Reviews – Page 15 – Chicago Theater and Arts

‘The Talk’ is a play for right now

Sonny Kelly in 'The Talk' (Huth photo) — Sonny Kelly in ‘The Talk’ (Huth photo)

Because theaters have been shuttered during the COVID-19 crisis for the safety of artists and audiences they have been putting some of their productions online. One such production was a Neo-Futurists “Wrench” production mentioned here in CTAA a few weeks ago.

Also, Citadel in Lake Forest just successfully held a live production that was a round-up of past musicals. It was held sitting in cars in the parking lot of the local community center.

However, sometimes it is worthwhile to go back to productions that have become extraordinarily relevant today during our (hopefully) history-changing 2020.

One such production is “The Talk” done in Durham and Chapel Hill, NC in 2019. Presented by StreetSigns and Bulldog Ensemble Theater in cooperation with the Department of Communication at UNC Chapel Hill, it has been brought back on video for a short time only by Bulldog and PlayMakers Repertory Company with permission from the artists and unions.

Written and performed by Sonny Kelly and directed by Joseph Megel, “The Talk” is a one-person show where a young black father talks to his son about his own experiences and what the son may experience growing up in the United States of America.

The script and acting is intelligent, poignant and heartbreakingly informative. Kelly wrote it while working on his Ph.D at UNC Chapel Hill’s Department of Communication a few years ago. He has since attained his doctorate.

The show takes a little over an hour to watch but its messages are deep and lasting. Be mindful that the video introduction says not to copy the video or use it for commercial purposes.

The production companies involved hope more people will be able to see a show that sold out in 2019 and speaks to what is still confronting Americans today.

Jodie Jacobs

Escape online to great art museums

Edward Hopper Gas 1940 The Museum of Modern Art NY

Enjoy the Musee d’Orsay in Paris. Go into the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Cross back over the pond to New York to visit the Museum of Modern Art. While in NYC explore the huge Metropolitan Museum of Art without wearing out the shoes.

The first two places are excellent stills and 180 degree shots you can maneuver to see galleries and works up close. The next two places you visit are really good YouTube videos that are part of the Great Museums film series.

Musée d”Orsay

Google Arts & Culture takes you to Paris’ famed Musée d”Orsay to see works by Renoir, Monet, Manet and Degas among others. Its giant clock is a reminder that the museum is housed in the former Gare d’Orsay railway station and hotel on the Seine’s Left bank across from the Tuileries Gardens.

Instead of watching a video, with this visit you go to the floor you want, the work you want and the views of the galleries.

Van Gogh Museum

On this site you can scroll down past highlighted works by Vincent van Gogh to four circles, each a different floor for you to visit at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

MOMA

What is modern? What is art? The video on New York’s Museum of Modern Art starts with those often asked questions, then takes you on a tour so you can find your own answers.

Met

As expected with a building that stretches 1,000 feet along New York’s Fifth Avenue at Central Park, the Metropolitan Museum of Art is filled with more than paintings. It’s two million square feet covers multi cultures and multi centuries. Stay with the video after its introduction to get to the film itself to answer its question “What makes a masterpiece.”

Enjoy!

Jodie Jacobs

Black Ensemble presents a battle cry

Legends the Musical at Black Ensemble Theater

‘Legends the Musical: A Civil Rights Movement Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow’

3 stars

Jackie Taylor, the amiable creative heart and soul of Chicago’s beloved Black Ensemble Theater, has declared 2020 as the company’s Season of Change. She opens with this original, ambitious, musical battle cry, a movement against the injustice and bigotry that’s overtaking our country today thanks to an administration that has set our country back 200 years.

And this is just the beginning of Taylor’s aggressive theatrical approach to helping combat the racism that’s reared its ugly head in America.

Continue reading “Black Ensemble presents a battle cry”

Start spreading the news ‘Judy and Liza’ are fabulous!

Left to right, Alexa Castelvecchi and Nancy Hays star in Judy & Liza. (Photo by Tyler Core)

4 stars

Imagine what it was like in 1964 when Judy Garland and her daughter, 18-year-old Liza Minnelli, performed together for the first time at The Palladium Theatre in London. This was the only time these two superstars performed in a live concert together and it was electrifying.

Now, Chicago theatre-goers can experience the thrill of “Judy & Liza — Once in a Lifetime: The London Palladium Concert – A Tribute” at the Greenhouse Theater Center. The show is co-produced by Greenhouse and Nancy Hays Entertainment, Inc.

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‘Middletown’ encapsulates the comedy and tragedy of life

left to right Adrian Zmed, Sandy Duncan, Kate Buddeke in Middletown. (Photo courtesy of GFrour Productions)

3.5 stars

Be prepared to laugh and cry If you go to see “Middletown,” a GFour touring production now at the Apollo Theater.

Written by “Timekeepers” playwright, Dan Clancy, the play’s strength is how it captures some of life’s funny moments and extreme low points as they are experienced and shared by two couples.

Continue reading “‘Middletown’ encapsulates the comedy and tragedy of life”

‘Mrs. Warren’s Profession’ is no mystery

Left to right, Elaine Carlson, Tracey Greenwood in Mrs. Warren's Profession. (Photo by Tom McGrath) — Left to right, Elaine Carlson, Tracey Greenwood in Mrs. Warren’s Profession. (Photo by Tom McGrath)

3 stars

It is late summer 1905 and Mrs. Kitty Warren (Elaine Carlson), a seemingly wealthy woman with no known extended family, finally reveals to her curious adult daughter how she is able to support their comfortable lifestyle.

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Around Town revisits orchid show

Chicago Botanic Garden Orchid Show (J Jacobs photo)

A one-time walk-through at “Brilliance,” the Chicago Botanic Garden’s orchid show, had lifted the mood when the show opened on a cold, winter day. But going back for a second, more leisurely stroll meant finding delightful orchids clustered low under and along the garden’s regular greenhouse inhabitants and orchids seeminly glowing in the March sunlight.

How the orchids look in varying sunlight, but also the artificial light turned on during Orchids After Hours, (Thursdays March 5-19) is no accident. Called “Brilliance’ this year, the show is about color.

Bright bromeliad complements delicate orchids in entrance to the Chicago botanic garden show. (J Jacobs photo)

To complement the orchids’ hues, the garden has added bromelads in the entrance walkway, blue pipe-like glass forms in the center greenhouse’s shady walk, a bright magenta chandelier-like glass over that greenhouse’s water feature, hanging metal circular planters outside the greenhouses’ walkways and chrome-style reflecting ball-halves along a walkway.

The effect is stunning day or night. But a good way to see the show is to return at night when river-like blue stone is lit from below and the greenhouses’ lights pick up other colors and reflections.

Blue glass paths hardly noticed during the day light up at night as blue pipe like glass seems to drip down from above. ( J Jacobs photo)

To enjoy the orchid nightscape with special beverages, consider coming for Evening With Orchids March 11 that features beer and spirits tastings.

If you are a morning person, Tuesdays and Thursdays feature Morning Music in the Nichols Hall that range from guitar to jazz to classical.

For orchid advice and orchid displays visit on March 14-5 when the Illinois Orchid Society Show is at the garden.

The Chicago Botanic Garden features color and form in its 2020 orchid show. (J Jacobs photo)

However, if after seeing the gorgeous array of color inspires some home plant décor, know that many of the orchids in the show are available to members and the public at reduced prices during the afternoon of the Post Show Sale March 26, four days after the show closes on March 22.

The Chicago Botanic Garden is at 1000 Lake Cook Rd., Glencoe, just east of Edens Expressway. For Garden ticket and other information call (847) 835-6801 or 835-5440 or visit Chicago Botanic.

Jodie Jacobs

Good insight into teenage challenges

“I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter”

(L to R) Karen Rodriguez (Julia) and Dyllan Rodrigues-Miller (Olga) at Steppenwolf. (photo by Michael Brosilow)

4 stars

Julia may or may not be the perfect Mexican daughter but Karen Rodriguez may be the perfect person to play her. Rodriguez commanded the Steppenwolf stage from the moment the lights came up and did not let go for the next 90 minutes.

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Black Lives Matter!

‘Kill Move Paradise’

4 stars

TimeLine Theatre is often the place in Chicago where we revisit those special individuals, real people or fictional representations, who’ve left a mark in history.

At times, these wonderful plays and musicals remind us of events from the past, taking a close look at another time and place. But once in a while this treasure of a theatre forces audiences to examine events from the present, and we are presented with history—good or bad—in the making. Continue reading “Black Lives Matter!”

‘Mlima’s Tale’

4 stars

“Mlima’s Tale,” a Midwest Premiere by Griffin Theatre, is a sensitive and heartrending depiction of greed, and specifically, the corruption associated with the illegal sale of elephant ivory that results in the daily slaughter of approximately 100 of these endangered animals.

The production follows the life and death of Mlima, a roughly 45-year-old male African elephant. Described as a “big tusker,” he is killed by poachers while living in a protected refuge in Kenya.

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