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REVIEWS

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REVIEW: 'Push Button Murder' at The Side Project

Nina Metz

The movie of the moment "American Sniper" is, above all else, sober in tone and intent — and don't you forget it, the film all but implores. Steve J. Spencer's "Push Button Murder," in a world premiere at The Side Project, is just as concerned about the effects of wartime service on a...

REVIEW: 'Live! Tonight! With Kevin and Nick' at iO Theater
Nina Metz

Both a lampoon of late-night talk shows and a sincere (if twisted) homage to form, the show devised by Kevin Knickerbocker and Nick Mestad for their Tuesday night slot at iO feels like they're picking up where David Letterman has mostly left off these past few years.
REVIEW: 'Laughter on the 23rd Floor' at First Folio Theatre
Kerry Reid

Before "The Writers' Room" became the name of a Sundance Television program examining the ins and outs and ups and downs of crafting popular television shows, Neil Simon created his own tribute to the all-star team of scribes behind Sid Caesar's "Your Show of Shows." Simon, of course, sweated...

REVIEW: 'Circle-Machine' by Oracle Theatre
Kerry Reid

Oracle Theatre's latest intriguing meditation on the perils and promises of populism takes its inspiration from several sources, most notably Charles Mee's "Full Circle," which Tina Landau directed at Steppenwolf in 1998 under the title "The Berlin Circle." Mee's fall-of-the-Berlin Wall take on...
REVIEW: 'Red Bud' by Signal Ensemble
Kerry Reid

Brett Neveu's "Red Bud" stakes its claim in the oft-plowed landscape of midlife males at a reunion — think Jason Miller's "That Championship Season" with a decidedly rougher patina. Brant Russell's taut Signal Ensemble production doesn't leave you too much time to think about how familiar...

REVIEW: 'The Life and Sort of Death of Eric Argyle' at Steep Theatre
Chris Jones

There are dramatic plays — a few thousand years of them have unfurled to date — and there are story plays. The two categories overlap in that all great drama tells a story, of course, and even your bedtime stories had better be dramatic, lest the honoree fall too quickly asleep....
REVIEW: 'Princess Mary Demands Your Attention' by Bailiwick Chicago
Kerry Reid

Though Aaron Holland's new play claims inspiration from Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace," it really is a straight-up (well, sort of) bildungsroman about a young gay black man finding his true nature, with the guidance of a drag-queen spirit animal and a little help from his friends.

REVIEW: 'A Map of Virtue' by Cor Theatre
Nina Metz

The press materials peg playwright Erin Courtney's drama as a "hauntingly romantic play with a mystery at its center," a mischaracterization as baffling as it is just plain wrong.
REVIEW: 'Spinning Into Butter' at the Athenaeum Theatre
Nina Metz

I'm a sucker for plays that plunge into the world of academic infighting, teeing up on the exploits of the overeducated when they are reduced to turf wars, ego-baiting and petty grievances.

THEATER
REVIEW: 'Plastic Revolution' by The New Colony at Den Theatre
Chris Jones

Around 1950, a woman named Brownie Wise came to the attention of Earl Tupper, the inventor of a brand of airtight plastic containers designed to keep leftovers fresh. Wise (reportedly to be played by Sandra Bullock in an upcoming movie) told Tupper about the success of her home-based parties...
THEATER
REVIEW: 'Keys of the Kingdom' at Stage Left Theatre
Chris Jones

Penny Penniston has been writing plays in Chicago for two decades now. She's not wildly prolific, and most of her works have premiered — like her latest, "Keys of the Kingdom," now in its world premiere at Stage Left Theatre — at smaller Chicago theaters. But over the years she...

THEATER
Review: 'The Who's Tommy' at Paramount Theatre
Chris Jones

In the summer of 1968, Pete Townshend gave a lengthy interview to Jann Wenner of Rolling Stone about the future direction of The Who, Townshend's rock band. "We've been talking about doing an opera," he said. "We've been talking about doing, like, albums, we've been talking about a whole lot of...
Funny
REVIEW: Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival
Chris Jones

Even after 14 years, Chicago's Sketch Comedy Festival hovers below a lot of cultural radars. This is partly due to the glut of small festivals in early January; SketchFest competes both with the fringe-theater Rhinoceros Theater Festival and, this year, the Chicago International Puppet...
THEATER
REVIEW: 'The Merry Widow' by Light Opera Works
Chris Jones

When Light Opera Works produced "The Merry Widow" in 2005, starring Stacey Tappan and Larry Adams, the company was greeted with reviews remarking on the frolicsome pleasures of Franz Lehar's quintessential Viennese operetta, then 100 years old but replete with a newly adapted libretto from...

THEATER
REVIEW: 'Cinderella' at the Cadillac Palace Theatre
Chris Jones

Two Cinderellas dreamed of a handsome prince at the Cadillac Palace Theatre on Wednesday. The one listed in the program, Paige Faure, suffering from what sure sounded like a severe cold or flu, danced off into the wings in the middle of the first act, never to go to the ball. Out then popped...
Theater Loop
REVIEW: 'Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Christmas Goose'
Nina Metz

The mystery at hand is a thin one, but maybe that's the point. Sherlock Holmes never seemed like a man particularly swayed by the holiday season; surely he would look for any excuse or busywork — a tepid mystery will do just fine — to avoid anything remotely sentimental foisted upon...
Theater Loop
REVIEW: 'Burning Bluebeard' by The Ruffians at Theater Wit
Chris Jones

In the days after the fire at the Iroquois Theatre in 1903, a fire in which 600 lives were consumed by flames, this newspaper published the names of almost all of the victims. It was a formidable piece of reporting for its day — it took the entire staff of the newsroom to pull off —...
THEATER
REVIEW: 'Newsies' at the Oriental Theatre
Chris Jones

Ugly, groggy-eyed and not unlike a low-rent Tony Soprano, I headed to my stoop for my Sunday Tribune. My early-morning eyes landed on an envelope for my very loyal carrier's holiday tip. Excellent timing, Andre! I had the Newsies ringing in my ears.
THEATER
REVIEW: 'Twist Your Dickens, Or Scrooge You!' at the Goodman Theatre
Chris Jones

For those who have been blessed by one onstage Tiny Tim too many — and which of us is not in that number at this cultural juncture? — the Goodman Theatre is, for the first time this year, offering a tempting seasonal alternative.

THEATER
REVIEW: 'Living The History — 125 Years of the Auditorium Theatre'
Chris Jones

Tuesday night's performance in celebration of the 125th anniversary of the Auditorium Theatre ended with something even regulars at the venerable arts venue had never seen before. The gilded panels at each side of the stage — the ones with the composers' names — were flown out...
THEATER
REVIEW: 'Exit Strategy' by Jackalope Theatre ★★★★
Chris Jones

At once poetic, political, sad, funny, timely, complex and compassionate, Ike Holter's thrilling, beautiful new play "Exit Strategy" is the story of the desperate final days of a condemned, crumbling Chicago public school dreading its upcoming prom date with the cruel bulldozers from City Hall.
THEATER
REVIEW: 'Native Son' at Court Theatre ★★★★
Chris Jones

In 1938, a young African-American named Robert Nixon, a man born in small-town Louisiana, was executed by the electric chair in Chicago for the murder of Florence Thompson Castle, whom Nixon was convicted of killing with a brick. Even by the standards of the time, the racist outpouring that...
THEATER
REVIEW: 'Men Should Weep' by Griffin Theatre at Raven ★★★★
Chris Jones

Ena Lemont Stewart's "Men Should Weep," the warm-hearted but unstinting story of a Scottish family enduing grinding Glaswegian poverty during the Great Depression of the 1930s, is one of those plays that few people on this side of the Atlantic have seen. Even dedicated theatergoers. A closely...
THEATER
REVIEW: 'All Our Tragic' by The Hypocrites ★★★★
Chris Jones

"Make no little plans" long has been the mantra of this city, a common justification for our hubristic plans for the skyline or lakefront, often trumping fiscal prudence. But between 11 o'clock in the morning and 11 at night on Sunday, a stretch of theatrical time so voluminous as to permit...

THEATER
REVIEW: "This is Our Youth" at Steppenwolf Theatre
Chris Jones
Theater Loop
REVIEW: "Luna Gale" at the Goodman Theatre
Chris Jones

"Tragedy," the critic Eric Bentley once wrote, "is an experience of chaos." True. But not only is the chaotic the landscape of "Hamlet," "Othello" and the like, it also visits many of us on a daily basis. A waiter finds himself in the weeds. A reporter collapses under too many deadlines. An...
Theater Loop
REVIEW: "Our Class" by Remy Bumppo Theatre Company
Chris Jones

It is easy for a journalist in a rush to describe a Nazi death camp with the country of its location. "The Polish concentration camp Auschwitz," one often reads. This is understandably infuriating to some of those with roots in those countries, who watch closely for the practice, demanding...
Theater Loop
REVIEW: "Hedda Gabler" at Writers Theatre
Chris Jones

From the first moment she opens up the case of General Gabler's famous pistols, Kate Fry's Hedda seems well aware of her name and how her story ends.
Theater Loop
REVIEW: "Road Show" at Chicago Shakespeare Upstairs Theater
Chris Jones

In the years since Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman's "Bounce" bowed at the Goodman Theatre in 2003, replete with Hal Prince, Broadway stars, press conferences and expectations to match, it has become clear to Sondheim watchers that this particular show touched an especially personal chord...

Arts & Entertainment
REVIEW: "I Love Lucy Live On Stage" at the Bank of America Theatre
Kerry Reid

When Desi Arnaz performed "Babalu" on "I Love Lucy," it was an exercise in sheer head-tossing, tie-loosening, id-releasing exuberance. That same number in "I Love Lucy Live On Stage," despite the charm and vocal chops of Euriamis Losada as Desi/Ricky Ricardo, feels like a dress rehearsal for...
THEATER
REVIEW: 'The Clean House' by Remy Bumppo Theatre Company
Chris Jones

Playwright Sarah Ruhl, who grew up on Chicago's North Shore and has enjoyed a long and extensive relationship with several Chicago theaters, has published a new book of prose, "100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write." One entry in that charming volume is especially telling: "Why I hate the...
Theater Loop
REVIEW: "I and You" at Redtwist Theatre
Kerry Reid

Caroline needs change. More to the point, she needs a new liver. Holed up in her bedroom, the critically ill teen mostly communicates through social media. So she's not particularly amenable to Anthony, who shows up unannounced to tell Caroline that they are supposed to work together on a...
THEATER
REVIEW: Hansel & Gretel by Emerald City Theatre
Chris Jones

Justin Roberts, the Chicago-based kids singer and songwriter, has written the kind of score for "Hansel & Gretel," the holiday attraction from the Emerald City Theatre, that makes you wish someone would hand him an assignment to pen a full-length score for a more complex show. Maybe,...
Theater Loop
Review: 'Pretty Persephone' musical by Billy Corgan
Chris Jones

It might engender a few eye rolls, but the notion of Billy Corgan writing a musical makes excellent sense. He has always been an artist of ambition, his lyrics long suffused with the emotional language of melancholy and transformation. He has enjoyed being involved with soundtracks to movies...

THEATER
REVIEW: 'Shining City' by Irish Theatre of Chicago
Chris Jones

For all its simplicity and folksy familiarity, the word "storyteller" is a much-overused term in the arts. It's claimed by those less than committed to the art of the raconteur, the craft of the fabulist, the spinner of yarns. But of all the writers out there, none can lay stronger claim to...
THEATER
REVIEW: 'Desperate Dolls' at Strawdog Theatre
Nina Metz

The tropes of old-school grindhouse flicks are transferred to the stage with enthusiastic fidelity at Strawdog Theater, and when actor Joe Mack makes his first entrance — wearing mirrored sunglasses, a mustache and a suit with a turtleneck — you know you're in good hands, at least...

THEATER
REVIEW: 'Mary Poppins' at the Paramount Theatre
Chris Jones

Director Rachel Rockwell's new production of Disney's "Mary Poppins" is, without question, the biggest show at the Paramount Theatre in Aurora since the start of the remarkable initiative at that theater to nix those second-rate, nonunion, bus-and-truck tours and replace them with homegrown...
Theater Loop
REVIEW: 'Red, White & Blaine' at iO Theater
Nina Metz

Beloved as it is, "Waiting for Guffman" didn't even crack $3 million at the box office when it came out in 1997. The comedy is probably best watched on the small screen anyway, where you can rewind the funniest moments into oblivion. Among Christopher Guest's mockumentaries, his...
THEATER
REVIEW: 'We Three' at Side Project
Kerry Reid

Imagine a creepier version of Lake Wobegon — perhaps one designed by Harold Pinter. That gives you some idea of the claustrophobic but ultimately uninvolving world of Mary Hamilton's "We Three," now at the Side Project under Josh Sobel's direction.

THEATER
REVIEW: 'Hot Georgia Sunday' by Haven Theatre Company
Chris Jones

Tank tops, shorts and sweaty sexual desire are the main currency of the aptly titled "Hot Georgia Sunday," the engaging little sleeper of a show from the rising Haven Theatre Company, staged at The Den Theatre in Wicker Park and directed by Marti Lyons, who is rapidly becoming a leading...
THEATER
REVIEW: 'A Q Brothers' Christmas Carol' at Chicago Shakespeare
Chris Jones

This is just the second year for "A Q Brothers' Christmas Carol," the seasonal attraction at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, featuring Chicago's Q Brothers, whose core brand involves taking classics and updating them with hip-hop stylings and an irreverent attitude. The dudes who show up at...
THEATER
REVIEW: 'A Christmas Carol' at the Goodman Theatre
Chris Jones

Anyone who just played King Lear is ready for a little fun. So that might explain why the hard-working Larry Yando, once again starring in "A Christmas Carol" at the Goodman Theatre, seems especially eager to arrive at the end of the show, when a newly cheery Mister Scrooge, suddenly aware that...
Theater Loop
REVIEW: 'The Testament of Mary' at Victory Gardens
Chris Jones

As most theaters trot out their Scrooge, Schooner or George Bailey, the Victory Gardens Theater opens a difficult, sparse, austere, intense and most assuredly haunting piece that — given the graphic depiction of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ therein — is something one more readily...
THEATER
REVIEW: 'Dr. Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas!'
Chris Jones

Cindy Lou Who'd believe it? The Grinch got his union card! I don't mean that Shuler Hensley, who plays the verdant old meanie on the road, is the newest member of Actors' Equity Association. Au contraire. Hensley has more Broadway credits than the Whos have Roast Beast, including a Tony...

THEATER
REVIEW: 'Dee Snider's Rock & Roll Christmas Tale'
Chris Jones

Chicagoans being nice folks for the most part, it's not unusual to sit in a theater here and feel an audience will a show to succeed. Especially in the so-called season of goodwill. Especially when it's new and blessedly Scrooge-free material. Especially when you've shown up for a hot rock...
THEATER
REVIEW: 'Annie' at the Cadillac Palace Theatre
Chris Jones

So it's Thanksgiving week — and family and "Annie" are in town. Whaddya wanna know? I'd venture it's whether the latest bus-and-truck "Annie" delivers the full "Annie" experience.
THEATER
REVIEW: 'Line One' by Waltzing Mechanics
Kerry Reid

There is an intriguing concept underpinning the Waltzing Mechanics' latest outing, "Line One," which originated with John Kaufmann at Seattle's Annex Theatre 10 years ago. But at least on the preview night I attended, it didn't jell into an evening of theater as compelling as the company's...
THEATER
REVIEW: 'Iphigenia in Aulis' at Court Theatre
Chris Jones

Would you kill your own daughter as a sacrifice to the gods?
Theater Loop
Review: 'The Mousetrap' by Northlight Theatre
Chris Jones

Agatha Christie's "The Mousetrap" has been running in London for more than 60 years now — some 25,000 performances of the whodunnit that bested all whodunits have taken place, making "The Mousetrap" by far the longest-running show in British theatrical history. All the big critics who...

THEATER
REVIEW: 'Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey: Legends'
Chris Jones

As an annoying pooch jumped over a llama Wednesday night at the Allstate Arena, as annoying pooches are wont to do, the llama shot its fellow llama a knowing look that truly said it all in that minimalist llama way: What the heck are we both doing here, night after night, surrounded by dogs,...
THEATER
REVIEW: 'Mud, River, Stone' by Eclipse Theatre
Kerry Reid

Long before she won the Pulitzer Prize for "Ruined," her searing drama about abused young women in the Congo seeking respite from soldiers on both sides of a civil war by working in a bar/brothel, Lynn Nottage bellied up to a different African bar. There, she hoped to examine the costs of war...
THEATER
REVIEW: 'Women at War' by Rivendell Theatre Ensemble
Nina Metz

Outside of "Private Benjamin" and "G.I. Jane," pop culture hasn't really given much thought to women who serve in the military. The more prosaic reality — the day-to-day of what it means to serve in what is still a predominantly male environment — is explored in this new work from...
THEATER
REVIEW: 'Comedy Against Humanity' by Under the Gun Theater
Nina Metz

Created by a group of friends from Highland Park High School, the party game Cards Against Humanity incorporates the non-sequitur silliness of Mad Libs with a blazingly simple premise wherein even drunk people — who are we kidding, especially drunk people — can excel.
THEATER
REVIEW: 'Camelot' at Drury Lane Theatre
Chris Jones

Given its inexorable associations with the glamorous Kennedy White House and such formidable but distant personas as Richard Burton and Julie Andrews, Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe's exquisitely scored "Camelot" now usually comes with a retro patina, a stiff echo of an age long gone.

THEATER
REVIEW: 'The Lieutenant of Inishmore' by AstonRep
Nina Metz

Once, when I was a young teenager and my parents were out of town, the baby sitter staying at our home looking after me — and, by extension, looking after Missy, our sweet if somewhat daffy rescue dog — made the careless mistake of leaving the gate open to our backyard. Missy got...
THEATER
REVIEW: 'Social Creatures' by Tympanic Theatre
Nina Metz

In a zombie story that never actually uses the word "zombie" — one of the more realistic decisions made here — playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury sticks a handful of survivors in an abandoned building and watches them squirm.
THEATER
REVIEW: 'The King and I' at the Marriott Theatre
Chris Jones

A fresh and welcome wind is blowing up the Malay Peninsula — well, across the Marriott Lincolnshire golf course, at least — with the famed suburban theater's very fine new production of "The King and I," the debut at that locale of the director Nick Bowling, hitherto known for his...
THEATER
REVIEW: 'The Anyway Cabaret (an animal cabaret)' by TUTA Theatre
Kerry Reid

We often hear that what separates animals from humans is that the former don't know that they're going to die. Of course, since we lack the interspecies communications skills of Dr. Dolittle, we can't really say for sure. But if animals did have awareness of their mortality, a fondness for...
THEATER
REVIEW: 'Strandline' at A Red Orchid Theatre
Chris Jones

In the beginning of Abbie Spallen's dense 2009 drama "Strandline," now in its U.S. premiere at A Red Orchid Theatre, we learn of a man apparently drowned, off the coast of Northern Ireland.

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