Displaying items by tag: Dexter Zollicoffer

We often forget that The Taming of the Shrew is, at its core, a play within a play - a bit of theatrical mischief in which characters watch other characters pretend. Marti Lyons’s ambitious new adaptation for Court Theatre not only remembers this but revels in it. She reframes Shakespeare’s battle-of-wills as a private, immersive experience for five elite guests - figures who could easily have wandered off the set of Succession—invited to indulge in a curated world of erotica, fantasy, and power play. This is not like any production of Shrew I have ever seen. And I love it.

Lyons taps into the erotic charge embedded in Shakespeare’s text. For Lyons the struggle between Kate and Petruchio isn’t a patriarchal lesson but a provocation - an invitation to consider what people consent to in the privacy of their desires, even when those desires run counter to their public personas. In fantasy, we try on identities we might never inhabit in daylight. Could Kate, in this telling, actually be exercising her agency by consenting to a submissive role in her intimate life while fiercely maintaining her autonomy in her public life? The question lingers.

The production openly engages with bondage, discipline, dominance, submission and S&M,  - not as taboo spectacle but as a consensual system built on trust, communication, and negotiated power. This is especially evident at Petruchio’s house.  Instead of treating Kate’s submission as Shakespeare’s dreaded moral, Lyons reframes it as a conversation about desire and embodiment. The cast leans into this with a refreshing clarity: pleasure, not punishment, drives the story. Power is a game, and everyone in the room is choosing to play.

By foregrounding the play-within-the-play structure, Lyons opens a fertile space not only to re-engage with the text but to ask ourselves uncomfortable, thrilling questions about love and control, submission and domination, agency and desire. It is rare for a Shrew to feel so sensual and so intellectually alive.

Much of the production’s force comes from its ensemble. As Katherina, Melisa Soledad Pereyra embodies fire, humor, and hunger—a woman who knows her own body and mind. Her chemistry with Jay Whittaker’s Petruchio is the engine of the evening: two equals circling, sparring, testing limits until the battle between them becomes a dance. Netta Walker’s Bianca is no docile ingénue; she claims her place with confident wit. Samuel Taylor, Nate Santana, and Dexter Zollicoffer bring sharp comedic flavor to Hortensio, Lucentio, and Gremio, while Ryder Dean McDaniel anchors Tranio with duplicitous cunning. The supporting cast - Alex Weisman, Monica West, and others - soften and sharpen the edges of the world as needed.

The design team conjures a world where erotic imagination thrives. Jackie Fox’s scenic design refashions Court Theatre into a sensuous playground of marble black-and-white tiled floors, sculpted statues, expansive botanical murals, and imposing wooden doors. Kotryna Hilko’s costumes heighten the atmosphere with daring textures - leather for Petruchio, jewel-toned gowns for the women, jacquard damask for the aristocrats - each piece balancing revelation and restraint, structure and seduction. Every visual element underscores Lyons’s central argument: desire is a kind of performance, and every performance is a negotiation of power.

This Taming of the Shrew pulses not with brute domination but with the sensual, exacting choreography of consent. Lyons doesn’t blunt the play’s jagged edges; she sharpens them into tools of erotic inquiry. Her staging invites us to feel the heat of what is given freely, the tautness of what is deliberately withheld, and the exhilaration of boundaries tested - then mutually defined.

Court Theatre’s production doesn’t simply reinterpret Shrew; it challenges us to reinterpret ourselves. By grounding the story in erotic power exchange and consciously negotiated dynamics, Lyons’s adaptation pushes us to confront the desires we rarely articulate. What do we relinquish willingly? What pleasure do we find in surrender? And what power do we claim by choosing when—and to whom—we yield? In Lyons’s hands, the theatre becomes a chamber of self-interrogation, where the line between performance and private longing thins, and we’re invited to examine the fantasies that shape us as intimately as any script.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

When: through Dec 14TH

Where: Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis Ave.

Running Time: 2 hours, 30 minutes 15 minute intermission

Tickets: $60 - $90.00 Student, Group and military discounts available

773-753-4472

www.courttheatre.org

Director Chuck Smith returns to Goodman with another major August Wilson revival–“Joe Turner’s Come and Gone”. This is the second play in Wilson’s 10-play “American Century Cycle”. Goodman produced the first play in the series, “Gem of the Ocean” in 2022 as well as “Two Trains Running” in 2015. Both directed by Chuck Smith. Returning also is A.C. Smith, a staple of any August Wilson production in Chicago.

“Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” takes place in 1911, in Pittsburgh, where most of August Wilson’s work is set. Staged in a boarding house respectably kept by Seth (Dexter Zollicoffer) and Betha (TayLar) Holly, where their regular lodgers Bynum Walker (Tim Rhoze) and Jeremy Furlow (Anthony Flemming III) keep them busy. When a mysterious man and his young daughter arrive looking for a room strange things begin happening.

Wilson has a gift for turning vernacular into poetry. His world-weary characters speak with a sort of casual beauty that rivals Tennessee Williams. That much is never clearer than when Molly Cunningham saunters into the boarding house. Krystel V McNeil captivates as Molly, delivering every line with seductive authority. The purpose of her character is somewhat ambiguous but she’s a welcomed presence nonetheless.

The mysterious man, Herald Loomis, is in search of his wife Martha who is also the mother of this daughter. Bynum and Seth are skeptical but when supernatural things begin happening, a revelation is exposed that calls into question how free the nation really was in the early part of last century.

As always, A.C. Smith’s commanding performance showcases not only a true talent for reinvention, but a deep understanding of August Wilson’s intentions. The chemistry between director Chuck Smith and A.C. Smith is palpable in everything they work on together.

Wilson wrote epics. And this production feels epic. Though there are thematic overlaps in his play cycle, each are distinct masterpieces in themselves. “Joe Turner” like all of Wilson’s plays feels like classic theater. It combines so many elements from lore to magical realism, but on a Goodman-scale backdrop. What a treat it is to see these works produced to impeccable, if not gold standards complete with dream casting.

Thanks to a special relationship between Chuck Smith and August Wilson, Chicago is a mecca for August Wilson’s plays. Between the Court Theater in Hyde Park and Goodman, you’re likely to see all of them if you stay in Chicago long enough. While each has been presented on Broadway at one time or another, his plays aren’t produced nearly as often as they should. Thankfully Denzel Washington is committed to getting each of the plays in the cycle adapted into a film–so far, also to impeccable standards. 

Wilson wrote essential plays that speak for more than just the African American experience, but rather the entire American experience and where it might be headed. Though the last century was full of strife, Wilson finds triumph in every era. His plays certainly don’t shy from the truth, but they always offer a road to hope. 

Through May 19 at Goodman Theatre. 170 N Dearborn. 312-443-3800.