Jodie Jacobs – Page 6 – Chicago Theater and Arts

Upcoming Physical Festival brings a different theater experience

Chicago’s sophisticated theater audience has seen and admired gymnastically able actors, puppetry and story-telling-style body motions at such influential theater venues as Lookingglass, Chicago Shakespeare and Writers Theatre.

However, the Physical Festival Chicago, coming to Stage 773 June 1 through June 9, 2018, is a chance to see what is happening in those and other exciting genres on the international and Chicago scene.

Among the productions are “Nobody’s Home” by United Kingdom’s Theatre Témoin and Grafted Cede that places PTSD into Homer’s Odyssey, solo puppet and mask performances by Theatre Zarko’s (Evanston) Michael Montenegro and Franco-Brazilian Gael le Cornec’s thriller “The Other.”

“It’s all original work created by each company,” said Marc Frost who co-founded the festival in 2014 with wife Alice da Cunha. They met in London while studying at London International School of Performing Arts. Commonly known as LISP, the school recently relocated in Berlin.

Alice da Cunha and Marc Frost of Physical Festival Chicago

Chicago audiences may have seen da Cunha in House Theatre’s Jeff award winning “United Flight 232.” Frost will be bringing the national touring company of Theater Unspeakable’s two current productions, one about the American Revolution and the other a moon shot, to the Kennedy Center fall, 2018.

Theater companies from around the world who apply each year are curated by the couple to bring a balance of genres.

“It can be puppets. It can be bouffon,” said da Cunha.

They explain that Michael Montenegro is a puppeteer but his Theatre Zarko is not traditional and Gael le Cornec uses projections and shadow puppetry in “The Other.” Bouffon is the late night show “The Red Bastard: Lie With Me.”

Frost said, “We have said physical to start with but now have added visual and contemporary. We are trying to bring to Chicago shows of the kind not seen very often.”

He liked that an actor’s body could become scenery and or props to tell a story. In “The ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote de la Mancha” by the Spain/UK-based Little Soldier Productions, an actor uses his body to put across the Cervantes’ tale.

“He is using the body to express much of the text. It shows what the body can express,” said Frost.

Physical Festival also includes workshops. Among them “How to audition for “Cirque du Soleil” and one by le Cronec on how to create a solo work.

“It’s a festival experience,” said Frost.

Physical Festival Chicago is at Stage 773 is at 1225 W. Belmont Ave., Chicago, June 1-9, 2018. For show listings and tickets, visit Physical Festival/shows. For workshop information visit Physical Festival/Workshops.

Jodie Jacobs

Visit the Delany sisters for a fascinating look back in time

Photos important to the Delany sisters' lives are projected in frames above their living room and kitchen as the aging sisters have their say about living in 20th century America. (photos by Liz Lauren). — Photos important to the Delany sisters’ lives are projected in frames above their living room and kitchen as the aging sisters have their say about living in 20th century America. (photos by Liz Lauren).

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Imagine living through more than 100 years of historic events and changing cultural attitudes. What would you predict might happen?

The Delany sisters, Bessie who lived to 104 (died 1995) and Sadie who lived to 109 (died 1999), thought a woman would eventually become president but not a colored man. They disliked the term black “We’re not black, we’re brown, we’re colored.” They also were OK with the formal race designation of Negro.

The sisters tell their story in “Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First 100 Years,” playing now at Goodman Theatre.

Raised in a family of achievers (lawyers, a judge, doctor, teachers and dentists, their father was the first colored person (they also didn’t like the term, African-American. “We’re American” they shout) to rise to bishop status in the Episcopal Church in the US. Continue reading “Visit the Delany sisters for a fascinating look back in time”

Powerful performance delves into Ferguson

Dael Orlandersmith in Until the Flood at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, NY. (Photo by Robert Altman)

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Say Ferguson and you are likely to get a reaction on race conflicts and prejudice without even having to identify the place as a suburb of St. Louis

Some people may not even remember that it was the shooting of unarmed, black teenager Michael Brown by police officer Darren Wilson in 2014 that shot Ferguson into the national spotlight.

But to feel the event’s impact on people who live in the area, see playwright, actress Dael Orlandersmith’s stunning ‘Until the Flood.’

A one-person show, Orlandersmith presents with heartfelt-emotions, the reactions of eight characters ranging from teen-aged to middle age and older and from locals to other suburbanites to transplants with different careers and levels of education. Some are black. Others are white.

They are composites of people she interviewed after being commissioned by the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis for a play regarding the event. It premiered there in 2016. BTW, Orlandersmith, a Goodman Artistic Associate and Alice Center Resident Artist, has a composite name. She was born Donna Dael Theresa Orlander Smith Brown.

Now, following its showing at the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, the production is at the Goodman Theatre’s Owen Theatre space only through May 12. Unfortunately, that is way too short a time given the importance of Orlandersmith’s play and her superb portrayals of different character types.

At the April 29^th opening night performance, the playwright certainly put across the different perspectives as the audience zoned in on each portrayal with laughter, gasps and sighs.

Directed by Neel Keller with explanatory projections by Nicholas Hussong, set design by Takeshi Kata and costume design by Kaye Voyce, ‘Until the Flood’ is a remarkable theater experience.

DETAILS: ‘Until the Flood’ is at Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn St., Chicago through May 12, 2018. Running time: 70 minutes, no intermission. For tickets and other information call (312) 443-3811 and visit Goodman Theatre.

Jodie Jacobs

For more shows visit Theatre in Chicago

Global politics and power skewered in new farce

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Cast of Doppelganger at Steppenwolf. Photos by Michael Brosilow.

You know when you see a stage set with multiple doors that the play will likely be a farce. Steppenwolf Theatre Company’s set of ‘Doppelgänger,’ a world premiere with the sub title of ‘an international farce,’ has all the elements needed to keep audiences laughing, including 11 doors and another entrance.

Erlbach’s presentation of global political, economic and social issues of today works superbly well as a farce.

Clever lines come so quickly and author Matthew-Lee Erlbach’s obvious love of words so mesh in rhymes and tongue twisters that the first two hours speed by quickly.

No stereotype is spared from a hawkish general and a skinny, uptight female British politician to an exiled African nation’s former brutal president, a bisexual Arab prince and a buxom, Brazilian money launderer.

Continue reading “Global politics and power skewered in new farce”

Photo exhibit reminds that Syrian children are also refugees and victims

Photo taken by Magnas Wennman of Taman, 5, who is afraid of her pillow because she doesn't understand it is not the source of her nightmares. (Photo taken by Jodie Jacobs at the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center. — Photo taken by Magnas Wennman of Taman, 5, who is afraid of her pillow because she doesn’t understand it is not the source of her nightmares.
(Photo taken by Jodie Jacobs at the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center.)

Knowing that the world sometimes forgets how wars, including civil wars, affect children, the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR in Sweden asked award-winning Swedish photojournalist Magnus Wennman to photograph Syrian children in refugee camps and temporary shelters in the Middle East and Europe.

Wennman visited camps in Lebanon, Turkey, Greece and Germany among others where he photographed children as they slept or tried to sleep.

The photos are powerful but the stories next to each one are even more so. They make up a traveling exhibit with the #I Care, now at the Illinois Holocaust Museum in Skokie, titled “Where the Children Sleep.” The I Care hash tag came from a #Who Cares question that was raised. Continue reading “Photo exhibit reminds that Syrian children are also refugees and victims”

Race and sex can be serious and entertaining among smart people

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Julian Parker (Jackson Moore, MD), Kayla Carter (Valerie Johnston, Deanna Myers (Ginny Wang) and Erik Hellman (Brian White) in 'Smart People' at Writers Theatre. Photo by Michael Brosilow — Julian Parker (Jackson Moore, MD), Kayla Carter (Valerie Johnston), Deanna Myers (Ginny Wang) and Erik Hellman (Brian White) in ‘Smart People’ at Writers Theatre. Photo by Michael Brosilow

Do you sometimes assume that someone with the name of Goldstein is Jewish or that someone who is Asian has to be aggressive to be successful?

In ‘Smart People,’ now playing at Writers Theatre in Glencoe, playwright Lydia R. Diamond has four people, a black man, black woman, white man and an Asian woman, interact in Cambridge, MA. Both issue raised here did occur.

All are ‘smart people’ but they each encounter stereotypical problems with others and with each other when play and pursue their careers. The time is between 2007 and 2009 with the Barack Obama campaign and win in the background.

Continue reading “Race and sex can be serious and entertaining among smart people”

Another hit show debuts in Chicago

Terrific songs, cast and staging should take ‘Pretty Woman: The Musical’ all the way to Broadway

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

If you loved the 1990 romantic comedy movie starring Richard Gere and Julia Roberts, directed and choreographed by Garry Marshall, you won’t be disappointed in the show turned into a musical. Pretty Woman: the Musical opened its world premiere at Broadway in Chicago’s Oriental Theatre, March 28, complete with red carpet, flashing lights and New York and LA industry VIPS.

But it was the magic on stage wrought by Samantha Barks as Vivian, a Hollywood Blvd. upwardly-mobile-dreaming prostitute who knows cars, Steve Kazee as Edward, a heartless take-over mogul, Orfeh as Vivian’s friend Kit and Eric Anderson as Mr. Thompson the friendly hotel manager of the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel (also plays Happy Man, a Hollywood Blvd. denizen) that captured the audience’s attention and got a well-deserved standing ovation.

Samantha Barks (Vivian) and Steve Kazee (Edward) and Company in Pretty Woman: The Musical at the Oriental Theatre in Chicago Photo by Matthew Murphy, 2018 — Samantha Barks (Vivian) and Steve Kazee (Edward) and Company in Pretty Woman: The Musical at the Oriental Theatre in Chicago
Photo by Matthew Murphy, 2018

Directed by Jerry Mitchell, the musical moves seamlessly through memorable film scenes from bathtub singing to Rodeo Drive shopping.

Blessed with a book by Garry Marshall and the movie’s screenwriter, J. F. Lawton, it closely follows the film, aping similar although not always the same lines. Continue reading “Another hit show debuts in Chicago”

Ibsen classic still rings true at Goodman

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Take a town with a water system that is polluted and put it into a play.

Or take a town or company where the powers that be would rather cover-up a health hazard than pay for a costly fix.

Or take a media outlet that enjoys being in the good graces of a powerful politician so it will publicize fake information rather than the truth.

Flint, Michigan may come to mind, or a nuclear facility worthy of a movie, or name a media outlet you love to hate. Then go see ‘An Enemy of the People,’ written by Henrik Ibsen in 1882 and now playing at Goodman Theatre in Chicago.

Rebecca Hurd (Petra), Jesse Bhamrah (Billing), Philip Earl Johnson (Thomas Stockman), Lanise Antoine Shelley (Katherine) and Aubrey Deeker Hernandez (Hovstad) in An Enemy of the People at Goodman Theatre. Photo by Liz L:auren — Rebecca Hurd (Petra), Jesse Bhamrah (Billing), Philip Earl Johnson (Thomas Stockman), Lanise Antoine Shelley (Katherine) and Aubrey Deeker Hernandez (Hovstad) in ‘An Enemy of the People’ at Goodman Theatre. Photos by Liz Lauren

Adapted and directed by Robert Falls who points out in an online video that the choice is in “response to where the country may be headed,” and that its themes of corruption and environmental disaster make the play “contemporary,” the production ought to be playing all year but will only be at Goodman through April 15, 2019.

Well cast, Philip Earl Johnson brilliantly portrays Thomas Stockmann as a doctor worried about the illnesses he has seen as medical officer of the new Municipal Baths and as an idealist willing to take on townspeople and officials including his elder brother, Peter Stockmann. Peter, the town’s mayor and Thomas’ Baths boss, is depicted perfectly by Scott Jaeck

Lanise Antoine Shelley handles the role of Thomas’ pregnant, second wife Katherine with grace and restraint. Rebecca Hurd is very believable as Thomas’ adult daughter Petra who teaches school and follows her father’s ideals.

David Darlow is Katherine’s cantankerous, sly father Morten “the Badger,” Kiil, the wealthy owner of a tannery that is polluting the water.

Philip Earl Johnson (Thomas Stockmann) and Scott Jaeck (Peter Stockmann) in An Enemy of the People. — Philip Earl Johnson (Thomas Stockmann) and Scott Jaeck (Peter Stockmann) in ‘An Enemy of the People.’

Moving through the plot are Editor Hovstad (Aubrey Deeker Hernandez) of “The Peoples’ Messenger,” Asst. Editor Billing (Jesse Bhamrah) and Aslaksen (Allen Gilmore), a publisher and the paper’s printer. They are characters who profess one thing then change direction when so determined by political winds.

Clever staging puts the backs of the townspeople to the audience when Thomas tries to hold a meeting to explain scientific findings that declare the bath waters to be toxic. Playing the townspeople are Larry Neumann, Jr. (The Drunk), Carley Cornelius, Arya Daire, Guy Massey, Roderick Peeples and Dustin Whitehead.

Instead of winning friends to his side at the meeting, Thomas insults the townspeople calling them stupid and comparing them to dogs. Even though the opening night theater-goers understood that Thomas’ belittling speech wasn’t going to convince anyone in the town to change, the Goodman audience broke into applause when Thomas pointed out that stupid leaders were elected by stupid people.

Indeed, the play is filled with interesting insights such as “The public doesn’t want new ideas. They are perfectly happy with the old ones.

‘An Enemy of the People’ is at Goodman Theatre , 170 N Dearborn St., Chicago, now through April 15, 2018. Running time: 2 hours and 20 minutes including one intermission. For tickets and other information call (312) 443-3800 and visit Goodman Theatre.

Jodie Jacobs

For more shows visit Theatre in Chicago

Around Town mid March

Life and death translated as theatre

Go to Rosehill Cemetery, 5800 N. Ravenswood Ave., March 10 or 11 for writer/performer Neil Tobin’s Necromancer: Near Death Experience, an interactive Magical theatre about life and death. The performances begin at 3 p.m. in the May Chapel and lasts an hour. (Also takes place April 14-15 and May 5-6). For tickets and other information visit Near Death X.

Chicago premiere of 'Fellow Travelers' comes to town. — Chicago premiere of ‘Fellow Travelers’ comes to town.

Male relationship depicted through opera

Hear “Fellow Travelers,” a new opera by Gregory Spears with a libretto by Greg Pierce at the Athenaeum Theatre, 2936 N Southport Ave., March 17-25. Presented by Lyric Unlimited, an arm of the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the opera is based on the Thomas Mallon novel about two men in love during the 1950s McCarthy era in Washington D.C. For tickets and more information visit Lyric Opera/Fellow Travelers.

Native art combines with immigration

See Contemporary Native American Art at the Art Center of Highland Park, 1957 Sheridan Rd., Highland Park. The exhibit, open to the public March 10 and continuing through April 6, 2018, combines with personal stories of Immigration. For more information call (847) 432-1888 and visit TAC.

Jodie Jacobs

It is not a game when a real throne is at stake

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s “Mary Stuart” stands regally tall. It has superb casting, direction, costumes and a simple but clever set design by Andromache Chalfant that complements the action.

Kellie Overbey (Queen Elizabeth I) with her lords and advisors (from left Andrew Chown, Tim Decker, Kevin Gudahi, Robert Jason Jackson, David Studwell and Michael Joseph Mitchell. Photos by Michael Brosilow — Kellie Overbey (Queen Elizabeth I) with her lords and advisors (from left Andrew Chown, Tim Decker, Kevin Gudahi, Robert Jason Jackson, David Studwell and Michael Joseph Mitchell. Photo by Michael Brosilow

What is on the CST stage now is the powerful, new version of Friedrich Schiller’s “Mary Stuart” written in 1800 that has been reworked by playwright Peter Oswald in 2005.

Schiller had written a five-act, multi scene play that portrayed Mary, Queen of Scots’ last days before ordered to be beheaded by her half-sister (and cousin), Elizabeth I, Queen of England.

Premiered in Germany in 1800, Schiller’s play was turned into an opera in 1835 by Gaetano Donzetti titled “Maria Stuarda.”

Oswald has pulled together its personalities, motivations, politics, Catholicism versus Protestantism, conspiracies, sex, feminism and royal succession into a “Game of Thrones” style, two-act, multi-scene drama.

The focal point is what could take place if the two queens faced each other before Elizabeth signed Mary’s beheading order.

Kellie Overbey (Elizabeth I) l, listens as K.K. Moggie (Mary Queen of Scots) pleas to be released. Liz Lauren photo

Mary, who sought refuge with Elizabeth after Scotland had become increasingly hostile, had been imprisoned by her ruling relative in Fotheringhay Castle and charged with conspiracy to assassinate said relation.

Astutely directed by Jenn Thompson, the motivations of the two royals and the politics that surrounded them make for an exciting two and a half hours even though the ending is known.

The role of Elizabeth, taken on by Kellie Overbey, is arguably harder because she is not portrayed in a positive light. She appears somewhat stiff and haughty. And even though encouraged to marry to beget an heir, she is not interested because she doesn’t want her consort or another ruling family to take control.

In contrast, K.K. Moggie can let loose as Mary Stuart, a woman who has already married, produced what ironically would be the heir to the English throne, James I, and appears kindhearted.

The people around them include Kevin Gudahl as Sir Amias Paulet, a knight who guards Mary but is sympathetic to her plight, Mary’s former nurse Hanna Kennedy, nicely acted by Barbara Robertson, Mortimer, Paulet’s nephew played by Andrew Chown as a secretly converted Catholic who wants Mary to escape and his friend, O’Kelly, played by Kai Alexander Ealy.

Kevin Gudahl (Paulet) and Andrew Chown (nephew Mortimor) guard K.K. Moggie (Mary Stuart). Michael Brosilow photo — Kevin Gudahl (Paulet) and Andrew Chown (nephew Mortimer) guard K.K. Moggie (Mary Stuart). Michael Brosilow photo

On Elizabeth’s side are Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester, portrayed by Tim Decker as an ambitious schemer who tries to work both sides of the royal debate, Lord Burleigh, the High Treasurer depicted by David Studwell, Robert Jason Jackson who is George Talbot, the Earl of Shrewsbuty, an advisor to Queen Elizabeth who cautions restraint instead of beheading and

Because the French are interested in a royal merger, there is Patrick Clear as French Ambassador Count Aubespine and Michael Joseph Mitchell as French Envoy County Bellievre and also Secretary of State William Davison.

Succession is important to the British throne so audiences should take a look at the program’s Playgoer’s Guide for its “Cliff” type notes and chart to better understand who descended from whom.

DETAILS: “Mary Stuart” is at Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s, Courtyard Theater at Navy Pier, 800 E. Grand Ave. through April 15. Running time: 2 hours, 35 minutes. For tickets and other information call (312) 595-5600 and visit Chicago Shakes.

Jodie Jacobs

For more shows, visit TheatreInChicago.