Posted on

‘Enough To Let The Light In’ Creates Terror Out of Love’s Shadows

Paloma Nozicka’s two-hander script, Enough to Let The Light In, grips you from the very beginning and doesn’t let go. Director Georgette Verdin builds a deliberate pulse underneath the work, aided by Stefanie M. Senior’s spooky’ sound design and Sotirios Livaditis’ set, full of delightful tricks that drive the action forward. 

Enough to Let The Light In  is one of the tightest and most satisfying new plays I’ve seen in a long time. The economy of language and onstage movement means every action matters, even where a guest hangs their coat becomes a point of dramatic tension. It’s very hard for a story to get ahead of me, and I noticed pretty much every suspicious thing or could-be suspicious line of dialogue. Georgette Verdin directs the piece with a swift and intentional hand, with incredible attention to the details. The actors are so compelling, I forgot what I’d seen, and was shocked all over again by the discovery that my suspicions were correct! Continue reading “‘Enough To Let The Light In’ Creates Terror Out of Love’s Shadows”

Posted on

East West Players’ ‘The Sitayana’ views the world through the eyes of a deserving heroine

Originally postponed from May 2020, Lavina Jadhwani’s The Sitayana (Or, How to Make an Exit) is a captivating retelling of the Ramayana which breaks from the original Sanskrit epic by centering Princess Sita rather than her husband Prince Ram. Directed by Reena Dutt and Produced by the East West Players, EnActe Arts, and Hypokrit Productions, this one-woman show dares to be as joyful as it is probing, and to explore the question: can a loving partnership survive the demands and expectations of idealized womanhood?

At the beginning of the play, the teenage Princess Sita (played on alternate nights Nikita Chaudhry, Sheetal Gandhi, and Minita Gandhi) eagerly awaits the man who can string Shiva’s bow, the man whom the gods have deemed worthy to wed her. Her prayers are answered in the form of young Prince Ram, who whisks her away to his kingdom of Ayodhya, where he vows to Sita that he will forever stay by her side—not just as her husband, but as her friend. Sita’s idyllic life in Ayodhya is short lived. When Prince Ram is ousted from his kingdom, she remains true to her dharma and follows him into exile, where her loyalty and fortitude is put to test after test.

Continue reading “East West Players’ ‘The Sitayana’ views the world through the eyes of a deserving heroine”

Posted on

A Straightforward Monologue About Grief: ‘The Catastrophist’ at Marin Theatre Company and Round House Theatre

The Catastrophist, written by Lauren M. Gunderson, is a filmed one-man play about the playwright’s husband Nathan (William DeMeritt). Gunderson’s non-fiction drama introduces us to this epidemiologist who has devoted his entire life to the study of pandemics, also known as the massive cultural event we’re all currently stuck inside. One might then expect The Catastrophist to be a play about science — but it ends up being a play about death, and grief, and how to live with the inherent unpredictability of the world even as you strive to predict it.

Continue reading “A Straightforward Monologue About Grief: ‘The Catastrophist’ at Marin Theatre Company and Round House Theatre”

Posted on

‘Stick Fly’ at Writers Theatre Asks Poignant Questions About Blackness in America

Stick Fly at Writers Theatre, directed by Ron OJ Parson and written by Lydia R. Diamond, is set around two affluent Black siblings who bring their partners, one black and one white, to their family cottage on Martha’s Vineyard. It is at Vineyard where they are forced to confront their realities, family secrets, and class prejudices.

The trek to Glencoe in the cold might seem daunting, but the show itself is too thoughtful and poignant to miss. It doesn’t beg to be included in the theatre landscape; it carves its own way.

Continue reading “‘Stick Fly’ at Writers Theatre Asks Poignant Questions About Blackness in America”

Posted on

‘Lipstick Lobotomy’ at Trap Door Theatre Explores Gender in Mental Health

Lipstick Lobotomy, written by Krista Knight and directed by Kate Hendrickson, takes place in a women’s sanitarium in the early 1940’s, conveyed here by a delightfully unsettling green-and-white color palette across the production that evokes the eerie sanitized atmosphere of a hospital. We meet our main character, Ginny (Ann Sonnevile), as she arrives at the hospital straight off the heels of separating from her husband. Ginny immediately meets and befriends fellow patient Rosemary Kennedy (played with a lovable charm by Abby Blankenship, and who is, yes, of those Kennedys). Rosemary struggles with her own mental disability, and against her family’s desire to make her undergo a lobotomy, while Ginny undergoes the opposite struggle. She wants to get a lobotomy in order to stave off her lifelong depression, but her family is understandably horrified at the prospect.

Continue reading “‘Lipstick Lobotomy’ at Trap Door Theatre Explores Gender in Mental Health”

Posted on

‘Labyrinth’ at Broken Nose Theatre is a Space-Bending Journey About Power and Finance

Labyrinth, Beth Steel’s blistering critique of corporate greed and American international relations, finds a fitting home for its U.S. Premiere with Broken Nose Theatre, a pay-what-you-can theatre company founded on the principle of economic accessibility. It is hard to say exactly what Labyrinth is—and not in a pejorative way. Loosely following events surrounding the Latin American debt crisis, the script, which begins conventionally enough, accelerates, growing in absurdity and darkness until it devolves into what resembles the fever dream of an over-exhausted worker. This production asks audiences to consider the human cost of economic tinkering, the hegemonic power of the American financial system, the difference between a scam and a hedged investment, and the divide between the so called first and third worlds. Under the skillful and energetic direction of Spencer Davis, Broken Nose Theatre successfully brings this sweeping-yet-psychological, brooding-yet-punchy, absurdly-funny-yet-tragic story to life.

Continue reading “‘Labyrinth’ at Broken Nose Theatre is a Space-Bending Journey About Power and Finance”

Posted on

‘A Doll’s House’ at Raven Theatre Reinvigorates a Timeless Classic

It’s a new decade in Chicago and Ibsen is in the air.

Raven Theatre’s A Doll’s House is the first of three Ibsen plays opening within the next month. Strawdog’s stormy Hedda Gabler will follow shortly on Raven’s heels, and Court’s The Lady From the Sea will bring up the rear with the most ethereal of the Norwegian playwright’s femme-centric family dramas. It must be something in the water.

A long century and a half has passed since A Doll’s House first scandalized European audiences with the “door slam heard around the world.” However, Raven Theatre’s production still manages to feel relevant and timely. Although director Lauren Shouse retains the 19th century setting of Nora’s tale, Shouse re-envisions the meaning of Ibsen’s revolutionary, feminist masterwork for the audience of today. Although her reinterpretation does sacrifice some nuances of Ibsen’s play for the sake of its concept, it remains a promising example of how a classic can be reimagined for contemporary audiences.

Continue reading “‘A Doll’s House’ at Raven Theatre Reinvigorates a Timeless Classic”

Posted on

‘Roan @ the Gates’ at American Blues Theatre Tells a Scarily Relevant Love Story

Roan @ the Gates is a patriotic love story of two righteous women who are torn between their relationship and their principles. Roan (Brenda Barrie), an NSA analyst, puts everything on the line when she leaks government documents to an international reporter. Roan flees to Russia, and her wife Nat (Jasmine Bracey) is left blindsided and an ocean away. The Chicago premiere of Christina Telesca Gormans’ cyberfiction is much closer to reality than one might hope. In 75 minutes, director Lexi Saunders documents a deteriorating marriage with stunning design and intimate performances. As the conflict builds and communication breaks away, however, the narrative falls into a loop where the same argument is played out again and again.

Continue reading “‘Roan @ the Gates’ at American Blues Theatre Tells a Scarily Relevant Love Story”

Posted on

Defending Against the Indefensible: ‘How to Defend Yourself’ at Victory Gardens Theater

When I stepped into How To Defend Yourself, Lilliana Padilla’s brilliant new play making its Chicago premier at Victory Gardens Theater, I thought I knew where this story would end before it had even begun. In the wake of their friend’s sexual assault, a few college students, all from different social groups, gather to hold a self-defense workshop. Naturally, I assumed, the girls would learn to respect each other for their differences and become friends, the workshop would help them to feel empowered in their bodies, and we would walk away feeling that the unifying force of our girl power is enough to take on the dark underbelly of the patriarchy. Of course, that’s never how it feels in real life. And this play, directed with care and consciousness by Marti Lyons, honors a truth far more painful and real. How To Defend Yourself is a dismantling of the stories that women tell to each other and to ourselves about how to safely walk through the world.

Continue reading “Defending Against the Indefensible: ‘How to Defend Yourself’ at Victory Gardens Theater”

Posted on

‘Boys in the Band’ at Windy City Playhouse Feels Both Dated and Timeless

How can a play feel both dated and relevant? Stereotypical yet viscerally authentic? Generic yet highly specific?

Coming off the heels of its 50th year anniversary revival run on Broadway, Boys in the Band, directed by Carl Menninger, is currently playing at Windy City Playhouse in an immersive theatre style. It is considered one of the first mainstream plays to depict gay men in earnest, without resorting to tokenization or jokes. The plot centers around five gay friends who throw a birthday party for their acerbic friend, Harold (Sam Bell Gurwitz), at Michael’s (Jackson Evans) apartment. Coupling Harold’s late arrival is an unsuspected visit by Michael’s college friend, Alan (Christian Edwin Cook), who does not know Michael is gay. As the night unravels, the friends gradually get more drunk and let their insecurities loose. Though the language is notably dated — like the use of “homosexual” instead of “gay” and several racialized comments — the feelings of ostracization and self-loathing from not being validated is a timeless sentiment. The play is timeless; the production feels dated, getting trapped in the time period and inhibiting the story’s ability to radiate its more universal themes.

Continue reading “‘Boys in the Band’ at Windy City Playhouse Feels Both Dated and Timeless”