Theatre in Chicago – Page 10 – Chicago Theater and Arts

‘Peter and the Starcatcher’ blends fun and fantasy

Cast of Peter and the Starcatcher at Citadel Theatre ( Photo by North Shore Camera Club)

2 1/2 stars

It’s a show about finding your way home, no matter how lost you are. Now playing at The Citadel Theatre, “Peter and the Starcatcher” is a fantasy/comedy that one might call a prequel to the beloved story of Peter Pan. It imagines how Peter might have become one of the lost boys of Neverland.

The show, a winner of five Tony Awards, comes from the pen of Rick Elice (“Jersey Boys,” “The Adams Family,” The Cher Show”)

Under the fine direction of Jeremy Aluma, “Peter and the Starcatcher ncludes an ambitious cast of 17, all playing multiple roles. The show is filled with music, dancing and non-stop action plus lots of humor and antics that keep the audience laughing.

Stand outs include the lovely Mariah Copeland as Molly Aster who captures the heart of Peter and Jayson Lee as Boy/Peter who makes the audience see the longing in his innocent soul.

Adrian Danzig is a hoot as pirate Black Stache who becomes Captain Hook in Peter Pan and Rebecca Fletcher is excellent as the nanny to Molly, Mrs. Bumbrake.

Kudos to scenic designer Eric Luchen who has created a fascinating set and to director Aluma who makes great use of the intimate Citadel stage by incorporating the seats and doorways to expand the stage.

The problem with the show is the script which has too much madcap and mayhem going on. It was challenging to follow and some of the English accents were difficult to understand.

DETAILS: “Peter and the Starcatcher” is at Citadel Theatre, 300 Waukegan Rd., Lake Forest, through Sept. 29, 2019. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes with one intermission. For tickets and other information, visit Citadeltheatre.

Mira Temkin

For more shows visit Theatre in Chicago

A delicate performance with a powerful message

‘The Delicate Tears of the Waning Moon’

Rebeca Aleman and Ramon Camin in Delicate Tears. (Photo by Stephanie Rodriguez)

4 stars

Paulina finds herself barely able to speak after three months in a coma, being cared for by her good friend and co-worker, Rodrigo.

Over time she begins to recover her memory, revealing her former life and the events that have brought her to this point.

She and Rodrigo are journalists in Venezuela where her search for truth and her advocacy for justice have resulted in tragedy and a total upheaval of her life.

The action centers around Paulina’s recuperation but through her recollections we are slowly and systematically exposed to political and social realities that provide a deeper context.

Inspired by true events “The Delicate Tears of the Waning Moon” onstage at Steppenwolf’s 1700 Theater is written by playwright/actress Rebeca Aleman (Paulina) which partially explains the extremely high caliber of her performance.

She obviously has internalized this material, understands it deeply and brilliantly interprets the character’s physical limitations.

Likewise as the play’s translator Ramon Camin (Rodrigo) provides a sensitive portrayal, no doubt informed by this intimate relationship to the material which is presented by the Water People Theater as part of the 3^rd Chicago International Latino Theater Festival.

The play was originally written in Spanish and performed here in English, expertly directed by Iraida Tapias who guided the delicate unraveling of the mystery surrounding Paulina’s condition.

The simple set design by Manuel Jose Diaz effectively incorporates a large window as a projection screen providing flashbacks and access to more intimate musings.

I learned in the post production discussion that the cast began their rehearsals in their native language in order to establish their emotional connection then switched to English to prepare for the festival performance.

For Spanish speaking theater-goers the stage is equipped with two monitors displaying the translation.

DETAILS: “The Delicate Tears of the Waning Moon”is at the Steppenwolf 1700 Theater, 1700 N. Halsted St., Chicago, through Oct. 13, 2019. Running time: 90 minutes with no intermission. For tickets and information call (312) 335-1650. or visit Steppenwolf/Lookout.

Reno Lovison

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Overcoming a speech impediment to prove worthiness

The King’s Speech

Myrtle (Elizabeth Ledo) and Lionel Logue (James Frain), Left, and Elizabeth (Rebecca Night) and Bertie (Harry Hadden-Paton) in Chicago Shakespeare’s The King’s Speech. (Photo by Liz Lauren.)

4 stars

Although “The King’s Speech” playwright David Seidler’s script about how King George VI overcame his stutter while ascending to the British throne was a 2010 Oscar-winning movie, it started life as a play after Seidler researched the process in the 1970’s.

Seidler had learned that the man who would be king, known as Bertie to family and close friends, worked with Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue, a man who had come with his wife to London with hopes of finding an acting job.

The information revealed in the script came from Lionel’s son, Valentine Logue. But Queen Elizabeth, the King’sGeorge’s wife, didn’t want the play produced until after she died.

Work on the script began again in 2005, a few years after the Queen Mother died in 2002. However, it became the highly acclaimed Academy-Award winner Best Picture of the Year and also Best Director, Best Actor and won Seidler the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.

Two years later the playwright turned his movie script back into a play that premiered in Surry, England in 2012, toured the UK and had it’s London premier in the West End. Continue reading “Overcoming a speech impediment to prove worthiness”

‘Oslo’ reveals story behind groundbreaking peace accords

L to R Norwegians Jan Egeland (Bernard Balbot) .Johan Jørgen Holst (David Parkes), Mona Juul (Bri Sudia) and Terje Rød-Larsen (Scott Parkinson), strategize how to keep secret the negotiations they are helping to facilitate. (Brett Beiner photography)

4 stars

TV viewers saw Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin shake hands with Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat in 1993. The momentous event took place on the White House lawn in Washington D.C. But what led to that famous meeting were the previous, mostly off-the record, mostly unofficial negotiations taking place earlier that year in Oslo, Norway.

What “Oslo,” the multi-award-winning play by J. T. Rogers does is take audiences into the apartment of husband-wife Mona Juul, a diplomat, and Terje Rod Larsen, a university institute’s social scientist, who together initiated the process, and into Juul’s phone conversations with Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs Jorgen Holst and Deputy Foreign Minister Jan Egeland.

Through somewhat fictionalized conversations of actual meetings, Rogers builds suspense as the process moves from one level to the next with the action continuing in behind-the scenes discussions at an out-of-the public eye Norwegian manor.

Continue reading “‘Oslo’ reveals story behind groundbreaking peace accords”

‘Dana H’

3 ½ stars

Someone on my train ride home asked if I enjoyed the show. After all, some theater is for entertainment. But, this is not a show for a fun evening out.

Go because it is an eye-opener to some of the dictates of not known-to-everyone organizations or societies out there. Go because you will learn even more than probably known now about injustice from people who are supposed to protect you and care about you.

Go also because the play is well acted within a very unusual format.

The entire play takes place in a motel room. Although it is a short, less than 90-minute production, you feel as if you lived through Dana’s incomparable five months of captivity and her pre-and post hostage weeks.

Dana, exquisitely portrayed by Deirdre O’Connell, is Dana Higginbotham, a former psych ward chaplain. She is being interviewed by Steve Cosson on her horrifying experience. You hear, but don’t see, Cosson.

The woman heard is the actual Dana whose interviews were recorded at the request of her son, Lucas Hnath, the award winning playwright of “A Doll’s House Part 2” and “The Christians.”

Hnath has reconstructed the interviews into a “docudrama” for the stage with O’Connell lip-syncing the recorded words and reacting to the experience the way ‘Dana did.

To emphasize the motel room place, actress Molly Bunder enters and cleans the room accompanied by strobe-lit, fast-forwarding, blurred recorded sounds.

Superbly directed by Les Waters, the experience of sitting inside a theater where everything from valet parking and “L” noise is left behind and that familiar world is replaced by a chilling, but actual world of unthinkable violence and betrayal is so disturbing it is likely to change you.

DETAILS: ‘”Dana H.” is a co-production with Center Theatre Group at Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn St, Chicago, through Oct. 6, 2019. Running time: Under 90 minutes. For tickets and other information call (312) 443-3800 or visit Goodman Theatre.

(The show is not appropriate for ages under 16)

Jodie Jacobs

For more shows visit Theatre in Chicago

‘Midsummer’ romance

(left to right) Patrick Mulvey and Chaon Cross in Greenhouse Theater Center and Proxy Theatre production of Midsummer, a pay with songs. (Photo by Michael Brosilow)

3.5 Stars

Helena (Chaon Cross), an attorney, and Bob (Parick Mulvey), a petty thief, are not exactly a perfect match but they find themselves thrown together out of desperation and convenience.

When confronted with an opportunity to have an exhilarating once-in-a-lifetime night of excess and revelry, they both decide to take a chance. It ultimately leads to a deeper attraction and unforgettable “Midsummer” romance.

Billed as “A Play With Songs” and produced by Proxy Theatre with the Greenhouse Theater Center, the unusual construction of this romantic dramedy has the two actors playing multiple roles.

They do so while periodically performing musical numbers (with guitar, ukulele, and piano) whilst alternately narrating the story-line in third person between spats of dialogue and soliloquy. Continue reading “‘Midsummer’ romance”

Look forward to a new start

Nicole (Tara Bouldrey) in 'Shadows of Birds'. (Mike Hari @ fadeout foto) — Nicole (Tara Bouldrey) in ‘Shadows of Birds’. (Mike Hari @ fadeout foto)

4 stars

Glass Apple Theatre is presenting the world premiere of “Shadows of Birds” written by Richard James Zieman and Joel Z. Cornfield.

It focuses on a young adult woman, Nicole (Tara Bouldrey), who’s been in rehab for months because of her addiction to drugs. But now Nicole’s counselor, Jennifer (Sydney Genco), feels Nicole is ready to return home and live with her mother, Barbara (Elizabeth Rude).

Her mother also has an older adult son, Kyle (Bobby Bowman). Neither Kyle nor Nicole knew their father because he left when their mother was pregnant.

Because of Nicole’s many years of mixed messages from her mother and brother, she was very insecure and became a drug addict. Now Nicole isn’t sure that she could live with her mother again.

Continue reading “Look forward to a new start”

‘Newsies’

4 stars

The mean streets of New York City at the turn of the 20th Century were dotted with children, mostly poor immigrants and orphans, struggling to eke out a survival living by selling newspapers. They were the “newsies” who sold the “papes.”

When greedy publishers began squeezing them for pennies by raising the wholesale price of their papers, the newsies rebelled–and won.

It’s a serious chapter in labor history, but one transformed into a warmhearted musical, “Newsies,” now playing at Paramount Theatre in Aurora.

The story is based on both the 1992 Disney film of the same name and the real-life Newsboys Strike of 1899 in NYC. The theatrical version culminates with a message of cross-cultural unity that resonates today.

Continue reading “‘Newsies’”

Cultures and careers play out on a basketball court

4 stars

‘The Great Leap’

In the first act of playwright Lauren Lee’s “The Great Leap,” James Seol as Wen Chang, interpreter for an American college basketball coach who is visiting China, somewhat humorously observes Charles Dicken’s “It was the best of times” and goes on to say how it was the worst of times.

But as with “Tale of Two Cities” the famed quote was appropriate for the play’s setting, primarily Beijing 1971 and 18 years later Beijing 1989.

Because in 1971 the play’s action starts during China’s Cultural Revolution, basically 1966 to 1976. Chang notes that nothing is done without Party approval.

In Beijing, 18 years later, the American college coach is bringing his team to China. Chang is now coach of an impressive Chinese basketball team and both Chang and China have changed.

But the play isn’t just about China, even though Chang says basketball has forever changed the culture.

“The Great Leap” is a fast-paced, energy-charged, witty play performed by an exceptional cast under the direction of Jesca Prudencio, known internationally for handling shows that incorporate a high-level of physicality.

James Seol (Wen Chang) left and Keith Kupfere (Saul) right, in 'The Great Leap' at Steppenworlf. (Michael Brosilow photo) — James Seol (Wen Chang) left and Keith Kupfere (Saul) right, in ‘The Great Leap’ at Steppenworlf. (Michael Brosilow photo)

Based on Lee’s actual family experience with her father, Larry Lee, a legendary San Francisco street basketball player, the play centers on how talented point guard, Manford Lum, played with extraordinary agility and know-how by Glenn Obrero, talked himself onto the 1989 San Francisco college team that was gong to China. , Obrero, a Chicago and TV actor is a former street basketball player.

Connecting all the parts from China in 1971 to San Francisco in May 1989 then China in June 1989 with heart and bravado is veteran film, TV and Chicago (Steppenwolf, Goodman, Rivendellactor Keith Kupfere, actor Keith Kupfere, playing Saul, a San Francisco university basketball coach.

The fourth actor in the well-chosen cast is Deanne Myers, Manford’s “cousin” Connie, who keeps abreast of what is going on in China and worries about Manford. Also a veteran of Chicago stage, Myers is the voice of reason and could arguably be a stand-in for the playwright.

The show is more than a chance to pick up some world-of-basketball knowledge. It is an opportunity to enjoy really fine performances and directing.

DETAILS: “The Great Leap” is at Steppenwolf, 1650 N. Halsted St., Chicago through Oct. 20. Running time: 2 hours with one intermission. For tickets and other information call (312) 335-1650 or visit Steppenwolf.

Jodie Jacobs

For more shows visit Theatre in Chicago

A lesson in love and experience

Fantasticks at Skokie Theatre. (Photo by Graham Todd)

‘The Fantasticks’

3 stars

The second offering of a four-show series by MadKap Productions at the Skokie Theatre is “The Fantasticks,” a theatrical classic that holds the record as the longest running off-Broadway musical when it closed in 2002 after 17,162 performances over 42 years.

The story is about innocence and experience. Matt (Graham Todd) and Luisa (Jessica Surprenant) learn that life can be messy and cruel but as the song goes “without a hurt the heart is hollow.”

At the beginning the young lovers revel in the danger of their forbidden romance but come to learn that their fathers had actually erected a wall between their two properties to draw the two together.

Continue reading “A lesson in love and experience”