence, and sexual trauma–topics that are widely dismissed and seen as taboo in Latinx households.

“[These topics] are what I think has brought the book so much popularity over the last few years,” says playwright Isaac Gomez. “It resonates because of all of the various intersection points, especially for people who identify as Mexican, Mexican American, or Latinx.”

Gomez, who says he has read the book around 18 or 20 times, wanted to embody the world that Sanchez created and include all of the central themes that make the protagonist’s journey so challenging. This is especially important because although not everyone’s upbringing was the same as Julia’s, a lot of the struggles she faces ring true for many. Gomez, for example, says despite being a man raised in a home with four boys “there were some things that Julia said about not being the perfect Mexican daughter that allowed me to connect with her, especially because I was an aspiring writer who struggled with mental health and because I was someone who just wanted to get out and dream.”

Similar to Julia, many first-generation Americans face this pressure to adhere to specific standards of both their culture and the American culture while simultaneously having to provide for their families and put their dreams aside. First-generation daughters, specifically, have a harder time shedding these limitations and remain tied down by old-fashioned roles.

This is what makes Julia so inspiring to many Latinx individuals. “We have this Mexican girl who is 15 and grappling with ribbons of grief,” says Karen Rodriguez, longtime collaborator of Gomez’s and the actress playing Julia in the play. “Part of her grief and part of her struggle is that she is so unabashedly herself and won’t let others put her in a box, even if it comes at great pain and great disconnect for her family and friends.”

Gomez sent her the novel when he had first decided to adapt it into a play. “I read it and I just felt like Julia, Erika, and I were like kindred spirits,” Rodriguez says. “There’s something about Julia and the way that she talks and the way that her mind works that felt like projects Isaac and I had worked on before.”

Gomez says Rodriguez was a crucial part of his adaptation process because of their shared backgrounds. The two are from border cities between Texas and Mexico (Gomez grew up in El Paso, Rodriguez in Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville) and know what it’s like to feel like they’re from two places and everywhere all at once. “Every play I’ve written, except one, has featured Karen in some capacity because she brings so much energy into everything she does,” he says. “She brings a piece of home in everything she does.”

But another aspect of the adaptation process was getting the rights from Sanchez herself. Luckily, the author and current Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz chair at DePaul University trusted in Gomez immediately. “As soon as I met Isaac, I felt like I could trust him with the story, and he put so much care in transforming it in a way that was respectful and very true to the original vision,” Sanchez says.

Though the material remains the same, some changes were made to fit the medium. This includes adding asides, since the novel is told from the first-person point of view. But according to Gomez and Rodriguez, this allows the audience to actively serve as Julia’s confidant as she finds her voice.

More than anything, what Gomez, Sanchez, and Rodriguez hope audiences gain from the play is a chance to feel seen in a new medium. “I think it’s really great that so many young people of color are going to see the play. I find that really moving for me because when I was growing up, I didn’t really have that,” says Sanchez. “I never saw any plays that were related to my communities or who I was, and so the fact that so many young people are going to have access to it is something that makes me feel really proud.” v

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Normally, in a fantasy life, you obsess over your pets. Dog cloning figures largely in the mind anytime I think about how it would feel to be Barbra Streisand, personally. But there comes a point in any conversation with a decadent person–around hour two, perhaps–when you wonder if or when this fascinating individual will move on from dog talk and feed you dinner. That moment never comes in Dex & Abby, a 130-minute tepid fiasco, written by Allan Baker and directed by Daniel Washelesky.

Less a play than a live-action doggy-themed greeting card, this show imagines what it would be like if a rich gay couple, Sean and Corey, moved in together, and if their dogs, who can talk, took a while to become friends. Daniel Vaughn Manasia and Chesa Greene as the titular pooch duo can wag those behinds all they want: they’re dressed normally, their lines are inane garbage, and I just didn’t buy that they were dogs. Sure, they’re cute. But so is actual character development. So is costume design.

The overall weakness of the thing turns unsettling at times, as when Sean (Josh Pablo Szabo) tries to win an argument with Corey (Jesse Montoya) about whose experience of struggle is more valid by shouting point-blank into his partner’s face, “I’m a crack whore’s son!” Or when an inexplicable foldout bed emerges from the wall, stays in the scene for two quick and vapid cuddle scenes, then retracts once more, never to be seen again. v

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Actors Gymnasium primarily functions as a training school in the circus arts, but they put on a full-length show for an extended run every winter. And in the case of The Ghost in Gadsden’s Garden, you’d be a fool to miss it. A reclusive gardener, Gadsden (Adrian Danzig) spends his days tending the beautiful flowers on the grounds of an old (and allegedly haunted) mansion. And indeed, his interactions with the lovely ghost Vivian (Hayley Larson) provide the only semi-human contact he enjoys. But when Kid (Grace Sherman) creeps past the gate on a dare from classmates, they discover that Vivian may not be what Gadsden thinks.

With echoes of Oscar Wilde’s fable “The Selfish Giant” mixed with ecology lessons (Lucy Carapetyan plays Kid’s supportive science teacher), writers Chris Mathews (who also directs) and Sully Ratke incorporate the natural and supernatural with seamless aplomb.

Larson’s aerial work on the silks is particularly breathtaking, and Carapetyan joins with acrobatics creating clever physical metaphors for various scientific relationships, from symbiotic to parasitic. (Sylvia
Hernandez-DiStasi created the circus interludes, with Kasey Foster choreographing dances to Kevin O’Donnell’s original sound and music.) The teen ensemble plays various impish garden flora and Kid’s Scooby Gang of tormentors-turned-allies with assured wit and charm. Danzig, cofounder of the beloved 500 Clown troupe, brings poignant charm to his lonely aging Gadsden. The entire show is a treat for the eyes and heart from beginning to end. v

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I guess a bad play could be written about the hostile overthrow of a Cleveland Heights karaoke bar at the hands of a hard-cider magnate named Ethan, whose business card says, “purveyor of fine spirits and sophisticated settings.” I don’t see how, though. Some ideas are just too good. Regardless, Mike Beyer and Kirk Pynchon haven’t written that bad play. Factory Theater’s Last Night in Karaoke Town, directed by Kim Boler, is a fantastic play, one that gets to the heart of so many issues that matter, such as what varieties of taxidermy should be allowed in bars (squirrels? buffalo?), who gets to sing Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn” when both Audrey and Lily claim it as “mine, bitch,” and whether the rusted-out factory your dad used to work in getting rebuilt as an REI is OK if you happen to like shopping at REI. You know, the important stuff.

The rainbow of die-hards hanging out at owner Diana’s joint could carry a production by themselves, so rife are they with quirks and infighting and opinions about Van Halen. And then you have Ethan, played by Tommy Bullington, who saunters in one fine day with his crates of pear cider and long black shawl to inform Diana (Wendy Hayne) that he’s bought the building and intends to refine its spirits and sophisticate its settings. What follows is a raucous showdown between the dual opposing forces of innovation and authenticity. I can’t say who wins. I can say that I laughed so hard at everything Bullington did that I thought I would be asked to leave the theater. v

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“I would let [insert name here] ruin my life” is a phrase that anyone who’s radiated their eyes with thirsty comments online over the past few years will recognize as a hallmark of the genre. What does it mean? If Dex (Michael Vizzi) and Shellie (Allison Plott) feel that way about each other in Leslye Headland’s The Layover–a total masterpiece, ultimately just as devastating as it is hot–presented by The Comrades under Drew Shirley’s direction, as I contend they do, what does that feeling entail? Is it a disease? Is that, heaven help us, what love is now?

If I would let you ruin my life, I’m obviously looking for trouble already. Dex’s engagement to Andrea (Emma Jo Boyden) is over the second he sits down with Shellie at the bar in O’Hare after their Thanksgiving flight gets cancelled. You get the sense he would have let anyone ruin his life, given half the chance. Shellie’s life is practically in ruins already–she’s the full-time caregiver to an epileptic father (the amazing Jim Morley), unhappily married, tied down in every sense. She’s got a fair bit of one of Headland’s other protagonists in her: Natasha Lyonne’s character in the Netflix series Russian Doll, which Headland cocreated with Lyonne and Amy Poehler.

Dex, Shellie, and Lyonne’s Nadia Vulvokov are all alike–deacons in the church of “ruin my life.” But crack that pained thought open, and you see what it really is saying: I would let you kindle these dead nerve endings again. I would let you see if I’m still here. v

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This Lynn Nottage drama is pure kinetic energy, exploring the illicit ivory trade through the haunting death of Mlima, an African elephant. Griffin Theatre Company’s production, a midwest premiere directed by Jerrell L. Henderson, thrives on its use of movement, sound, and staging to illustrate our shared complicity in the poaching of a vulnerable species. Mlima, whose name means “mountain” in Swahili, is played by a mostly silent David Goodloe, who looms large, literally, over the entire 90 minutes. He’s the show’s emotional canvas, employing ethereal, athletic movements and an intense, textured gaze that as reads both accusatory and mournful. As Mlima’s tusks become increasingly objectified, Goodloe turns his body into a floppy piece of meat, resigned and exhausted.

A tight, propulsive story, this production leverages a capable ensemble of six to bring to life the entire chain of events from Mlima’s death in Kenya to the unveiling of an ivory carving in the home of a wealthy collector across the world. By bringing so many people and geographies under the tent of this shameful practice, from police to park rangers to government officials to pilots, Nottage makes the world a bit smaller and the tragedy less abstract. As does her insertion of well-researched and disturbing facts, like poachers using tourists’ safari photos on social media to locate their prey. After absorbing the question an ivory dealer asks a collector–What price are you willing to pay for beauty?–you’ll walk away questioning the provenance and unknown costs of any rare valuables you possess. v

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In 2013, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Deborah Blum wrote an article for Wired magazine titled “The Imperfect Myth of the Female Poisoner” that dispelled the persistent cultural assumption that, as far as murder methods go, homicides-by-poisoning are inherently ladylike. “It’s not, you see, that poison is a woman’s weapon,” says Blum. “It’s that it is an evil one.” And yet, dubiously sourced in historical criminology as they may be, there’s something wickedly satisfying and elegantly badass about artistic depictions of women dispensing revenge with perfume-like vials of death.

In that respect, in this 90-minute dark dramedy set in 17th century Paris, playwright Dusty Wilson has his cake and eats it too, indulging in a fantasy of outlaw women paving their own way while also wrestling with the gender and class-based roles that permit justice for some while dooming others. A talented chemist (Carina Lastimosa) and her tarot-card-reading lover (Lynnette Li) create a cottage industry helping wealthy women murder their plutocrat husbands. Christina Casano’s production for The Plagiarists keeps the grisly consequences of its protagonists’ actions at arm’s length for the most part, focusing instead on their justifications and nights spent spritzing toxic plants in a sparse but romantic hamlet tucked on the outskirts of society. A framing device featuring an interrogator (Bryan Breau) doesn’t quite reach the emotional contrasts Casano and company seem to be aiming for, but there’s some decent fun to be had with a flamboyant rival poisoner (Julia Stemper) and a naive woman of leisure (Brittani Yawn). v

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Ruby (Brooke Reams) and Wilson (Kevin Tre’Von Patterson) seem to have a picture-book marriage. While their daughter is away at summer camp, they plan on trying for another baby. But when Ruby’s best friend, Claire (Deveon Bromby), comes to stay a few weeks while recovering from the loss of a husband shot by a white cop, the couple’s seemingly blissful existence is shattered.

Christopher Burris directs this midwest Redtwist premiere of Rabbit Summer, Tracey Conyer Lee’s tense, funny, and angry 2018 relationship drama, which, rather than shying away from facing some of the most complex and systemic issues plaguing this country, takes them all head-on. When it’s not dealing with gun violence, it’s addressing racism; then, for a breather, it tackles infidelity, abortion, and absent fathers. In less-capable hands, this material would have sunk under its own weight, but Lee has fashioned three characters who can pick it up, lift it, and keep going. It is a testament to these three talented actors that no matter how heavy the message they’re tasked with delivering, I never felt for a moment that they were less than fully-formed human beings rather than conduits for information.

Wilson’s prized chifforobe–passed down for generations and used at one time to shelter runaway slaves in its false backing–is the central metaphor and physical manifestation of the warring forces facing African Americans in this country. It conceals as much as it reveals. It carries a weighty load, but with its doors flung open is ready to take on whatever comes. v

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This musical version of the 1987 Michael J. Fox vehicle, receiving its world premiere at the Paramount Theatre in Aurora, tells a sweet, lighthearted story–plucky young man climbs the ladder of success from mail room to executive suite–that feels a lot like an updated version of Frank Loesser’s 1961 Broadway hit How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, only without the bite or wit or heart. Where How to Succeed at least attempted to satirize American corporate culture (and largely fell short), The Secret of My Success is content to tell a story that would barely sustain one episode in a sitcom. Even though the story touches on some of the more devastating aspects of contemporary business (layoffs, plant closings, kleptocratic leadership), the show remains relatively toothless.

Part of the problem is the show’s bland, cliche-filled book by Gordon Greenberg (who also directs) and Steve Rosen. You just can’t tell an interesting story if you are content to give us, without irony, a show full of stock characters and predictable plot twists. The show’s forgettable score, by Michael Mahler and Alan Schmuckler, is less shallow than the book, though at times the songs often feel like pastiches of better-known pop tunes of the last 50 years. Still, the tunes are ear pleasing, and the lyrics are frequently playful and witty.

A larger problem though is that the show’s story and message–the vanity of success, the importance of integrity and love–is too intimate for the big stage, and gets lost in all the singing and dancing and general Broadway glitz. Heidi Kettenring and Sydney Morton, as the two major female characters in the show, do a great job bringing heart and fire to the show. But Billy Harrigan Tighe brings no heat to his portrayal of the lead; again and again we found ourselves yearning for Michael J. Fox’s sly Alex Keatonish charm. v

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