Displaying items by tag: Otherworld Theatre

It was a dark and stormy night as I motored to The Conspirators “Chicago Cop Macbeth,” with a fog of dust giving the streets an eerie feel. As the lights came up at the Otherworld Theater, the storm continued, the three witches of MacBeth gathered tightly around a fiery oil drum as thunder and lightning filled the room along with their chanting of Shakespeare’s famous opening lines, Fair is foul, and foul is fair: Hover through the fog and filthy air.

But this was different than the usual scene of the Bard’s classic iambic pentameter, for these witches were dressed as Chicago police in yje blue shirts of the department’s lower ranks, the British Midland accents replaced by one of the city’s most beloved native dialects, Bridgeport English.

The show’s style coach Sid Feldman, adapter and director William Bullion and ‘Script Doctor” Aili Huber have tailored Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” to place it close to home. The tale of the Scottish lord who took the royal throne through murder and mayhem is now set as a struggle among district police commanders to capture the seat of the superintendent. Action moves from the Scottish highlands and heath, to the Police District 5, Rogers Park District, and Daniel Burnham Forest Preserves.

Lt. Cmdr. Lady Macbeth (Clara Byczkowski) urges Cmdr. Macbeth (Travis Barnhart) into action

Eschewing emotional naturalism in their performances, The Conspirators are known for their unique acting format, “The Style,” a type of Commedia dell’ Arte seasoned with bits of Kabuki, Bugs Bunny, grotesque make-up and stylized movement. Lines are delivered in bite-sized chunks. These are punctuated by a percussionist, in this performance Tom Jacek, who brought forth a more subtle commentary perfectly adapted to the dramatic mystery and power of “Chicago Cop Macbeth.”

Hearing Shakespeare this way makes it come alive, and be heard differently—perhaps like hearing the lines recited as rap. Though the emotional core of Shakespeare’s story recedes compared to more conventional approaches, the show is arresting in another way, for the language. To hear those lines, sometimes spoken into shoulder-mounted walkie-talkies, is jolting. The transformation by local touches brought lots of laughter:

Macbeth’s discomfort holding a crown he has murdered to win—Now does he feel his title hang loose about him, like a giant's robe upon a dwarfish thief—becomes “hangs loosely around him, like a Bear’s jersey.”

Quite striking is the line We will speak further, as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth plot to kill King Duncan. Spoken in Chicago Bridgeport, it sounds like something whispered between two lawyers at the back of a Cook County courtroom—as it certainly still is.

Supt. Macbeth (Travis Barnhart) banishes the Ghost of Cmdr. Banquo (Collan Simmons, in center)   

Most surprising was the revelation of The Conspirators as capable, competent Shakespearean performers.For most Conspirators shows, written as original comedic pieces, the actors are not individualized, performing as many moving components in a series of hilarious scenes. Here, as the tightly adapted Shakespeare demands, we have Chicago Police versions of the Bard’s famous characters: Cmdr. Macbeth (Travis Barnhardt), Lt. Cmdr. Lady Macbeth (Clara Byczkowski), Supt. Duncan (Zach Foley), Lt. Cmdr. Malcolm (Demetri Magas), Cmdr. Banquo (Collan Simmons), Cmdr. MacDuff (Corin Wiggins) and many others.

Cmdr. MacDuff (Corin Wiggins) and a long line of Cmdr. Banquo’s descendants.

Of the standout performances, Travis Barnhardt must be commended as Cmdr. Macbeth, playing the role with occasionally lengthy stretches of Elizabethan English deftly converted to Chicago-ese. In some respects, Barnhardt’s Macbeth is the straight man to the sometimes comedic follies of the officers around him. Emily Ruth, Jacob Reno, and Eva Andrews as the Witches are superb: “Double, double toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble.” Ruth also appears continuously as a desk sergeant and owns the stage in every one of their scenes. And Corin Wiggins as Cmdr. MacDuff is truly dynamic.

On a personal note, “Macbeth” carries a reputation for bad luck, and actors avoid naming it, calling it the Scottish play. The morning after seeing “Chicago Cop Macbeth,” I discovered a tree had fallen on my car parked near Damen and Rice. It will be in the shop three weeks. 

The Conspirators “Chicago Cop Macbeth” runs through June 8, 2025 at Otherworld Theatre, 3914 N. Clark in Chicago.

*This review is also featured on https://www.theatreinchicago.com/! 

The Conspirators latest show is an absolute laugh fest, and may just be their funniest so far. Subversive in its social commentary, which hits you in your funny bone, The Conspirators have chosen Dante’s Divine Comedy for their latest show, “Divina Commedia: It’s Worse Than That.” They lead us through those circles of hell in which we find ourselves today, perhaps without realizing it.

We are introduced to a sleepless clergyman who has come to his sanctuary to work on tomorrow’s sermon. An upper middle class matron—described as a suburban Atlanta business heiress—wanders into the church in these wee hours seeking comfort over a dream plaguing her, and with this conceit, the humor ramps up.

First circle we meet is an unrelenting packaging line in an Amazon warehouse, with the cast moving those familiar boxes at a rapid pace. Our protagonist for the set needs to pee, but the line can’t stop. Soon perhaps everyone in the line is in the same predicament. No stopping to pee! The contortions and jumpiness of the denizens of this circle of hell suffer on endlessly with no relief. And we realize in our laughter they are stuck there, forever!

Another circle finds us at a community meeting chaired by a Karen, that meme of entitlement and complaint that is familiar to us all. After a modest proposal to spend a small sum on a group project, the discussion opens, and Karen the chair discovers all in attendance have an opinion, negative of course, and each happens to also be named Karen. The chair Karen is in her circle of hell, as each attendee carps and whines with no possibility to resolve these Karens' issues, they just want to complain, each in their own take on unresolvable “problems” with the proposal.

There are seven more osuch circles (one is "Ron Paul's Drag Race" with a remarkably funny appearance by Senator Mitch McConnell and Cher), all devised by the sharp pen of Sid Feldman and directed by Wm. Bullion, running at what seems to be a most congenial place for the Conspirators, the Otherworld Theatre at 3914 N. Clark St. in Chicago. Between each circle the heiress reflects acidly on the suffering with the clergyman, who serves the role of Father Virgil to guide her, a witty take on Dante’s original.

The production is in The Conspirator’s distinguished take on traditional Italian Commedia dell'Arte, which they dub “The Style,” with thick make-up drawn from Kabuki, “and with a dash of Bugs Bunny.” The exaggerated delivery, punctuated by drum rolls from an onstage percussionist, leads the audience to savor the lines—giving them added impact.

This time around the make-up has an added embellishment of very expressive lines, giving each character a distinctive mask that lends itself well to the roles. The Conspirators productions are deceivingly erudite, seriously referencing weighty underlying material, and bringing them to bear on contemporary life.

But the most important thing is how funny it is. You don’t need to know anything at all about the intellectual underpinnings of their shows, because the laughs are involuntary and completely overwhelming. Audiences will applaud dutifully at many shows. But you can’t fake laughter, the most honest of responses. “Divina Commedia: It’s Worse Than That” is an almost exhaustingly funny show. The Conspirators’ runs are typically very short. Absolutely don’t miss this one, through November 19 at Otherworld Theatre.

The title alone is the tip-off that “The 125th Anniversary Jubilee” from The Conspirators is out of the ordinary—an irreverent show that is both laugh-inducing and thought provoking.

“Jubilee” consists of a sampling of skits from The Conspirators past performances, as well as “imagined” skits from an impossibly distant past before the troupe was founded, including a 19th century riff on Sherlock Holmes revolving around the old saw, “Do you have Prince Albert in a Can.” Another piece, a supposed 1945 skit, ‘Harry Truman's Fitful Night’ finds Truman struggling to express to Americans the enormity of the nuclear holocaust at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We witness Truman irked that the Bhagavad Gita line, “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds” was already taken, used after a test detonation by physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer. So laughs are both highbrow and lowbrow.

These and other samplings, wrapped around a lengthier one-act French comedy of manners from 1898, make the evening a good introduction to the unique approach The Conspirators use. Known as “The Style,” it is based on a mix of classic Italian Commedia del Arte, Kabuki (actors are heavily made-up), and with a dash of Bugs Bunny. The exaggerated delivery, punctuated by drum rolls from an onstage percussionist, leads the audience to savor the lines—giving them added impact.

The core of the show, the one-act play by a French commentator, author and playwright Octave Mirbeau, is a send-up the social foibles of his time, a Moliere-esque comedy of manners, set at a town council debating what to do about an outbreak of typhoid fever at a local military base. The parallels to our ongoing battle with the Covid pandemic are unmistakable as we witness the council heed the advice of a medical professional who is a “plague denier” and then vote to do nothing, later turning 180 degrees when the disease inevitably strikes a favored member of one of their own bourgeoise.

For first-timers at a Conspirators show, the musical numbers that open the show may seem to come from left field, but very quickly the magnetic qualities of the unique format will draw you in. Written by Sid Feldman and directed by Wm. Bullion, the show draws also taps Monty Python and SNL material.  “The Conspirators’ 125th Anniversary Jubilee Featuring the Ineptidemic” left me laughing, and looking forward to the next 125 years.

The show runs through November 19 at Otherworld Theatre, 3914 N. Clark St., Chicago. Visit https://www.conspirewithus.org