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Plus, K. recommends another family drama, No Wake by Route 66 at the Greenhouse Theater Center, and J. acknowledges the bumper crop of brilliant female directors currently working around town, including Joanie Schulz ( Bruise Easy ) and Kimberly Senior ( No Wake ).
K. sez:
Satchmo at the Waldorf , Court Theatre, through February 7: Terry Teachout’s look at the life of Louis Armstrong, told as the reminiscences of the entertainer himself, is both funny and sweet-sad. In this Midwest premiere, the show rests entirely on the shoulders of Barry Shabaka Henley, who plays not only Armstrong but his manager Joe Glaser and his nemesis Miles Davis. On opening night, Henley had a few stumbles with the text, but his Armstrong is pitch-perfect, literally: as soon as you hear his voice you know you’re in good hands. He’s also outrageously good as Davis, portrayed here as a clueless stoner whose naysaying about Armstrong’s persona meant he just didn’t get what was going on. The only weakness in the performance is Henley’s version of Glaser, Armstrong’s friend and ultimate betrayer: what’s supposed to be Chicago-New York-Jewish-gangster patois sounds more like Middle American Generic White Man. And don’t go expecting music: a few moments of scratchy recording are all we hear. But the show, under Charles Newell’s direction, is still a delight.
What I Learned in Paris , Congo Square Theatre, through February 7: In this show—part rom-com, part door-slamming farce—Pearl Cleage pays homage to Noel Coward’s Private Lives by bringing together an ex-husband and ex-wife on the eve of his wedding to Wife #2. The setting, though, is quite different: it’s Atlanta in 1973, and Maynard Jackson has just been elected the city’s first African-American mayor. As J.P. Madison jockeys for position in the new administration and struggles for an impossible level of respectability, in walks ex-wife Evie, who is anything but respectable. Shanesia Davis is spectacular as the convention-defying, loving-but-scheming, feminist-but-man-keeping Evie, and the rest of the cast plays up to her level. Darren Jones is particularly fine as J.P., who imagines he’s leading and is actually being led—by the nose. And I’d like costume designer Marci Rodgers to come home with me and make all my clothes so I look like Evie. A feminist romp among the African-American elites—it could hardly be more fun. Thanks to director Daniel Bryant for coming home from New York long enough to knock this one out of the park.
The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today , City Lit Theater, through February 21: I’d hoped this adaptation of Mark Twain’s novel would feel more like a critique of today’s Gilded Age; but it was hard to remember that when Jacquelyne Jones was on the stage, which is virtually the entire time. Jones plays Laura Hawkins, an impoverished Southern belle who sets out to conquer 1870s Washington and succeeds until she encounters the man who loved and ruined her in 1860s Tennessee. Disaster, needless to say, ensues. Paul Edwards’s adaptation is superb in clarifying and maintaining the momentum of a complex story, and Jones’s performance is so rich that we mostly don’t care what happens as long as she’s still there to be watched. This is a going-to-be-a-big-star performance. The rest of the company, under Adam Goldstein’s direction, is fine in the classic City Lit manner, playing numerous roles and conveying shifts of time and location with ease. If you don’t carry in with you the notion—or, perhaps, the hope—that Twain somehow skewered today’s Congress, you won’t be disappointed. And, to be fair, the portrait of a Congress for sale and at the mercy of lobbyists rings true and contemporary; it’s just not ugly enough to seem to be a real critique. That’s what happens when life outstrips art, or truth is stranger than fiction.
Not really solo: Gary serves as interlocutor as K. considers Bruce Norris’s latest peroration on the problems of privileged people (say three times fast). Is the playwright anti-feminist or merely a misanthrope? And why shouldn’t playwrights direct their own work? Then G. and K. jointly mourn the demise of Redmoon.
The Marx brothers have nothing on us! Plus, K. re-recommends the Q Brothers’ Christmas Carol: they had me at the two yarmulke’d philanthropists who tell Scrooge, “I’m Rahm, and he’s Ari.”
ShPIeL, a theater company which defines itself as “Performing Identity,” does exactly that with its world-premiere production of Angina Pectoris at Theatre Wit. The play opened in Tel Aviv soon after its opening in Chicago. What do the Critics think? Plus, Kelly recommends Arthur Miller’s Incident at Vichy at RedTwist.
Jonathan waxes Scrooge-like about holiday offerings while Kelly takes her inner child out for an excursion. Grab your insulin and dive in!
Plus, K. recommends The Play About My Dad at Raven Theater, Gary promotes the Critics’ role in the Dual Duel competition at Comedy Sportz, and J. foreshadows upcoming conversations about New York theater and about holidays shows.
The critics enthuse about extraordinary acting by Mary Ann Thebus and Kate Fry in the final production at Writers’ ancestral home at the back of the bookstore, and then talk about all the bricks-and-mortar action in the theater community: new homes not only for Writers but for Northlight, TimeLine, Griffin.
Plus J. recommends Charm by Northlight at the Steppenwolf Garage.
Welcome to the on-line home of the Dueling Critics, Kelly Kleiman and Jonathan Abarbanel. Here you'll find the Critics' weekly conversations about Chicago theater. These verbal battles are broadcast every Sunday morning on "The Arts Section," WDCB's on-air culture magazine. Tune in to 90.9 FM to hear the Critics going at it.
On this site you'll also find written reviews by Kelly and Jonathan as well as links to their writing in other venues. Never fear, there are plenty of opinions to go around!
Please let us know what you think of the broadcasts, the written reviews and the opinions expressed therein. Thanks for listening and reading.
Dry Land at Rivendell: Anything But Dry May 10, 2016
Sender: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf for Millennials? May 3, 2016
The Mirror Has Seven Faces: Mary Page Marlowe by Tracy Letts at Steppenwolf April 26, 2016
In brief: The Book Club Play at 16th Street Theater April 21, 2016
Brecht’s Life of Galileo at Remy Bumppo: Puzzling It Out April 20, 2016
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Kelly Kleiman at the Huffington Post Jonathan Abarbanel at the Windy City Times