A MAIDENLY DEATH Victory Gardens Theater's Death and the Maiden is one of the most highly anticipated Chicago productions this year: Ariel Dorfman's well-known play (made famous by Roman Pol…
COME ON AND SHOOT A PRESIDENT Assassins ushers together the horde of maniacs who have made attempts on the lives of US Presidents, seeking to examine their varying degrees of sanity, as well…
EVOLUTION OFÂ REVOLUTION IN THIS JUST-SO STORY Trap Door's Regarding the Just shakes the dust off of Camus' 1949 play, Les Justes, about Russian socialists who assassinate a Grand Duke at …
AN UNFOCUSED VIEW FROM THE BALCONY In Jean Genet's The Balcony, authority, sexual desire, and violence are so intricately intertwined that they're nearly indistinguishable. Outside Madame Ir…
A HIGHLY ENGAGING SLOWGIRL After a traumatic accident, millennial teenager Becky (Rae Gray) visits her uncle Sterling (William Petersen) in Costa Rica, where her constant chattering disrupts…
BORDERING ON TRAGEDY There is a lot to like about Chay Yew and playwright Luis Alfaro's Mojada, a modern retelling of Medea, which sets the main character as an undocumented immigrant and se…
A GREAT PLAY (BASED ON SOMETHING) Though little happens and nothing is resolved in the Pulitzer-nominated Thom Pain (based on nothing), the play is oddly and intensely captivating. Will Eno'…
HOUSE THEATRE PULLS A RABBIT OUT OF ITS HAT The House Theatre has, once again, remounted its wildly successful Death and Harry Houdini at the Chopin Theatre " and why not? It's still as fres…
THE BURDEN OF NOT HAVING A GOOD SCRIPT Having now seen Sideshow Theatre's The Burden of Not Having a Tail, I can report that, despite its billing, it did little to prepare me for the apocaly…
SOMETHING WICKED THAT WAY GOES In a rare clash of film noir, an awesome murder mystery party, and Shakespeare, Punchdrunk's Sleep No More is the ultimate voyeuristic thrill. Audience members…
THE MOTHER OF CHICAGO THEATER Workers and theatergoers of Chicago unite! Oracle Theatre is mounting a rousing defense of Karl Marx and the Bolsheviks, and demands your undivided attention. T…
SOMEWHAT SOUTH OF WHERE IT NEEDS TO BE Chicago Dramatists' world premiere is a tale of murder, spirituality, and heartbreak: A black man named Stranger, after being accused of the murder of …
ACCIDENTAL DEATH OF A PLAY Anarchy is not chaos. The former means "without law," and the latter means "without form." This is an important distinction to consider in a play that intends to m…
HAVEL UNVEILED AT TRAP DOOR THEATRE While most probably know Václav Havel as the Czech Republic's first president, he has gained notoriety in the avant garde world for his absurdist plays…
NUNBEARABLE If there's one thing I hate, it's to see a classic movie adapted for the stage for no apparent reason. Instead of transferring the heart and sassiness that made the movie Sister …
OXYGEN? YES. FUEL? YES. HEAT? NO. There are arsonists who want to burn down a town, and they want the citizens to help. In Max Frisch's absurdist play, a city has whipped itself …
YOU THOUGHT THAT YOU HAD ISSUES? Your favorite Euripidean diva has some serious beef with just about everything. Â In Emilio Williams' new one woman show, Medea's Got Some Issues, she's pi…
NOT REALLY, NOT REALLY! The most pressing question I had walking out of Athenaeum Theatre's Blagojevich, Blagojevich! was "Was that really necessary?" Â We're already familiar with the lon…
IF THERE’S NO WATER, WHY IS THIS SCRIPT DROWNING IN PRETENTION? A group of bad artists resent their (dare I say) "frenemy" because she is a more successful artist than they are, and be…
HIP POE HYPOCRITES Regretfully, I must admit I'm not familiar with the theatre company The Hypocrites, but have heard that they often use the basement of the Chopin Theatre for their perform…
SOME FRAGILEÂ PERFORMANCES CAN’T BREAK MENAGERIE’SÂ SPELL The Glass Menagerie is getting lots of airtime this summer. Having just been produced in the Steppenwolf Garage, Red…
SOMEWHERE BETWEEN PERFORMANCE ART AND DRAMA Without ever denigrating the work of Chicago artist Tony Fitzpatrick, I have to say I never quite got part three of his trilogy of play/art-show/p…
THE ARTISTIC HOME PROVIDES GOOD DRAMA, BUT CAN’T FIX A TROUBLED PLAY Apparently in The American Plan, the name of the game is deception, but no one seems to think they're playing. In R…
DEAD WRITER'S PRODUCES DEAD THEATRE I'll admit, I was skeptical from the start walking into the Greenhouse Theatre's production of Noel Coward's The Vortex, the inaugural production of the D…
IT’SÂ ABSURD HOW AMAZING TRAP DOOR THEATRE IS…OR IS IT THE OTHER WAY AROUND? For those of you skeptical of avant-garde theatre, I'd like to kindly direct your attention over to…