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plus K. raves over Between Riverside and Crazy (her summer home), while J. celebrates Pride Films & Plays’ adaptive reuse of an abandoned space.
We disagree over the nature, purpose and value of Christopher Chen’s newest play (as we did over his last one, Mutt ). Then we talk about the Chicago Reader expose of now-defunct Profiles Theater and how to get tickets for Hamilton . Finally J. praises the Saints for their philanthropy as well as their ushering, and K. recommends Constellations at Steppenwolf. A lively week!
We grapple with this world premiere; plus K. picks The Book Club Play at 16th Street Theatre and J. picks Carlyle at the Goodman.
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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.
Plus J. recommends Charm by Northlight at the Steppenwolf Garage.
J. and K. disagree about Steppenwolf’s production of East of Eden , written by Frank Galati and directed by Terry Kinney, and then K. and Gary assess the Shattered Globe revival of Marvin’s Room , directed by original dramaturg Sandy Shinner and written by the late Scott McPherson.
https://m.soundcloud.com/wdcbnews/the-arts-section-the-3
Grand Concourse (Steppenwolf; through August 30)
K. sez:
It probably says more about me than about Grand Concourse that the most wrenching moment in a play involving fatal illness, homelessness, betrayal and a loss of faith came when there was injury to a cat.
But plenty of people who saw Bibi Andersen describe a sexual encounter in Persona swear that they saw the sexual encounter itself, a tribute to the vividness of the writing and the truth of the performance. In the same way, Mariann Mayberry’s rendition of the cat story in Heidi Schreck’s text is so powerful that it feels as if we’re seeing the poor animal right in front of us. Thus my response isn’t Cat Lady idiosyncratic but generated by the play itself.
Grand Concourse tells the stories of Shelley (Mayberry), a nun who runs a soup kitchen, and Emma (Brittany Uomoleale), a college dropout volunteering there. The two women are assisted by the janitor Oscar (Victor Almanzar) and visited constantly by the homeless Frog (originally Tim Hopper, now Francis Guinan), and the relationships among the four make up the action of the play.
Unfortunately, until the very end it isn’t clear whose play it is, which makes it hard to invest in the goings-on. Are we watching Emma grow beyond her self-absorption, or Shelley struggle with her faith? Either of these would make a fine focus, but trying to focus on both leaves us with an evening which, as my companion said, “was smart, it was well-written, it was well-performed; but it didn’t move me.” So the moment with the cat was the exception rather than the rule. Though director Yasen Peyankov and his troupe give the play all they’ve got, the play doesn’t have very much to offer in return.
This House Believes the American Dream is at the Expense of the American Negro , Oracle. Opens August 21, runs through September 19
Johnard Washington as James Baldwin in This House Believes . . .
This Oracle production debuted at the Washington Park Refectory as part of Theater on the Lake’s second peripatetic summer. This House Believes . . . is Zachary Baker-Salmon’s dramatization of an actual televised debate which took place at the Cambridge Union in 1965 between James Baldwin and William F. Buckley, speaking respectively for and against the title resolution. The company asks the audience to vote on the proposition before the debate begins and again after its conclusion, to determine whose arguments swayed the most votes.
Under Baker-Salmon’s direction the work is finely performed by Johnard Washington and Jeremy Clark as Baldwin and Buckley, supported by players representing the moderator and other attendees. It’s not clear whether their [scripted] interruptions of the speakers are intended to encourage unscripted contributions from members of the audience; in any case, there weren’t any such outbursts at the performance I saw.
Which is a shame. In at least one respect, 2015 is no different from 1965: no one is willing to address frankly the issues of power and inequality at the heart of America’s race problem. Thus, Baldwin and Buckley alike talk around the issue, more concerned with representing their positions than with explaining them. Buckley’s argument—that in fact black people were better off than they would have been if left un-enslaved in Africa—was more politically acceptable then than now, but not by much; so he talks all around it. Likewise, Baldwin can’t address the question directly because its answer is so self-evident; instead, he has to perform an exaggerated scholarly civility to make even his gentle hints palatable to an audience embodying white privilege in its most florid manifestation.
The actors were, respectively, believably smarmy and believably gracious, but their discussion went nowhere. The excess politeness, the talking around the issue, the pretense that this is a subject on which reasonable people can disagree, interferes with anybody’s actually grasping what’s going on. So all we get is a chance to feel superior to those poor fools from 50 years ago, when we’re actually not. Oracle gets an E for effort (and Earnestness), but fails to advance our understanding of an issue whose misunderstanding continues to tear the country apart.
Things You Shouldn’t Say Past Midnight, Windy City Playhouse (through October 4).
The curtain rises on a couple in bed. At the moment of climax, the woman screams out not something sexual but an ethnic slur. This sets in motion what purports to be the contemporary equivalent of Feydeau’s door-slamming farces, with two other couples (one gay, one straight) becoming involved in the argument between the original couple about the true meaning of what was said.
Peter Ackerman’s play, sharply directed by William Brown, never recovers from this initial bad premise. Ethnic slurs are NOT analogous to talking dirty, and any effort to make them so just trivializes their meaning and import. No wonder the whole middle of the play has us chasing the red herring of whether the woman’s partner is gay: that’s familiar territory for bedroom farces. But the resolution, which brings us back to the original ethnic-slur theme, is forced and uncomfortable—as well it should be.
Theater Wit’s Bad Jews demonstrated that there are ways it’s okay to make fun of anti-Semitism; Things You Shouldn’t Say . . . demonstrates there are ways it’s not.
Plus, J. and K. describe the current building boom: new space for the Goodman’s educational programs, for Steppenwolf, for Writers Theater, even for tiny Factory Theater. Strawdog may be compelled to move, TimeLine hopes to move, the Actors’ Gym expands into the old Next Theatre, and the last one standing when the music stops is–probably wise.
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.
The best of 2016 in Chicago theater January 3, 2017
Which one of us whacks the other in the knee? We review Tonya and Nancy, The Rock Opera December 20, 2016
DC split over David Rabe world premiere at Steppenwolf October 11, 2016
K says “wunderbar” for WONDERFUL TOWN, J says “Hmmm.” October 5, 2016
The House does a dark take on Punch & Judy but it lights up J. & K. September 28, 2016
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Kelly Kleiman at the Huffington Post Jonathan Abarbanel at the Windy City Times