Displaying items by tag: Timeline Theatre

IT’S TIME: ABOUT TIMELINE’S NEW HOME

Let’s face it – in today’s world, “vaccinations” are a hot-button topic. More than ever, anything around health has become highly politicized, and for some, can elicit a deeply emotional reaction. Therefore, consensus is even harder to come by, and for some, even entering the debate feels impossible.

Despite all of that, leave it to Playwright Jonathan Spector to do the impossible and turn a play about vaccinations and consensus into a laugh-out-loud comedy. If you’re anything like this Opening Night audience, you might even find yourself gasping for air as you try to work through the laughter enough to absorb whatever witty one-liner comes next.

Spector’s Eureka Day takes place at a highly progressive private school where all decisions are made by consensus. However, when a mumps outbreak takes over the school, the Executive Board is going to find that artisanal scones are not always going to provide enough band aid for differing opinions.  Chaos ensues as parents clash in opinions over vaccinations and research, leaving the community unsure of how the school will ever recover.

Directed by Lili‑Anne Brown, Eureka Day is a witty, fast‑paced production presented by TimeLine Theatre in partnership with Broadway in Chicago. The work of Brown’s talented creative team immediately transports us into an elementary school library – particularly that of Scenic Designer Collete Pollard. The combination of picture books, colorful bean bags, and small chairs is sure to leave you feeling nostalgic as you think back to a time when you perhaps inhabited spaces like this.

Brown’s production features a strong ensemble with spot-on comedic timing. PJ Powers as Don, Eureka Day’s principal, elicited great laughter at this performance through his deep need to smooth over any debate. With every sigh or pause, he had the audience in the palm of his hand – wondering how he was going to try and navigate that particular rough patch. Jürgen Hooper expertly strikes a delicate balance with his approach to Eli, a character that walks a line as he tries to embody the stereotypical “white, woke man.”  Aurora Adachi-Winter has an authentic, genuine approach to her Meiko – the mom so many of us will recognize as the one who does not want to ruffle feathers, but also only has so much farther she can be pushed before she simply has to let her anger explode.

You might find that part of the cleverness of Spector’s story is its ability to invite an audience to empathize with both sides of the vaccination debate. Much as one might expect – not every parent meets eye to eye. As the school navigates the decision on whether or not to mandate the mumps vaccine for their students, we receive a window into the personal experiences of families on both sides.

In one particular scene, it is only Suzanne (Rebekah Ward) and Carina (Gabrielle Lott-Rogers) on stage. It is clear at this point that while Carina is pro-vaccination requirements, Suzanne is very much against. There is a great deal of silence, and the discomfort can be felt in the audience. While I do not wish to give away all of the details, I can say this – both actors treat their sides of the debate with a delicate grace. There is an openness and generosity from both Lott-Rogers and Ward that allows the audience to understand where they are each coming from. Regardless of which side of the debate on which you fall, you might just find yourself moved by the scene – and the ability for both characters to let down their walls and help each other understand their side of a highly personal topic.

A witty script with a lot of heart makes Eureka Day an absolute must-see. The topic alone is timely, and the ensemble brings it to life in a way that will stick with you for days.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Eureka Day runs through February 22, 2026 at Broadway Playhouse – 175 E. Chestnut Street. For tickets and information, see the Timeline Theatre website.

TimeLine Theatre opens its 29th season with the world premiere of Hundreds and Hundreds of Stars, a deeply personal and politically charged play written by and starring Sandra Delgado. Under the careful direction of Kimberly Senior, the production folds an intimate family drama into the broader context of immigration under the Obama administration — a time when the tension between belonging and legality became a defining national paradox.

Delgado plays Clara, a woman whose life reads like a quintessential American story: educated in U.S. schools, an unemployed professional, a mother, an ex-wife paying alimony, and the devoted caretaker of her aging, recently widowed father. Yet, she carries one crucial distinction — Clara was born in Mexico. In the eyes of the government, despite her decades of living and contributing to the United States, she exists in a fragile legal limbo. It is this tension — between a lived sense of home and the precarity of status — that fuels Delgado’s heartfelt and sometimes haunting narrative.

The story unfolds in 2015, the final years of the Obama administration, when the nation’s immigration policy embodied contradictions. While Obama extended compassion through programs like DACA, his administration also deported more immigrants than any before it. It’s within that fraught atmosphere that Clara’s life unravels. As she plans an overseas trip, a bureaucratic hiccup exposes a youthful misstep from her past, threatening her livelihood, family, and even her right to remain in the country she calls home. What follows is both a bureaucratic nightmare and a spiritual reckoning, as Clara gazes skyward — toward “hundreds and hundreds of stars” — seeking guidance, belonging, and deliverance.

Senior’s direction is restrained and elegant, allowing Delgado’s writing to shimmer through the emotional and political layers of the story. The ensemble’s performances are uniformly grounded and generous. Ramón Camin gives Papi, Clara’s father, a stoic dignity — a man bound by nostalgia yet dependent on his daughter to navigate his new reality. Joshua David Thomas brings humor and restless charm to Ruben, Clara’s cousin, who juggles nursing school and low-level marijuana dealing with a kind of defiant optimism. Charlotte Arias’s Stella, Clara’s tween daughter with dreams of Paris, radiates a mix of giddy excitement at learning a new language and the tender angst of adolescence, embodying a generation eager to explore the world yet uncertain of their place within it. Charin Alvarez, playing every other woman in Clara’s orbit — from her attorney to her mother — threads the production together with wit, wisdom, and warmth.

Visually, the production achieves a graceful fluidity. Regina Garcia’s open set transforms seamlessly into apartments, offices, and memory spaces with minimal rearrangement, while Christine Binder’s lighting washes scenes in mood and emotion — from sterile bureaucratic glare to dreamlike luminescence. Willow James’s sound design and music further enrich the experience, grounding the play’s political urgency in emotional resonance.

Hundreds and Hundreds of Stars succeed because it is not a lecture on immigration policy, but a human portrait drawn from it. Delgado reminds us that behind every policy statistic — behind every deportation — lies a web of families, debts, dreams, and love stories. Clara’s story is one of endurance and faith, a meditation on identity and the invisible lines that divide “citizen” from “other.” In blending the personal and the political, TimeLine Theatre has once again illuminated how history lives — and aches — within the human heart.

Highly Recommended

When: Through November 9th

Where: Lookingglass Theatre, 163 E. Pearson Street

Running time: 90 minutes

Tickets: $40 - $95

(773)-287-8463

www.Timelinetheatre.com

Even 40 years later, the AIDS crisis continues to shape American life. Long before Hollywood brought AIDS stories to the cultural mainstream, the theatre was a safe place for actors and writers to explore their fears and sense of injustice for a mass audience.

‘Falsettos’ playwright William Finn began working on what would become the now classic musical in the 1970s, as a response to the gay liberation movement. The play started as a series of one-acts concerning Marvin, the show’s protagonist as he navigates leaving his family for his male lover. Initially the first installment, ‘In Trousers’ was a critical and commercial failure. Finn considered abandoning theatre entirely, but instead collaborated with lyricist James Lapine to create ‘Falsettos’. A musical that would explore both gay liberation and the early years of the AIDS epidemic through the vantage point of Finn’s character Marvin.

Court Theatre and TimeLine Theatre team up for a joint revival of ‘Falsettos’ at the Hyde Park theater. With a 70s-themed set, audiences are transported back to 1979 where they meet Marvin, the play’s central character played by Steven Schellhardt. Not only is this a play about gay culture, but it’s also a celebration of the Jewish-American experience. The show begins with a song ‘Four Jews in a Room Bitching’ that introduces the sing-songy musical style that permeates throughout.

Marvin is leaving his wife Trina (Sarah Bockel) for his new lover Whizzer (Jack Ball). Trina is taking up with the family psychiatrist Mendel (Jackson Evans). Their son Jason (Charlie Long) is caught in the middle as his parents duke it over his approaching bar mitzvah. Marvin wants it all, his perfect nuclear family and his new lover, at whatever emotional cost that comes to his son, his lover and Trina. What’s so striking about the first act is how modern the themes are. Perhaps in a world without the specter of AIDS hanging over it, this odd family arrangement would have eventually worked itself out. Act I essentially lives in a vacuum uninfluenced by the coming epidemic. Act II catches up with the characters two years later. Things have slightly improved for Marvin and his family but another grim reality emerges. Whizzer becomes one of the AIDS epidemic’s first victims. This 11’o clock tone shift admittedly feels jarring especially against the chipper upbeat music. Though, it makes this musical feel unique as far as AIDS literature goes. It’s not the AIDS musical per se, but rather a musical about the gay experience that features AIDS. In this story, the virus is so new it doesn’t even have a name or a course of treatment.

Lyricist James Lapine crafted words for Sondheim classics like ‘Sunday in the Park with George’ and ‘Into the Woods’. His signature rhyming scheme are both a blessing and a curse for ‘Falsettos’. Sarah Bockel is undeniably this production’s strongest asset, especially during  numbers like ‘Trina’s Song’ showcase her talent as a singer and physical performer. However, the lyrics feel outdated as any sort of feminist anthem.

The play is aptly titled ‘Falsettos’ as the characters are often singing in a much more upbeat style than the content of the lyrics. Sometimes it works, and sometimes the rhyming feels like a reach. The musical style works well in big cast numbers like ‘Falsettoland/It’s About Time’, but when the play takes on a more serious tone the format feels contradictory to the plot.

Director Nick Bowling and music director Otto Vogel present a faithful, high-end revival that will delight fans of the musical. The cast rises to the occasion wonderfully, especially child actor Charlie Long as the hopelessly awkward teen caught in the middle of his parents’ drama. Putting ‘Falsettos’ into the context of today’s more accepting world, it feels like a victory lap, a reminder of how far society has come. It’s a celebration of love in all its forms. 

Through December 8 at Court Theatre. 5535 S Ellis Ave. 773-753-4472.

TimeLine Theatre has entranced me for years with its historically- and politically-significant plays, riveting and educational – just my cup of tea! So, I felt honor-bound to pay homage to the final event TimeLine will produce in their current (way-too-small) Lincoln Park venue, where they’ve been for a quarter century. BLACK SUNDAY, by Dolores Diaz, sounded intriguing: a 1930’s rural family starving on land that’s been devastated by locusts, drought, and the Depression, leading up to the cataclysmic storm on April 14, 1935 that earned the Plains its moniker “Dust Bowl” (and inspired a Woody Guthrie song).

The story sounds terrific, but unfortunately it didn’t play out on the stage. All five characters were essentially caricatures of archetypal characters, without any individual uniqueness or liaison with one another. The performances were superb but fragmented by rapid runs of brief scenes that blacked out as soon as they got close to showing us who the characters were.

Pa (David Parkes), characterizing ‘strong silent type’, surpassed that cliche and went straight to surly and loutish. There was not one point in the production where I got any idea of how he felt about his wife or teenage daughter. He didn’t want to leave his Land, and that was the sum of his persona.

Certainly, the disasters across the Plains drove people insane and many of those were women. Ma (Mechelle Moe) was a traditionally Freudian hysteric: driven barmy by hardship and despair, she’s become psychotic, having visions that show her … what? I never quite saw. Ma hangs on Pa, imploring him to SEE the message in her visions and leave this hard-luck farm. I saw no trace of affection between Ma and Pa, but no true hostility either – the brief scenes of domestic violence were well played but uninformative. Aside from that one brief flare there was no real sense of how they felt about one another.

The character of daughter Sunny (Angela Morris) was classic rebellious adolescent, amplified by hardship and fear. Her rebellion and desire to fly the coop were authentic, but playwright Díaz returned to Victorian psychoanalysis by making her hypersexual, rubbing her baps on both the Mexican vagrant farmhand Jesús (Christopher Alvarenga) and the timorous preacher Jim (Vic Kuligowski). Jim’s extreme uptightness was noteworthy but never explored, though there could well have been interesting reasons for his qualms – deeply closeted? Wife and kids back in Abilene? Actually, hankering for Ma? Or Jesús? Jesús’s character is billed as having some sort of dark secret, but that ends up being fairly ho-hum and we learn little more about him.

So, these fragmentary folks wandered from one scene to another, moving on to the next before we could grasp why they’d just done … whatever.

The projections by Anthony Churchill and Parker Molacek were absolutely superb, partnering with Sound Designer Forrest Gregor to create a totally immersive experience, particularly the storms… and the locusts gave us an idea of What’s Next for Chicago! Props designer Saskia Bakker maintained TimeLine’s tradition of authentic and exciting touches, and Scenic Designers Joe Schermoly and Catalina Niño gave us a wonderful set, rich in nooks, crannies and levels, though I disagreed with some of the ways Director Helen Young utilized them. And I was a bit squicked by all the animal corpses: first chickens (with several additional references to eggs); then coyotes … one species after another piled onstage.   

This could have been a fine show; the actors were excellent, the production first-rate.  The problems lay with the play itself. Dolores Díaz was overambitious, trying to deliver The Show with Everything. She’d have done better to choose two or three themes to drill down on. She delivered the disaster and tragedy bits, but we could have got those from reading The Grapes of Wrath. And Steinbeck recognized the convoluted interpersonal dynamics as key. In BLACK SUNDAY the characters got lost in Díaz trying to include politics, racism, poverty, agricultural mismanagement, a bit of labor history, psychosis, sexual psychoneuroses, domestic violence … that makes for a pretty full agenda! even without expounding on climate change, not trusting the audience to make that connection ourselves.

Director Helen Young could have mitigated these problems with some judicious scene-cutting and slowing the action from machine-gunfire to a speed that would allow us time for thought and reflection before the next sensational scene superimposed itself. It was also faulty direction that kept the characters from connecting and interacting emotionally.

TimeLine Theatre is relocating to a vintage building in Uptown where they can expand their mission. Current estimates place its opening in 2026. In the meantime, TimeLine Theatre will continue to offer productions at various kindred theatres about the North side.

BLACK SUNDAY plays through June 29th

TimeLine Theatre     611 W Wellington

Why do we learn about history?

This question has been asked for ages and is often met with the response: So that history does not repeat itself. When it comes to plays about history, that question is often met with some version of the same answer. We witness historical events in a live, theatrical setting so that among other things, we can learn to do better.

Playwright Anna Deavere Smith invites us to consider that question, but adds another layer: How are we meant to learn about our mistakes in history if we do not first get to know the people involved? As with many of her other plays, Notes from the Field is documentary theatre, and comprised of verbatim dialogue pulled from more than 250 accounts from students, faculty, prisoners, activists, politicians, and victims’ families. Smith conducted these interviews during President Barack Obama’s term, and while this may not quite be present day, the subject matter is certainly contemporary. Over the course of the play, we meet 19 individuals – all fighting to overcome and change America’s educational and criminal justice systems – especially with the tendency to focus on incarceration.

The catch? This play does not feature 19 actors, but rather three women – Mildred Marie Langford, Shariba Rivers, and Adhana Reid. Skillfully directed by Mikael Burke, the transitions between characters feel seamless, and every individual whom one of these actors embodies feels distinct and specific. While Smith brings humor into the script, many of the stories reveal heartbreaking memories, and the three actors fill each of these moments with an authentic balance of compassion and anger.

And so, we return to this question: How are we meant to learn about our mistakes in history if we do not first get to know the people involved?

One of the many individuals whom Langford embodied in this performance was Denise Dodson, an inmate who detailed what she learned from prison. Scenic Designer Eleanor Kahn has left the space fairly minimal – allowing the text to do its work as we hear each individual’s story. Langford is alone on a chair, and Lighting Designer Eric Watkins fills the space with just enough light to cast a large shadow behind her. Nothing is hidden as Dodson reflects with the audience on how education could have given her (and many young people like her) a different path. She explains:

“They have to see’em as people. They have to see them as the future. They have to see them as people who are gonna go out and be their next-door neighbors… ‘Cause they’re… at that stage where they absorb everything. And if they not absorbing all the right things, then… yeah. That’s… barbaric.”

Smith creates an opportunity for us as an audience to learn from a first-hand account how this country’s system has failed so many young people. We have created a system that forces them to so many to see themselves in a specific way. Langford’s matter-of-fact approach to the material is at times hard to hear. However, based on the silence surrounding me at this performance, it’s clear that I was not the only one hooked on every word, listening to this personal story unfold.

Dodson shares a warning. A desire for us as a country to offer stronger support for young people so we can change this school-to-prison pipeline. In the process, you may also notice that Smith is succeeding at something else. It’s one thing to write a story about incarceration and the failings of the education system. It’s another to look a human in the eye and hear their story – their personal account of how their life could have been different, a plea that we listen. Smith’s approach brings light to 19 of these accounts that may never have been heard otherwise – of “broken people’ as she puts it in her play. You may just find that this hits a little different. That Smith invites empathy in a different way. Maybe this approach can lead to the change that we as a country so desperately need.

Powerful performances and a hard-hitting script make this play an experience to remember. To put it simply, Notes from the Field is a must-see.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Running through March 24, 2024 at Timeline Theatre – 615 W. Wellington Avenue.

A smash hit in London and New York, "The Lehman Trilogy" is now on stage in a definitive production at TimeLine Theatre. Written by Stefano Massini, adapted by Ben Power, and co-directed by Nick Bowling and Vanessa Stalling, it's easy to see why this Tony-winning tale of an unimaginably successful Bavarian immigrant family has enthralled audiences. (The run has already been extended through November 26 at Broadway in Chicago's Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place). 

Lights up on a stage covered in boxes, desks, chairs, phones, and screens, the whole space resembles a giant office (due to Collette Pollard’s smart design). Henry Lehman (played brilliantly by Mitchell J. Fain) stands at the edge of a platform, spotlight on his face. He addresses the audience, re-telling the character’s arrival to New York from Bavaria in third person, in a lyrical style that resembles a novel. The whole play is structured as such: the actors do more telling than showing, and narrate the action before embodying it, creating a sort of Brechtian distance between stage and audience. This seems to work in the plays favor, for the most part, as the narration is infused with humor, poetry, and information.

Soon enough, the actor embodies the first Lehman brother to arrive in the United States, gains an accent, and compares America to a music box. As a twinkling melody begins to play, Henry Lehman steps down and begins to set up his first shop in Alabama.

Shortly after, the two other brothers come into the picture. Henry becomes the head of the trio, while Emanuel (Anish Jethmalani) is described as the arm, and Mayer (Joey Slotnick), the youngest, works as the middleman between them. We watch the brothers negotiate and grow their business, adapting to an everchanging America, going from fabric to cotton to banking. The three actors play not only the brothers, but every other costumer, partner, wife, and child- sporting an impressive array of accents and physicalities. Each character has quirks of their own, which helps engage the audience and balances the amount of narration. Phillip, for instance, who is Emanuel’s son, is particularly comical. A neurotic boy from a young age, it is clear that he is destined to lead the Lehman Brothers Corporation. The audience laughs as a 16-year-old Phillip negotiates eloquently with United Railways, as his father watches aghast.

The design certainly helps bring the show to life, lights and sound and costume working together to take the audience on a journey that spans over a century. The simplicity of the set, lights, and sound, generally more suggestive than prescriptive, allows time to move forward fast, actors to shapeshift in the blink of an eye, and progress to hit the world of the play like a cannonball.

In a visually astonishing sequence, the American civil war is recreated on stage, through the simple use of explosion sounds, flickering lights, and papers thrown high into the air. This level of theatricality, along with the fascinating family dynamics and exploration of assimilation and loss of culture, lets the play move away from lecture and towards entertainment.

It comes as no surprise that capitalism is intertwined with all aspects of our daily lives, but seeing a group of men sitting around a table and deciding to introduce the idea of marketing onto American society, and to make buying an instinct rather than a need, that realization becomes more obvious than ever. Both a short history of 20th century American economy, and an intergenerational story of a Jewish family working towards the American dream, “The Lehman Trilogy” is highly recommended for any theatre lover with an interest in historical work. 

Timeline Theatre's production of "The Lehman Trilogy" runs through November 26 at Broadway in Chicago's Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place. 

What did you do during the 2020 lockdown? Many people I know took on a special project – learning to bake bread, or writing a novel. Me, I took a literary antiracism journey. From the classics like Malcolm X, Bayard Rustin, WEB DuBois, and James Baldwin to more contemporary thinkers – TaNehisi Coates, Ibram X Kendi, Robin DiAngelo, Ijeoma Oluo – over the long months of lockdown I immersed myself in antiracism theory. The genre I (obviously) could not explore was theatre, and it’s gratifying to see so much antiracism woven through 2022-23 Chicago’s theatre season.

It absolutely blows me away that TROUBLE IN MIND, written by Alice Childress in 1955, incorporates all the concepts I read about modern Critical Race Theory. Dozens of the ideologies presented by these brilliant scholars – societal racism, privilege, internalized inferiority, white fragility, microaggressions – all these concepts are right there in TROUBLE IN MIND. Childress understood it all in 1955; she put it all out there in books and on stages, and nobody was listening. Takes my breath away.

Timeline Theatre, with their strong company, long experience, broad resources and culture of excellence, presents us with a superlative production of this incredible play. At the interval my companion and I were debating which was finer – the script, the acting, or the production – and at the final curtain we were still unable to single one out.

‘The play’s the thing … wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King’, and TROUBLE IN MIND catches our consciences with a play-within-a-play, showing the actors, director and production assistant at the initial read-through of Chaos in Belleville, an anti-lynching Southern drama. Tim Decke h/h plays director Al Manners,  a domineering egomaniac who brags that they’re producing an authentic and far-reaching social commentary. Shariba Rivrsh/h is brilliant as Wiletta Mayer, the lead (in both plays), who offers unsolicited instruction to neophyte John Nevins (Vincent Jordanh/h) on how to ingratiate himself to the white director. Sheldon Forrester, wonderfully played by Kenneth D Johnson h/h, an old hand at being a Black actor in a White field and scorns Wiletta’s obsequious tactics. Tarine J Bradshawsh/h is Millie Davis, more concerned with physical appearances than with anyone’s behavior. White castmates Judy Sears (Jordan Ashley Griesh/h), Bill O’Wray (Guy Van Swearingenh/h) and grizzled stagehand Henry (Charles Stranskeyh/h) are foils against this Black-on-Black controversy. Adam Shalzih/h plays flunkey stage manager Eddie Fenton in the uncomfortable role of agreeing (mostly) with the Black actors but subject to Manners’ despotism.

The substance of TROUBLE IN MIND is Wiletta’s own antiracism journey. She begins by talking the ‘you gotta be what they want’ talk, but ultimately finds herself unable to walk that walk. Manners is arrogantly confident that with Chaos in Belleville he’s PRODUCING the last word in social commentary – thereby, of course, proving himself a superior antiracist [sic]. Wiletta, keenly aware of the bigotry between the lines she’s called upon to speak, is ever more impelled to challenge Manners’ vision and direction … and inevitably to challenge Manners himself.

As I said, TROUBLE IN MIND illustrates countless facets of racism, including police brutality, affirmative action, and intersectionality. Wiletta and Millie recognize the sexist agenda in Manners’ ‘darlings’ and ‘girls; they are keenly mindful of his ‘hands-on’ approach to directing pretty blonde Judy, the sole white woman. Sisterhood trumps color, and they cross racial lines to protect the girl from Manners’ predation.

Unsurprisingly, TROUBLE IN MIND was no more popular in 1950’s American theatre than are Wiletta’s critiques of Chaos in Belleville. We see multiple intersections between TROUBLE IN MIND, Chaos in Belleville, and Childress’ real life.

Raised during the Harlem Renaissance, Childress was a crony and peer of such luminaries as Sidney Poitier, Noble Sissle, Ethel Waters and Paul Robeson. She co-founded the  American Negro Theatre, and she left us a rich body of superb work, much of which languished unappreciated for decades. TROUBLE IN MIND, now justly considered one of the great plays of the 20th Century, waited 66 years to be produced on Broadway. An early attempt was abandoned when Childress refused to make changes that producers felt would make the work ‘more palatable’ – yet another ironic confluence.

Production of TROUBLE IN MIND definitively meets Timeline’s high standards. Mica Cole is Executive Director; Artistic Director PJ Powers calls OJ Parson “Director extraordinaire”. In the program Powers quotes from the eponymous lyrics:

Trouble in mind, I’m blue

But I won’t be blue always,

‘cause the sun’s gonna shine

In my backdoor someday

Caitlin McLeodsh/h is Scenic designer; Christine Pascualsh/h and Megan E Pirtlesh/h design costumes and hair, respectively. Brandon Wardelh/h creates terrific effects with light design, augmented by Christopher Krizh/h Music and Sound. Miranda Andersonsh/h is Stage Manager; Gianni Carcagnoh/h is Production Assistant and Covid Compliance Officer. Martine Kei Green-Rogerssh/h is Dramaturg, with Assistant Deron S. Williams h/h. Dina Spoerlsh/h is Dramaturgical Display Designer – which I believe makes her responsible for the wonderful historic exhibits and portraits in the lobby … thank you!  My thanks to all of you for this amazing production.

*Extended through December 18th

Smear tactics are nothing new in politics; Octavian became Emperor of Rome by distributing coins printed with negative slogans against Mark Anthony. The printing press provided a more easily reproduceable vehicle for misinformation, with the written material later reinforced by manipulated (long before Photoshop!) photographs. And now, of course, we have social media, click bait, troll farms, and ever-darker forms of fake news.

But we can pinpoint the birth of fake news with an extraordinary upsurge in political invective at the 1934 California gubernatorial race.

Playwright Will Allen examines this race in CAMPAIGNS, INC, playing at the TimeLine Theatre through September 18. CAMPAIGNS, INC was originally slated for release in 2020, to inject some much-needed humor into that anxious year and its contentious presidential election. But the play’s impact is even weightier now, after two more years of unscrupulous politics.

CAMPAIGNS, INC is based on a true story about carnival promoter Leone Baxter (Tyler Meredith) and journalist Clem Whitaker (Yurly Sardarov).  I would love to admire Leone Baxter – 1934 didn’t have many women in the political arena until she pioneered the field of political consulting by co-founding Campaigns Inc. Her tactics, however, proved less than admirable. Campaigns Inc unquestionably spawned the phenomenon of fake news and propelled opposition research to new depths of depravity.

CAMPAIGNS, INC portrays Baxter and Whitaker’s debut campaign, representing Frank Merriam (Terry Hamilton) in his bid for Governor of California against Upton Sinclair (Anish Jethmalani). Staunch Republican Merriam and Socialist Sinclair vie for support from an array of celebrities, from Sinclair’s friend Charlie Chaplin (Dave Honigman) and Lieutenant Governor George Hatfield (Mark Ulrich), to Franklin Roosevelt (David Parkes). Parkes also joins the electioneering as Louis B. Mayer, Douglas Fairbanks, Kyle Palmer, and a photographer. As ultra-conservative Merriam buys Roosevelt’s endorsement by affirming the New Deal, Eleanor Roosevelt (Jacqueline Grandt, also as Mary Pickford, a reporter and a waitress) defies her husband by publicly approving Sinclair. The entire election becomes a comprehensive calamity of deceit, demonization, and decidedly dirty politics.

Director Nick Bowling cleverly employs a multi-media presentation for CAMPAIGNS, INC. Scenes from Shirley Temple’s “Stand Up and Cheer!” and Clark Gable in “It Happened One Night” flicker on the screen as we take our seats. The stage is positioned between two facing banks of audience seats; the sets are assembled during blackouts, wheeling in Sinclair’s office at one end or Merriam’s at the other, with FDR’s Hyde Park residence and the offices of Campaigns Inc popping up in center stage. The live acting is interspersed with 1930’s film clips projected on a mobile screen.

This hurley-burley design resonates perfectly with the play’s general atmosphere of hectic absurdity as CAMPAIGNS, INC examines the power of deceit in the U.S. electoral system via humor. In truth, comedy is probably the best way to consider these insights, lest we succumb to despair. And the show truly is hilarious!

CAMPAIGNS, INC (the play) watches Campaigns Inc (the firm) exploit the newest media techniques for their nefarious purposes. Billboards and massive direct-mail marketing present quotes from Sinclair’s novels (“One of the necessary accompaniments of capitalism in a democracy is political corruption,” from The Jungle), deliberately obscuring his true values and principles. Leone Baxter later admitted the quotes were irrelevant, but she just wanted to keep Sinclair from winning.  Note: the goal was to defeat Sinclair, not to elect Merriam. Disparaging the other guy is so much easier than trying to identify a candidate’s virtues!

Is any of this sounding familiar?

MGM’s Louis B. Mayer, threatened by increasing unionization of Hollywood, churned out scripted commentaries discrediting Sinclair.  These contrived clips were aired before feature films, so audiences naturally thought they were genuine newsreels. And the best part is that the fake news was funded by garnishing MGM employee’s paychecks.

WH Hearst’s LA Times printed daily front-page articles smearing Sinclair. As political editor Kyle Palmer told a visiting NY Times reporter, “We don’t go in for that crap you have in New York – being obliged to print both sides.”  

CAMPAIGNS, INC is brilliantly written (Will Allan), masterfully directed (Nick Bowling), and splendidly acted by the entire cast.  In such an elaborate production, I think the crew deserves special notice. Scenic, lighting, and projections designers Sydney Lynne, Jared Gooding, and Anthony Churchill skillfully weave the multimedia mélange together. Sally Dolembo, U.S.A., Katie Cordts and Megan E. Pirtle design convincing period costumes, wigs, and hair. Sound designers Forrest Gregor and Andrew Hansen, dialect director Sammi Grant and dramaturg Maren Robinson replicate the ‘30’s with crackling radio broadcasts and vintage jokes. The entire collage is brought together by stage manager Miranda Anderson, artistic director PJ Powers, and executive director Mica Cole. And I want a shoutout for properties designer Rowan Doe: I loved the period radios and typewriters … and where did you find that magnificent wheelchair for FDR?!

CAMPAIGNS, INC is perfect for 2022, letting us scrutinize our preposterous times while providing comic relief from the lunacy as well.

*Extended through September 25

TimeLine Theatre’s ‘The Chinese Lady’ is a powerful show - poignant, learned, sophisticated - and illuminating. Ninety minutes of engaging drama (no intermission) that left me somewhere between laughing, crying, and standing on my feet to cheer.

Directed by Helen Young from the script by Lloyd Suh (an award-winning playwright now in residence at New York’s New Dramatists) is based on the true story of Afong Moy (Mi Kang gives a stellar performance), brought to New York in 1834 as a living museum exhibit when she was just 14. For 25 cents a ticket, Afung Moy portrayed aspects of life in exotic China: eating a meal with chopsticks, walking in petite slippers covering her tiny bound feet, making tea, and speaking to the audience about life in her homeland. 

As the first Chinese woman to come to the U.S. and American public, we gather from Moy’s presentation that her contractors—New York merchants of Asian imports who are unseen in the play—hoped to inspire an appreciation of China’s culture and people. Her pparents contracted with the merchants for a two-year servitude at the museum. This stretched on for 55 years.

The exhibit space that forms the scenery (Arnell Scanciaco is scenic designer) is built in a Chinese style, and adorned with fine pottery and carvings (Rowen Doe handles properties) the type that merchants would likely have brought from her homeland. 

Afong Moy is assisted in her presentation by Atung (Glenn Obrero is equally excellent in this two-person show). Atung draws the curtain, serves the meal, and fluent in English and Chinese, translates and speaks for her. Over time she gains sufficient fluency to make Atung “superfluous” for speaking to the audience. Their stage personae and their personal relationship forms the structure for the play, and the playwright exploits this expertly.

Because Afong Moy is speaking directly to the ticket holders—that role played by the audience— the fourth wall of the stage is non-existent. We watch the arc of Afong Moy’s acclimation to her new home. When offstage, she lives with an American family and at first expresses disdain for their potatoes and corn, and eating with forks. "Chop sticks are elegant," she says.

We meet her again at age 16, and find Afong Moy is now enjoying American food, and longs to go to San Francisco. Scenes revisit her at various intervals, as she ages, and loses her Cantonese, she forgets what her parents looked like, and question who she is. Over time ticket prices escalate to $15. In adulthood she is invited to the White House by Andrew Jackson. We also see the sweep of history through her eyes: the Opium Wars that led to European domination by decimating Chin with drugs; the construction of the transcontinental railway during the Civil War by Chinese immigrants; and later the rise of anti-immigrant sentiment, and the passage of the Exclusionary Act which in 1882 banned Chinese immigration. 

Secondary themes—the relationship between Atung and Afong Moy in dual planes of unrequited love; Atung and Afong Moy’s growing awareness that they are largely without a life, wearing clothes not their own, speaking words that have been scripted—form existential reveries. They express too the horror of this decadent cultural colonialism. And yet, the indomitability of Afong Moy’s human spirit, her aspirations, are not extinguished. 

‘The Chinese Lady’ runs through June 18 at Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont in Chicago. It comes highly recommended.