Epic tragedy shapes a society. For Chicagoans, there were the Great Fire of 1871 (300 dead, 100,000 homeless), and the 1915 SS Eastland sinking (844 died). Less remembered is the Iroquois Theater, which burned to the ground in 1903. The conflagration killed 602 people, and changed fire safety practices in theaters everywhere.
Just over a month after its grand opening run, on December 30, 1903, the Iroquois Theater was destroyed when an arc light ignited a muslin curtain. (That site is now the home of the Nederlander Theatre, the restored Oriental movie palace.)

The Ruffians theater troupe recounts this tale – seminal to Chicago’s theater communit -  in Burning Bluebeard, in a truly inspired production. The performance incorporates dance, music, mime, acrobatics, in a that evokes the atmospheric gymnastics of Cirque de Soleil, or perhaps even more the defunct Red Moon Theater for those who remember it). Let’s say from the start Burning Bluebeard is entrancing, mesmerizing, and something not to be missed.

The Ruffians have been serving up this unusual holiday fare since 2011, when it was originated with the support of the NeoFuturists Theater. This year Porchlight Music Theatre has placed the show on its stage at the Ruth Page Center (1016 N. Dearborn), supplying plenty of seating for the growing cult following Burning Bluebeard has garnered.

Burning Bluebeard retells the story of the fire from the point of view of cast and crew who survived it – all but one escaped - in a mash-up with scenes adapted from the original Mr. Bluebeard on stage at t he time. In so doing, playwright Jay Torrance (who also plays stage manager Robert Murray) and director Halena Kays provide us a sampling of antique theatrical techniques and practices from the period. Choreographic by Ariel Etana Triunfo is exquisite, and scenic design by Doug Kmiec is wonderful.

The show opens with body bags on the smoldering ruins of the stage, the actors emerging in tattered costumes, and launch into the story – reminding the audience they are playing the role of the original audience – more than a third of whom died. This provocative tease (though it goes on a little too long, giving us multiple false starts)
Running 100 minutes with no intermission, the characters are drawn from real people like stage manager Murray, and Chicago vaudeville comedian Eddie Foy (Ryan Walters), who was in the road show production, and earned acclaim in the disaster for helping keep the audience calm.

Most entertaining is Pamela Chermansky as the Fancy Clown, who plays through various vignettes and comic scenes, then periodically steps out of the clown character to comment as a “master thespian” on the production of Mr. Bluebeard.

“History knew better than the playwright, better than any of us, that it wasn’t any good,” she declaims haughtily. Ticket sales were slow, so the producers kept adding scenes, songs, and production embellishments, which also added fuel for the fire. Objecting to revisions in one of her scene, Fancy Clown ironically tells them to go ahead, “Unless you are bored with petty things, like artistry, and craft!” her a voice dripping with disdain.

At the other end of the spectrum is stage manager Robert Murray (Jay Torrance), who is all about the technical mechanics of the show, and knows this production is a dog. He also provides the specific details regarding locked safety doors, incomplete fire escapes, a burning fire curtain, and hemp-filled seating that magnified the effects of the tragedy.

A realistic touch from from the pantomime style of Mr. Bluebeard is the inclusion of The Fairie Queen, with Crosby Sandoval giving an absolutely arresting performance. In a worn white lace and organdy frock, the hairy chested, mustachioed Sandoval delivers engimatic utterances muffled through a tin can hanging on a string around his neck. (Notes in the progam let us know cross dressing, fairie queens, and purely silent scenic interludes were all part of the pantomime theatrical style.) 

Adding to the woe, the day of the Iroquois Theater tragedy was the show’s first sell out in the 1,650 see theater, with scores more packed in, the overflow filling standing room and even seating themselves in the stairway aisles of the upper balconies.

The mayor shuttered all the theaters in town while the fire was investigated. Afterward emerged building code changes like mandatory exit lights, improved fire proofing and readily accessible fire escapes – and other changes that are now the norm in all public spaces.

Burning Bluebeard runs through December 27 at the Ruth Page Center in Chicago, and is highly recommended.

Who doesn’t like Nat King Cole? A band pianist who achieved mega-stardom in the late 1940s and 1950s, Cole’s pitch-true tenor was inflected by a nasal reverb, and that slight rasp that individualized him, making his voice on recordings still fresh, and endlessly interesting.

Because of his immense talent, Cole was immensely popular, and even at the height of Jim Crow, he was the first African-American to have a solo Billboard hit – Mona Lisa in 1950; and to host his own television show, in 1956-1957.

If you don’t know Nat King Cole, that’s him singing Mel Torme’s “Christmas Song” [Chestnuts roasting on an open fire]. Even as the Christmas jukebox cranks up, Cole’s thoughtful, sophisticated interpretations of holiday songs remain a pleasure.

So I was extremely excited to see “An Unforgettable Nat King Cole Christmas,” starring Chicago actor Evan Tyrone Martin. I figured it might be like a television Christmas special. And the venue – in the sleekly appoint 80-seat Venus Cabaret – is a cozy recreation of a posh 1950s night club.

Martin enters the stage, lanky, grey tux with black piping, narrow black necktie, crowned with an Afro, I was not sure what I was gonna get - this didn;t look like Nat. But when he sings, and the band plays, the show becomes “Unforgettable,” to reference another of Cole’s hits – which are plentiful during the evening. (I bought two copies of the recording!)

Rather than a purely Christmas show, Martin sings a representative range of Nat King Cole’s favorites and hits (he recorded more than 100 songs). Martin is backed by a notable jazz quintet (Ryan Bennett on drums; Joshua Ramos on bass; Andy Pratt on guitar; Rajiv Halim on woodwinds; and Jo Ann Daugherty, music director, on piano), who bring us the flavor of the jazz style that Cole fed into mainstream popularity.

Recalling Cole’s story, Martin remains himself, recounting his personal story as well, and contrasting and comparing it with Cole’s – who was brought up in Chicago, the son of a preacher. In the patter between songs, Martin keeps it real; we get the back story on both men (though Martin is much too young to have heard Cole live). 

Nat King Cole died in 1965; he was just 45, from lung cancer. And while he had a television show, it went off the air for lack of a national sponsor, despite NBC’s support. In the story, Martin quotes Cole: “I guess Madison Avenue is just afraid of the dark,” Cole said. 

In singing, Martin interprets Cole, rather than imitating him – and with the band recreates the signature phrasing and color on a number of his hits, notably “Mona Lisa,” “Unforgettable,” “(You Can Get Your Kicks on) Route 66,” “Straighten Up and Fly Right” and “L-O-V-E.” In both the running banter and personal anecdotes, and the music, Martin keeps it authentic. I dearly loved his rendition of "On the Street Where You Live" from My Fair Lady, which was so typical of Cole's interpretive magic.

The band in some respects is better able to capture the sound, because Martin’s voice is so rich, and richly trained, that there is just no restraining it when he holds a note too long, and in certain registers. But at points it is uncannily accurate, and we are immersed in Nat King Cole’s musical genius.
I came away touched by this tender attention to Nat King Cole, by the star of this show, Evan Tyrone Martin.

A production of Artists Lounge Live, you can see An Unforgettable Nat King Cole Christmas at Venus Cabaret Theater on Friday, Dec. 13, Saturday Dec. 14, and Sunday, Dec. 15; and then two last chances on Monday, Dec. 16 and Tuesday Dec. 17 at Writer’s Theatre in Glencoe.

As Chicago stages turn to Dickens and Tchaikovsky, you can find darker but equally fun fare in Trap Door Theatre’s high-flying production, The White Plague. This imaginative, high-energy show brings us the black-gowned denizens of a futuristic nation in the throes of a plague, with rising fascism and an imminent war as backdrop.

The story is drawn from “The White Disease,” Czech author Karel Capek’s 1937 play (it was also a film by Hugo Haas), sometimes characterized as an absurdist work.

What Trap Door does with this the material is rather miraculous – with the ethos of Terry Gilliam’s "Brazil," it conjures an engrossing tale of a leprosy-like flesh-eating plague afflicting those 45 and older. Terms like "Pandemic" and "Peking Virus" are shouted among the populace. "Death follows in three months - mainly from sepsis," intones one expert solemnly, calling it the "Leprosy of Licentiousness." I had to remind myself this is long before AIDs, because public reactions to its spread were strikingly similar. 

The action takes place in a fascist state (Germany?) where Sigelius (Dennis Bisto) has been running a clinic that is treating the well-to-do as the disease spreads. But he treats just their symptoms, salving their pus-filled sores with ointments that mask the putrid smells, while his minions continue research on a real cure in the laboratory. In a nod to Capek’s robots, Sigelius’s aids, First Assistant (David Lovejoy) and Second Assistant (Emily Nicholson) are Cyborg-like automatons who must dock to recharge when emotions overwhelm them.

Then arrives Dr. Galen (Keith Surney), who has developed a real cure, which he is ready to test on a broader basis. Sigelius, fearful of losing this well-heeled clientele to a real cure, allows Dr. Galen to test his life-saving meds only on the indigent patients, housed, as one might expect, in Ward XIII. Dr. Galen also provides a moral center for the play's action, as he has been asking himself why, as a doctor, he treats people only to see them wounded and killed in war. He is angry about the complicity of his medical profession in war efforts in general. "Preaching against war is against our national interest," Sigelius advises him, but Dr. Galen is unconvinced.

The play also brings us a more middle-class family, and we meet Mother (Robin Minkens, above) and Father (Michael Mejia) and their children who have more conventional struggles with the disease. Minkens and Mejia have developed believable characters who are also caricatures. Mejia does double duty as the conflicted and compromised Commissar, who is loathe to leave his high stature post, even though it will help spread the cure. Likewise, Minkens becomes someone else altogether, as the dictator Baron Krug, and resists giving up her office for the same reasons. 

Soon enough we encounter the powerful leather-clad Marshal (Marzena Bukowska), in steampunk choker and flare collar, riding roughshod over the land, readying the nation for war. Bukowska and Bisto deliver inspired performances, as surely Jeff-worthy as anything I have seen this season. Marshal is the military apparatchik of the dictator Baron Krug. Both drive the war machine.

This rendering of The White Plague is liberally adapted from the spirit of Capek’s script, by director Nicole Wiesner, who says presenting a literal translation would be difficult to follow. Unlike Western Europe and North America, “In Eastern Europe, the director is freer to adapt,” Wiesner says. Capek with his brother Josef were known as science fiction authors, and claim fame for originating the word “Robot” in their other play, a 1920 work called R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots).

Such works, along with a focus on other European scripts, are the métier of Trap Door – which is celebrated for its wide-ranging dramaturgy (credit to Milan Ribisic for this show). The scene design, Plexiglas and voile partitions by J.Michael Griggs, is intentionally minimalist, but director Wiesner amps up the show by keeping actors on stage throughout (80 minutes, no intermission). Each character periodically retreats behind these see-through partitions, and becomes part of the set, creating a mosaic, miming and mugging in their multiple character roles. Also notable - the sound design by Danny Rockett, who rehearsed assiduously with the cast to achieve precision timing to match blocking and scene changes. Rockett's sound score is on par with the best. 

The character’s on stage are individual personalities, but some like Sigelius and Dr. Galen represent archetypes. These two joust with each other not just verbally, but in psychic power struggles where each bests the other in telekinetic trials much like Dr. Strange - a theatrical expression of role-play type board games.

Highly recommended, The White Plague runs through January 11 at Trap Door Theatre, 1655 W. Cortland in Chicago.

Rutherford and Son tells the story of an early 20th century glass making factory in northern England. It’s run by rough a tumble owner, Rutherford – played convincingly and powerfully by Steppenwolf’s Francis Guinan. Under his thumb are hundreds of workers, who he treats as recalcitrant peasants; and his three children – all of whom chafe under his rule, which has forced them into unrewarding lives. Yet Rutherford is driven only to keep the glass furnaces blasting, oblivious to his tyrannies petty and grand.

This Chicago premiere of the 1912 play by Githa Sowerby is handsomely produced, and relatively engaging, especially considering the antique nature of the work. In its day this first script by Sowerby, a children’s author, was a sensation – though she did not manage to write a successful sequel.

That’s surprising, given how fully drawn and realistic the characters are in what is essentially a melodrama. Perhaps the author could not have a follow-on success because it is somewhat autobiographical, since Sowerby’s family operated a similar glassworks, this was the only play Sowerby had in her. It is not so different than a PBS upstairs and downstairs style drama, as Rutherford and Son tracks three generations of the glass manufacturing dynasty. 

Rutherford and Son is also is regarded as an early feminist work.For example, the female protagonist, Mary (Rochelle Therrien is excellent), challenges and bests her father-in-law, Rutherford, in a nicely turned dramatic closing. Mary is the wife of John (Michael Holding), the older son seen - portrayed as a ne’re do well impractical dreamer who is heir to the Rutherford fortune. Holding gets this role just right.

The play takes place in the family mansion, where Rutherford’s sister Ann (Jeannie Affelder is good as the skinny dowager), daughter Janet (Christina Gorman is compelling), and other son, a hapless Anglican chaplain Richard (August Forman) are generally at odds with each other about how to manage the volatile patriarch, Rutherford.

Notable as well is Janet's surreptitious love interest, Martin (Matt Bowden), the quintessence of a dutiful plant manager who goes all to smouldering in an elicit affair with Janet. (The scandal eventually drives both of them away from the factory town.) The assertive Janet is also an empowered female, asking Martin to elope with her, and when he refuses, heading off on her own - certainly an unusual woman stage character, especially in its day.

Under Rutherford’s dominion, hundreds of employees churn out bottles and jars, and inexpensive consumer products in a classic, 19th century style unenlightened capitalist setting. Unwelcome or un-understood by Rutherford are emotional or spiritual matters, or even innovative thinking – nothing but grinding harder to get more and more work done. But the business operations and the family wither under his dark indifference.

The production and sets are excellent, though this is a wordy play. Director Mechelle Moe has chosen to have the players use the regional north country dialect, which may be precise, but is laid on a little too thick at times, impairing understandability. With all that, it is somewhat recommended, though feminist sympathizers and theatre buffs will want to see what is listed by Royal National Theatre “100 best plays of the century.” Rutherford and Son runs through January 12, 2020 at the TimeLine Theatre in Chicago.

Goodman’s treasured director Robert Falls directs the Lyric Opera’s new production of Don Giovanni, the tale of that lustful, destructive Spanish sexual predator, Don Juan. Falls has wisely exercised restraint in this production, letting the sumptuous music of Mozart prevail. The musical high points will be familiar to anyone who has seen the movie or listened to the soundtrack Amadeus.

The story is another matter – in contemporary #MeToo society Don Giovanni does not quite fit the Weinstein-Epstein model of using leverage and power in his conquest of women. The dramaturgs struggle to find some way to explain Don Giovanni’s behavior to us. But there is none; he is not exactly a realistic character, but an exaggerated fiction who lays waste not to the objects of his desire, but to his posse of servants and friends as well. But there is a contemporary realism to Don Giovanni's destructive force and his entitlement to forcing himself on women. He doesn't accept that no means no, and we are still trying to change that heritage of patriarchy in the 21st century. 

In his day, Don Juan was a libertine. He also seems to be a sociopath and sex addict, cataloging the hundreds of women he has seduced, country by country. Like Epstein he seems to inspire profligacy and among his cohorts, but he takes advantage of them a few too many time. He is stalked by one double-crossed lover - - who makes it her mission to warn other women away from him. All this builds up to generating an enmity that finds an angry crowd of vigilante’s out to kill him.

Mozart’s formal full title of Don Giovanni is “The Rake punished, or Don Giovanni.” This indicates the story was conceived as a moral fable (the libretto in Italian is by Lorenzo da Ponte). Fall’s key touch, aside from a perfect closing scene (more on that later) was to reset the time frame from the 1600’s to the 1920s. This allows the women to reasonably be a bit more empowered, pursuing their own sexual destiny. But the original libretto clashes with this revisionist approach, since loss of reputation and fall from respectability is among their chief complaints against Don Giovanni. The 1920s setting is almost laughable during a ball in which the deco-inspired gowns (knockout costumes here and overall) when the flappers do minuettes rather than Charlestons. But it's opera. 

The music redeems it largely, though the garden bacchanal and Don Giovanni’s machinations are frankly, boring and drag on. Mozart’s music carries on a masterful counterpoint, with the characters given complexity expressed through this most lush score. The Lyric Opera Orchestra is reliably excellent, and this production is no exception. They just know how to play in support of the opera– a full, rich, underpinning for the great singers. 

Finally comes the climactic scene in Don Giovanni is his retribution for all this bad behavior – he is dragged down to hell. Falls did this so powerfully, opening a smoking pit on the stage and upending the banquet table, with Don Giovanni struggling against his fate as he slides into oblivion. It is one of the most satisfying final scenes I have witnessed, and helps cap the story of Don Giovanni, The Rake Punished. It runs at the Lyric Opera in Chicago through December 8.

*Ryan McKinney will portray Don Giovannio December 3rd through 8th

The Niceties is a play that engages the intellect. But in so doing, sets up a tug-of-war with our gut, addressing a visceral issue for today: race.

Like the puzzler plays Proof or Seminar (both also set at a university campus) The Niceties leads us to think through ideas, in this case the customs and intellectual practices of the erudite precincts of academia. Instead of a puzzle, though, we are faced with a compelling case, made by college student Zoe, that some of the pedagogical and research practices of university professors are mired in the past. And because of this, academia misses out on on the cultural train departing the station. The plain of this discussion takes place on how racially grounded cultural orientations shape how we see and describe the world - and record its history. 

Zoe (Ayanna Bria Bakari) is a college student working on a senior paper in Political Science, and thinking through plans for graduate school. During office hours with her professor Janine (Mary Beth Fisher), they review Zoe’s history paper on The American Revolution. After offering a broadly positive comment on the paper’s worthiness, Janine provides cursory advice on grammar and a missing comma (“You can’t proof on the screen,” Janine admonishes Zoe).

That little aside provides the first whiff of a divide between the two – digital, political, and cultural – that playwright Eleanor Burgess lays out for us in this engaging 2017 work. Zoe is African-American, a political activist, and like her peers in the millennial generation, schooled in online research.

Boomers like Janine (and me) keep stacks of volumes around and can remember where those passages are, if they can just find that book. Zoe, meanwhile, digs up the same citations on her smart phone pronto. 

After Janine mentions her son Zachary is a student, Zoe lets her know that he is in her poetry class. This sparks a self-ironic discourse in which Janine makes an unflattering revelation about herself. Having Zachary on campus, Janine says, has “forced me to see my students as something other than walking theses statements…which is very disorienting.”This bit of self-deprecation does not take away from the truth behind that statement. 

Janine recognizes that Zoe is quite a brilliant student, but is dismissive of her paper's primary contention – “A successful American Revolution was only possible because of slavery” – because it isn't backed by formal citations that support some of her assertions. Zoe instead cites websites and Wikipedia entries. 

But we suspect Janine's criticisms are based on something more. We learn that the action takes place prior to the 2017 election, as Janine confidently predicts Clinton will be the first woman President. In this detail Burgess reveals an arrogance about Janine, one borne of certainty about her world view. How much her confidence would be shaken by Clinton's loss we can only imagine. But the playwright has a preciipitous fall in store for Janine - which we will not spoil.

Suffice it to say the debate between the two builds in intensity, with Zoe challenging her professor’s demands for published, footnoted revidence of reference material.

“If you need evidence, you are excluding the people who couldn’t leave history behind,” Zoe asserts. (Current thought in academia now accepts “imagined history” from those without records - indigenous peoples and slaves.)

Janine is less used to receiving such impassioned pushback. “I like that you stick by your opinions,” Janine tells Zoe. But she doesn’t really. The scene becomes heated, and the argument builds to a crescendo.

“Your thesis is fundamentally unsound,” charges Janine, telling Zoe to rewrite the work, or take a lower grade. Once the gloves are off, Janine invites Zoe to illuminate her supposed shortcomings as a professor. When Zoe reads verbatim from Janine's lectures, she notes her unmitigating praise of Washington and Jefferson may not work so well for the five students in class who are descendants of slaves. 

The language of the dialog is razor sharp, and very much reflects the characters.  The matter ends in a crisis as Act 1 closes, and you will be anxious to find out what happens in Act II, though I confess to being a disappointed in the lack of a dramatic resolution at the final curtain.

Director Marti Lyons has coaxed out great performances in a production that is smart and fast paced. The Niceties runs through December 8 at Writers Theatre in Glencoe, IL.

Rink Life is a dance performance with a difference: these dancers also speak. And sing. And act.

Dance is said to have five elements - body, action, space, time and energy. But creative director Julia Rhoads (she was once part of Red Moon) adds voice as another component to that repertoire.

Over the course of 75 minutes (no intermission) Rink Life features a series of vignettes – perhaps one-act playlets – performed by seven dancers (Kara Brody, Michel Rodriguez Cintra, Melinda Jean Myers, Jacinda Ratcliffe, Rodolfo Sánchez Sarracino, A. Raheim White, Meghann Rose Wilkinson), roughly following the rise and fall in emotional dynamics that might flow through any social group.

The vignettes are interwoven – opening with a duo (Myers and Cintra) rehearsing a pas de deux to Madonna’s “Like a Virgin,” that quickly devolves into a discussion between the two of whether Madonna’s line is “for the very first time” or, “for the thirty-first time” as one dancer mistakenly has it. These two are interrupted when two other dancers arrive, announcing they have the space reserved. Then others appear until the full complement of the troupe is on stage.  

While Rink Life uses roller rink culture of the 1970s as a jumping off point, it is only loosely tied to its song playlist from the period.
What would otherwise be hackneyed music choices – Hey Jude, Stayin’ Alive, Total Eclipse of the Heart - are completelyrefreshed here. Rather than threadbare recordings, the dancers voice and interpret the songs, drawing out the beats they need to keep the dances in rhythm. Bethany Clearfield, who has worked with Music of the Baroque, is vocal collaborator and coach. 

Rink Life’s staging and choreography are said to be built from the spatial rules and social codes of a roller rink. Its script or libretto is samplings of those and other songs, and of “passing conversations, distant whispers, pop-song earworms, and found scripts” as Lucky Plush Productions describes it. 

In successive scenes one or another of the dancers isolates themselves from the group, or is ostracized – and we watch the familiar dynamics of rapprochement and resolution. This may all be expressed in very 1970s catch phrases – “I wasn’t feeling it” is a recurring concern as the dancers mount numbers - but the scenes depict fundamental constancies in human social dynamics too.

Each of the performers has a distinct personality on stage and several moments in the spotlight. But Cintra and White stand out, while Melinda Myers reminded me so much of a dancing version of comedienne Kristen Wiig.

Refreshing as an Italian ice, Rink Life brings a continuously unexpected take how people get along in groups. Rink Life runs through November 17 at Steppenwolf Theatre’s cozy 1700 space.

We all know that certain words are verboten in polite society - some because they are coarse, like expletives; others because they are demeaning or belittling, or off-limits.

One of these – the N-word – is the hook that triggers the action in a new play, called, simply, ‘N,’ at the Greenhouse Theater Center. Smoothly directed by TaRon Patton, the story revolves around an ambitious young actor, Eddy (Ryan Smetana) who has been hired as a live-in aid for the 70-year-old Mrs. Page (Stacie Doublin).

Immediately we are intrigued by Mrs. Page, who is a character rarely (if ever) portrayed, an African-American Goldwater Republican. Eddy, who is white, is all about proper liberal social behavior, in visible arenas, like recycling, and bringing his own shopping bags to the grocery store. He is also rather a narcissist, and the consummate guy with his heart-on-his-sleeve.

Mrs. Page does not suffer his foolishness gladly, and has reluctantly accepted his arrival in her home. She quickly sets, and carefully maintains, a dividing line to ward off any emotional intimacy with this intruder. But Eddy is young, and crashes and burns a couple times – expecting and eventually getting emotional support, though its dispensed sparingly by Mrs. Page.

Things all come to a head when Eddy gets his career break with a major name theater production. But then, a script rewrite inserts the ‘N’ word in the show, and he resigns the role. There are stormy moments for both parties.

And Mrs. Page, who earns a living as a stock trader and investment advisor, makes a compelling case for her support - as an African-American – for conservative 1960s-era Republican Barry Goldwater, who staunchly defended the right of the individual. “Contrary to popular opinion,” Mrs. Page tells Eddy, “you are a minority – of one.”  

Playwright David Alex shows canny skillfulness in the craftsmanship of ‘N.’ For example, as the play opens, Eddy is auditioning with lines from Oedipus concerning fate versus free will, done in a Southern dialect - foreshadowing the discussions ahead. 

Still the first act needs polishing: lines by Mrs. Page like, “Your employment includes room and board,” and “Understand it is not by my choice that you are employed here,” seem less like dialog than scene-setting pronouncements. At two different points, in a darkened room, a phone call is overheard by an unseen third party – that seems contrived. And Eddy behaves and speaks with unnatural familiarity as a new arrival in Mrs.Page's home. Likewise for Mrs. Page, though she is rough, not friendly like Eddy.

There seem to be some distracting plot points, e.g., Mrs. Page is an avid astrologist, but has been housebound since one of her predictions led to tragedy. And she cooks Jewish dishes for a neighbor.

The second act, though, completely redeems things – suggesting that first half may be in development still. We really see the characters come into their own. Stacie Doublin is powerful in the later dialog. And a final, doleful scene performed in silence by Eddy and Mrs. Page is moving and strongly affecting.

Also noteworthy is the performance of Reginald Hemphill as Eddy’s buddy DeShawn, who commands the stage for his brief time on it. Speaking also on word usage, “You are not a ‘brother,’” DeShawn, who is African-American, advises Eddy. “This may come as a shock to your white liberal sensibilities, but you are not black!”

Alex, who is a fixture in Chicago theater, has written more than a dozen other scripts, including Eroica at Red Twist Theatre, and Ends, which won an African-American Theater Festival Award at the University of Louisville. ‘N,’ thought provoking and lively, comes recommended. ‘N’ runs through November 17 at Greenhouse Theatre in Chicago.

Sometimes tragedy is so extreme, our only response is to be driven to distraction – like that character in a graphic novel pushed off the edge, laughing in the abyss. Or think of the performance of Joaquin Phoenix in The Joker.

A work springing from this sentiment is playing live on stage, at the Athenaeum Theatre, in a new production format called “The Style,” a unique performance vernacular developed by The Conspirators. Every element – writing, directing, ensemble performance, music, set - brings something you will likely not have seen before.

The play is Accidental Death of a Black Motorist- the title alone both suggestive and incendiary. What happens on stage is even more so, with a truly barn-burning performance by Anthony Hinderman – a recent arrival to the Chicago scene and now an ensemble member in The Conspirators. (I am already grieving the likelihood this guy will soon be scooped up by New York or Hollywood.)

The roots of this work are heady, drawn from Italian Nobel laureate Dario Fo’s absurdist Death of an Anarchist. Writer Sid Feldman, who has adapted it into a precise Chicago argot, justifiably claims script credits, having updated the original to a relentlessly witty, laugh-rich brew that will leave you breathless, and powerfully impacted. 

In a nutshell, the story tells of a Chicago police crew who have arrested a man for “driving while black,” (we never see him). "The subject was driving too nice of a car for that neighborhood," explains the arresting officer in his broad Chicago accent. 

The victim somehow ends up jumping to his death from a fourth floor police station window during questioning. Feldman has transmogrified these hapless cops into a witless crew that is unable to develop its own cover story to avoid liability for the innocent man’s death. 

Then comes the subversive Actor (Anthony Hinderman) who re-enters the scene (he had earlier been arrested for a minor infraction but skipped out) and now convinces the police he has been sent by the court to help them clear their names. Crafty as a grifter, The Actor transforms into several characters, but the cops don’t catch on. As Actor reads through the police report he ostensibly helps them generate alibis for their inconsistencies, but once they commit to one of his proposed covers, he lets them see the new story won’t fly under questioning either. 

Detective Berkstra (Nathaniel Fishburn), speaking in heavilyinflected South'side, complains,  "You said you were here to help us, but all you've done is cast doubt on everything we say!" 

Hindeman brings a extraordinary plasticity to his facial expressions. Coated in pancake and heavily made up, he grimaces and mugs for all he is worth. 

The technique used in the show is “The Style,” which The Conspirators describe as a distilled amalgam of the 16th century Italian Commedia del Arte style, with “influences like Kabuki, Kathakali, Bugs Bunny, and a high-energy punk-rock aesthetic” that is like “a coke-fueled clown nightmare.”

Abandoning any semblance of naturalism, the actors are done up in grotesque makeup, with stylized movements punctuated by very expressive percussion as commentary. (Sarah Scanlon played the night I saw the show.) Footlights illuminate the stage in a stark glare, perhaps off-putting at first, but mesmerizing soon enough.

You may fear for Hinderman lest he be immolated in the blaze he sets on stage, but so too the rest of the troupe, who have clearly drunk whatever cool-aid The Conspirators are mixing. In fact, the cast really becomes one actor. Every performer amazes – Kate Booth as Detective Bertowski, Nathaniel Fishburn as Detective Berkstra, Ali Janes as TV newscaster Madison Boan, Nicole Frydman as Chief of Police, and the list goes on.

I sought out this play after a friend mentioned their previous production, The Deckchairs, or, Make the Titanic Great Again. (That one tells what happens on board after an iceberg denier is elected captain of the unsinkable ship.)

Wm. Bullion directed this unique show, which uses its special forms and styles to cast a fresh light on the social injustice it addresses. Far from dreary, it is truly liberating. Accidental Death of a Black Motorist runs Thursday, Friday and Saturdays through November 23 at the Athenaeum Theatre, 2936 Southport on Chicago.

Triggered by Shylock’s role, Invictus Theatre gives us a strong production of The Merchant of Venice. One of Shakespeare’s most accessible plays, The Merchant is seasoned with timeless lines: “Love is blind”, “Let me play the fool,” “The quality of mercy is not strained,” “the devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.”

And its well-crafted subplots include the famous trio of suitors seeking the key to marry the princess Portia (Julia Badger), by choosing blindly among three boxes - with only the barest of hints to guide them. The Merchant of Venice also features Shakespeare’s only explicitly Jewish character, Shylock (Joseph Beal) – a moneylender who, along with his Jewish companion, Tubal (Joshua Seeger), is reviled by the citizens of Venice. In this production, we are transported to Mussolini’s Italy in 1938 – a time when Hitler’s Nuremburg laws against Jews were promulgated.

Though updating the period of Shakespeare’s plays is almost commonplace, as though the scripts are in need of a facelift, Invictus heightens the impact of the singularly disturbing Jew-baiting structured into Shakespeare’s action and dialog. The opening scene features menacing uniformed Blackshirt fascista in jackboots and jodhpurs, and soon enough the merchant Antonio (Chuck Monro) spits in the face of Shylock (Joseph Beal). Mussolini’s face is plastered in posters all around, and his thundering speeches play before the curtain rises. The costumes by Sato Schechner are elegant and on trend.

What Shakespeare had in mind with Shylock is open to question; Jews had been driven from and banned by England for centuries. Invictus dramaturg Michael Shapiro notes the play was likely produced in response to a plot to kill Queen Elizabeth – for which her Jewish-Spanish physician was executed. The Bard may also have been drawn to the outsider nature of Shylock, who like Othello or Hamlet, suffers for his “otherness.”

Christians in Venice were prohibited by the Church from making loans, so Jews made them. Shylock laments his lack of stature among the merchant class, despite the essential service he offers.

In the play, the young merchant Bassanio (Martin Diaz-Valdes) needs funding for ships in a trading expedition. Shylock sets up a bullet-proof contract with default requiring payment in the famous “pound of flesh.” Bassanio also needs the wealth to buttress pursuit of Portia as his bride. As the plot turns, the ships founder in storms, and the loan is called. Shylock engenders our sympathy as he expounds eloquently on the abuse he suffers from the trading class.

When Bassanio’s associate Salarino (Mitchell Spencer) suggests the terms are too harsh to enforce, Shylock asserts his case compellingly in the marketplace:

He hath disgraced me, and….what's his reason? I am a Jew….

Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? …If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?

In this Merchant of Venice, the language of Shakespeare is handled effectively, with Chuck Monro as Antonio, Martin Diaz-Valdes as Bassanio and Madeline Pell as Nerissa delivering compelling performances.  Monro also brings a depth of emotion to his part.

In the role of Shylock, Joseph Beal uses a kind of Ashkenaz accent (a Western European “Jewish” accent if I have it right) which atop the Elizabethan English is quite a feat. But it seemed to me the Ashkenaz was slathered on a bit heavily, which at times diminished the power of the underlying script. Still you cannot not miss the power of his Shylock performance, a testament to Beal’s strength. A nod to a very special performer is in order: Jack Morsovillo played Launcelot, the Jailer, and the suitor, the Prince of Arragon, effortlessly switching roles, between stints playing incidental guitar music. Well done!

Recommended, The Merchant of Venice runs through November 17 at the Pride Arts Center, 4147 N. Broadway in Chicago.