897 stories by "Lawrence Bommer"
THEY DO IT ALL FOR US 14 years ago, terror became a date in the calendar. "9/11" casts an ever darker shadow onto the future. It also remains the latest official loss of American innocence. …
YOKED ASUNDER Don't believe the ironic title of a first-act song: Daisy and Violet Hilton were not your "Typical Girls Next Door." Conjoined (or "Siamese" twins), they were, grotesquely enou…
COMING CHOREOGRAPHY Opening its 60th season, the Joffrey Ballet literally leaps into the future with Millennials, a three-part program at the Auditorium Theatre. Closing Sunday, it features …
BOYS WILL BE PIGS The title can mislead: Dogfight is not about World War I flying aces Eddie Rickenbacker and The Red Baron doing loop-the-loops as they shoot each other out of the sky. Dogf…
WHEN GETTING THERE ISN'T HALF THE FUN Call it a combination of Locked Up Abroad and Coming to America. In 90 gorgeously pictured minutes, "multi-racial" performer Debra Erhardt thrillingly c…
DELIVERANCE FROM DROUGHT It's a terrific recipe for powerful theater. Confront audiences with an unfinished situation amid a collective challenge–with seemingly no way out. Then introd…
A POOR MAN'S PETER PAN Let's put two prequels in perspective: What the novel-based Wicked is to The Wizard of Oz, Peter and the Starcatcher, a novel-derived "origins tale," is for Sir James …
BEYOND THE PALE Bad Jews (the provocative title not as anti-Semitic as it sounds) was a 2015 hit at London's St. James and New York's Roundabout theaters. In the Chicago area Jeremy Wechsler…
PLOYS IN THE ATTIC It's noble to sacrifice for loved ones who need you. But what if it was for nothing? Arthur Miller's 1968 family play The Price puts its title to rich use. Ostensibly, it'…
DIXIE DOODLES IN DISTRESS Beth Henley, author of 1979's Pulitzer-winning Crimes of the Heart, has practically patented the Southern stereotype. Drawling in a stilted patois, Henley's despera…
FROM THE MINES TO THE MOON A feel-good story of literal uplift, the new musical October Sky, like the 1999 film, is an anagram of Rocket Boys, the true-life confessional of Homer H. Hickam, …
WAKING UP FROM THE AMERICAN DREAM The title of Oracle Theatre's typically invigorating offering, THIS HOUSE BELIEVES THE AMERICAN DREAM IS AT THE EXPENSE OF THE AMERICAN NEGRO, is actually a…
NO MAN IS AN ISLAND Whenever it's revived, it's hard to imagine a more necessary musical than this 1949 Pulitzer Prize winner. Seventy years after the Japanese surrender, it remains a healin…
RISING UP FROM DOWN UNDER 23 years ago, mega-entertainer Peter Allen died of AIDS. But The Boy from Oz is the story of a survivor. The self-made star refused to be stifled by the Australian …
CIRQUE DU FIN DE SIÈCLE This is a snazzy and pizzazz-packed blast from the past: Kurios: Cabinet of Curiosities draws its whimsical magic from the "steampunk" style that melds Victoria…
THE NEW DEAD-END KIDS It’s easy to hate the surly slackers in subUrbia, Eric Bogosian’s slice of strife. In this 1994 play, they infest the parking lot of a 7-Eleven–now ch…
STILL BREATHING 15 years ago a new show called First Breath launched the About Face Youth Theatre Ensemble. Appropriately, the current showcase 15 Breaths is presented by the next gene…
DIVA TO THE TOWEL SET In this summer fluff title tells all–Bette, Live at the Continental Baths (in Chicago, upstairs at Mary's Attic). This uncredited concoction by Hell in a Handbag …
TIME HEALS ALL PLOTS Shakespeare's strange romance, which begins with gratuitous jealousy and ends with gratuitous forgiveness, is best treated as a fairy tale for grownups: A virtuous queen…
IS IT REALLY HUMAN TO FORGIVE? Heidi Schreck's powerfully pleasing play exists for its final moment. So this critique will be strategically selective and shorter than usual. In any case, tha…
BLACKBUSTERS A dozen shows in one and a showcase of solos to beat any band, Black Ensemble Theater's summer blockbuster Men of Soul pays kickass tribute to the greatest soul singers–bl…
TIME TRAVEL AS URBAN RENEWAL U.K. playwright Alistair McDowell likes to break the rules to reach a crowd. An intriguing U.S. premiere by Steep Theatre Company, his sardonically titled Brilli…
A DELIVERANCE IN DACHAU Even in the Holocaust’s democracy of death each victim could only die once. But some seem to have died a bit less than others. Remembering the unnumbered thousa…
UNQUIET DESPERATION IN BUCKS COUNTY He's no longer an angry young playwright and gay avenger, the bad-boy Jeremiah who unleashed scorched-earth provocations (Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It…
A LEVIATHAN BEACHES ON MICHIGAN AVENUE Moby Dick, Herman Melville's whale of a tale (or tale of a whale) from 1851, is as unsinkable as its title cetacean. It's never been more so than in Lo…
