Theo Ubique Cabaret Theater has kicked-off the opening of its tailor-built home, with a very good production of The Full Monty – a Broadway musical adapted by Terrence McNally and David Yazbeck from a well-regarded 1997 British film.  The troupe was crammed into the heartland Café and No Exit bar for years before landing at this wonderful space.

Smaller Chicago venues have developed something new in artfully scaling back big Broadway musicals scaled to storefront proportions (for example, this year’s Grand Hotel at Theater Wit). The Full Monty at Theo Ubique is exceptionally fun, partly because of the immersive nature of the new theater.

True to classic cabaret, the performers at Theo Ubique double as servers, waiting on tables and then delivering drinks, even dinner (if per-ordered). The bar is within the theater, and one may watch the show from barstools, around cocktail tables on the floor, or from theater seating on risers up to the back wall. I sat at the bar, a great vantage point for both the band and the stage, and for the bartender (though drinks are served only before after and during intermission.)

That strategy is not only  practical, but it eliminates the fourth wall. The serving aisles double as entryways for actors, who may even deliver lines while sitting next to ticket holders. So, we are in the show, while watching it. So, Five Stars for the theater and its concept. I will definitely do the dinner package when I return.

This version of The Full Monty loses the nuance of the movie, about Yorkshire steelworkers who put on a Chippendales-style strip show to earn bucks to start a new life – aiming to outdo the strippers by taking it all off (“the full Monty”). McNally’s version, set in Buffalo, carries a bit of New York theater world lens which creates characters like the brassy, foul-mouthed piano player Jeanette (though perfectly brought to life by Kate Harris).

The women in these men’s lives are largely supporting characters to their spouses/exes, but when the spotlight hits them, we hear and see real talent: including Molly LeCaptain as Georgie, Dave’s supportive wife; and Anna Dvorchak as Isabel, Jerry’s ex. A standout is young Sean Zielinski as Nathan, Dave’s son, who loans his dad $1,000 to secure the stripping gig.

But the songs by David Yazbek and portraits of these ordinary, gentle American males (they are not Alphas but Betas) - rings largely true especially in the hands of this talented troupe. Matt Frye as Jerry Lukowski is very strong as the mastermind of the scheme for the show. Nick Druzbanski as his best buddy and co-conspirator is great. The men are taught something about stripping by a seriously defined gay professional stripper, Keno (John Cardone).

Another McNally touch is that two of the six males – Malcom (Joe Giovannetti) and Ethan (Neil Stratman) --  come out as a gay couple, but their co-strippers are unfazed. Marc Prince as Horse is without question the best dancer, and brings a vulnerability in his performance as a “big black male” saddled with expectations. As to skin, Horse is the only 10 when it gets down to it, with Malcom and Ethan roughly 7, and the others convincingly ordinary, hairy, married American males.

As for the music, from the first note the seven-piece band led by Jeremy Ramey is polished and pitch perfect – a wonderful footing for the show. And the acting and singing is very good, but it was not so evident opening night due to technical unevenness in the overhead microphone pickups. This resulted in performers being overshadowed by the amplified and mixed instrumentalists. Nevertheless, the acting and singing was really pretty good, and the sound has doubtless been addressed.  

Also noteworthy, the choreography by Sawyer Smith, especially evident in the scene where the men learn to dance by adapting moves by Michael Jordan. That was a truly convincing performance.

Theo Unique Cabaret Theatre is highly recommended. See The Full Monty there through January 27, 2019. www.theo-u.com

Set in Chicago’s mythical 51st Ward, Rightlynd is an absolute lark – but with serious underpinnings. It’s a cautionary rendition of that age-old political maxim: power corrupts.

Rightlynd also doubles as a romantic comedy with a healthy dose of musical (ala Hamilton). Set in Chicago’s mythical 51st Ward, a section of the city whose governing alderman has been reelected for years on autopilot, quietly collecting his paycheck and not making waves.

The Rightlynd area has drifted into that political vacuum where city services are scarce, the L stops were closed, and businesses struggle. While the incumbent alderman appears to be asleep at the wheel, in reality he is negotiating to surrender Rightlynd to a developer group ) that wants to make it the “next neighborhood,” represented by Applewood (Jerome Beck in a breakthrough performance – he is great). That’s a familiar story to Chicagoans who are watching high-profile developments – The 78, Lincoln Yards, and the Presidential Library – part of the continuum of projects over the decades.

Regardless of the merits of these current initiatives, community activists will often be found to characterize such efforts as draining potential investment resources away from improvements for more needy areas – the Chicago’s numerous Rightlynd neighborhoods that never get a dime.

By taking an entertaining approach, playwright Ike Holter has figured out how to tell this story without being ponderous. Instead Rightlynd the play is sprightly and effervescent.

The plot follows the political awakening of Nina (Monica Orozco is a powerhouse, perfectly cast!) who begins with a modest effort to slow cars at an intersection on her street. Acting as our Everyman, we watch her journey from this simple zoning request, to passing petitions to get herself on the ballot and then elected as Alderman.

Nina finds running for office is different than running the office, and we watch as she gradually makes concessions to the reality of the streets – including negotiating with gangs and with developers. The election stopped Applewood from its development plans, for a time, but they come back and win influence over the office. "All be need is an open hand and a turned eye," Applewood says. 

Along the way, Nina meets up with a down-on-his-luck ex-con Pac, and the two go from politics to love item. Pac even refused a bus ticket when he was released from jail, preferring to stay in his old neighborhood, Rightlynd. Eddie Martinez plays Pac with sensitivity and panache, and the Martinez-Orozco pairing forms a delightful dynamic duo to energize and add dimension to the show – though at times this subplot threatens to overwhelm the main storyline.

The delightful supporting cast includes Sasha Smith as a Gal Friday for the alderman; Robert Cornelius as Robinson, who operates a garage (where Pac works); and LaKecia Harris as Amena, who lives on the streets.

Along with Anish Jethmalani as Benny, these cast members double in the roles of Denizen – forming the crowds, voters, and other singing and dancing performers that act as the Chorus – both in terms of Greek dramatic traditions, and as a singing-dancing chorus line. A shout-out to Cornelius for his wonderful baritone and to Sasha Smith, whose beautiful energy could easily power a stage all by herself.

Rightlynd is highly recommended. It runs through December 23 at the Victory Gardens Theater at the Biograph.

The Woman in Black, a retelling of a 19th century gothic ghost story, has already begun electrifying audiences on Halsted Street. This finely-honed, two-man production features strong performances by Adam Wesley Brown as The Actor, and Bradley Armacost as a retired lawyer, Arthur Kipps.

We'll try to minimize any hint of a spoiler in reviewing this suspenseful entertainment, but we can reveal that it is a highly entertaining production with a worthy script. 

Running about 90 minutes with one intermission, the story opens with Kipps standing on stage and reading aloud from a hefty tome. He has hired The Actor to help him retell on stage a horrifying story from his past – hoping both to exorcise powerful, haunting memories, and to warn others to beware and avoid his fate. Kipps needs to gain acting skills to tell the story effectively to audiences – one that happens to be true, and which he knows well, because it happened to him 40 years ago.

But within the first 20 minutes devoted to this scene setting, the The Actor determines that Kipps, plodding woodenly through the script, is no actor.

"I must implore you to have sympathy for your audience," he advises Kipps impatiently. "Performing is an art acquired with tears and time." The Actor thinks the script needs some work, too, as he estimates it would take five hours to deliver.  "If your tale is to be heard, it must become palatable," he says. Kipps reluctantly agrees. 

And so The Actor takes on the role of playing him, and Kipps takes to playing several supporting roles. This transformation is both a study in the art of the theater, and a presentation of the manifest stage skills of Brown, an accomplished Shakespearean performer, and Armacost, who has very completely convinced us that Kipps cannot act at all.

Once they trade roles, and Brown begins playing Kipps (he looks a bit like a young Kenneth Branaugh), Armacost seamlessly sheds his inability to act, transforming into multiple supporting characters right before our eyes. Along with The Woman in Black's other merits, these performances are a delight to behold – and doubtless worth trying to see more than once.

Finely honed after nearly three decades on London’s West End - where it continues to delight crowds – The Woman in Black was originally commissioned as an adaptation from Susan Hill’s 1983 novel. For the Chicago run (through February) the show's London director, Robin Herford, has recreated his original staging for the first time in the U.S. It’s star credentials are further secured by another adaptation made from the book for the 2012 film, starring Daniel Radcliffe of Harry Potter fame.

The Woman in Black also serves as a darker alternative to the traditional Christmas shows. Posed as a scary tale told around the hearth late one Christmas Eve, there are ghostly figures in this story but the surprising outcome is decidedly different than other holiday shows. 

The Royal George subtly proffers The Woman in Black as a candidate for holiday-entertainment, the kind of scary story shared by Edwardian families. The tradition of sharing ghost stories around Christmas can be traced to pagan times, as the longer nights approaching the Winter Solstice conjured such tales while villagers huddled for warmth. This show also wards off the ennui some find in repeated efforts to extract seasonal cheer from Charles Dickens' Victorian-era ghost tale. 

Along with the spine-tingling excitement, this highly polished production restores to life to another sleeping specter, the main stage of the Royal George Theatre, one of the city’s most congenial performance venues. Dark for months (and just across the street from the heavily trafficked Steppenwolf Theatre) it’s now bound to be packed for this excellent show.

The play is a thriller, with many of the chills delivered the old fashioned way, through lighting, sound and props. It falls within the bounds of comfort for more sensitive viewers (like my companion) who will find it just below that threshold of covering-the-eyes scary). It's also hip enough to appeal to young adult audiences, who filled a third of the seats on opening night. 

The Woman in Black is highly recommended. Booked through February 19, 2019 at the Royal George Theatre, it plays Wednesdays through Saturdays at 7:30 p.m.; with matinees at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday; and Sunday night performances at 7:00 p.m. 

An unusually busy run for me - four plays in four days - ended last night with the opening of Arcadia, Promethean Theatre Ensemble’s production of what is said to be one of British author Tom Stoppard’s finest plays.

Running at the Greenhouse Theatre, it is certainly the best I have seen this season. 

Stoppard is immensely funny, but can also be intensely challenging, as his fast-paced play of humor and ideas teases the brain while tickling the funny bone. Kudo’s to director Ted Hoerl for taking on this dauntingly complicated show, and mastering it. As with Oscar Wilde, Stoppard uses laughter to disarm our defenses, so that the ideas can move in - exactly what happens at the Greenhouse.  

In this play, Stoppard is said to be making a heady investigation of determinism, science, and the relationship between the laws of nature, and love. The Royal Institution of Great Britain named Arcadia one of the best science-related works ever written, a kind of Big Bang Theory but more serious. One of the main characters in Arcadia, Thomasina (very well played by Meghann Tabor) is based on a real-life 19th Century math prodigy, Ada Lovelace (she was also poet Lord Byron’s daughter) who conceptualized applications for Charles Babbage’s binary computer prototype. Byron also figures in this play, though as an offstage character. 

Stoppard is so very good with language, the show sparkles, especially in the hands of Megan DeLay who is absolutely outstanding as Lady Croom. Kudos also to Chris Woolsey in the role of Septimus Hodge.

Stoppard tests form, pushing the bounds of the stage, using your mind as an extension of the set. Overall, Arcadia is a cross between high comedy, a comedy of manners and a farce. And while its seven scenes all take place in the estate, Sidley Park, in Derbyshire, England, three are set between 1809-1812, alternating with three others set in the present.

Separate casts play each period, and by the seventh, and closing, scene, which takes place both in past and present (with everyone on stage), the audience is fully conditioned to Stoppard’s world and able to follow along. If all that sounds complicated, it’s actually easy to track, especially with the wonderful performances by this amazingly accomplished cast.

The play opens in 1809. Lady Croom’s 13-year-old daughter Thomasina, a mathematical genius, is pestering her tutor, Septimus Hodge, to explain the term “carnal embrace.” She overheard those words from the landscaper Noakes (Nicole Hand) who had seen a tryst in the garden house between the wife of resident poet, Ezra Chater, and another gentleman. We learn soon enough it was Hodge, and he takes inordinate interest in coaxing details from Thomasina while simultaneously try to distract her into finding solutions to Fermat’s Last Theorem.

While the play is much to involved to describe in full, suffice it to say that present day scenes track academic researchers studying Ezra Chater, Lord Byron, and the history of the estate grounds – serving us a send-up of contemporary academia.

A host of colorful characters are delightfully played - Michael Reyes shines as Chater, Heather Kae Smith is wonderful as Chloe, Brian Hurst is a glowering hoot as the Croom's gossipy butler Jellaby - casts from both time periods keep the laughs coming. Arcadia affirms once again “the play’s the thing,” but so is an excellent company. Arcadia is highly recommended, and runs through December 16 at the Green House Theater Center in Chicago.

Plainclothes has all the hallmarks of a dynamic show – a parade of interesting and believable characters, fast-paced and witty dialog, even a socially meaningful storyline, and great performances by the cast.

Premiering at The Den Theatre and written by Spenser Davis, who also co-directs (with Kanomé Jones) Plainclothes tells the story of the security guards who are charged with stopping shoplifting at a Michigan Avenue store that sounds very much like Macy’s. While the retail areas of the store are elegant and packed with luxury goods, the security detail is squeezed into less-than-savory quarters hidden away from public view.

A retinue of shoplifting types parades across the stage as we gaze on in curiosity. Some truly need or  want the goods, others are habitual offenders, and then there are the dilettantes, more in it for the game than the ill-gotten gains. One recurring offender is the effeminate Jomal (Ben F. Locke), in short shorts and bare midriff, who has been banned from the store. Another is Pete (David Weiss) who is also famous as a YouTube personality.

But the biggest focus is on this plain clothes loss-prevention crew, who prowl the aisles on the lookout for theft by customers, or even by the store staff  - individuals tracked down by “Internal” store detectives.

Cashiers such as Mary (RjW Mays) and other staffers who turn in shoplifters are also given bonuses. We learn that race, gender and age of perpetrators is recorded in statistical reports, a matter that is material to the retailer's consumer relations, and to the plot.

The crew is multi-culturally diverse, which also figures in the plot: Llermo (Alejandro Tey), is a warm, funny young Latino, with an eye for ladies; T (Stephanie Shum), a hot-blooded lesbian Asian also with an eye for the ladies; Alma (Teresa Kuruvilea), a South Asian security officer; Stevie (Kim Boler), an aspiring white police cadet; Bobby (Adam Soule) a young white bro who is on the rise; and Karina (Carmen Molina), a mixed-race guard who keeps watch on the video camera feeds from around the store.

The dialog of the team is fast-paced and laced with the shorthand that those immersed in loss prevention security would know – though occasionally it goes over the head of the audience. It’s also loaded with contemporary dish ("Unfriended, deleted, blocked!") and goofy rankings (Michael Buble versus Brittney Spears). 

We are also faced with unique aspect of a contemporary social issue: this diverse “loss prevention” team is accused of catching too few mature white shoplifters and too many young black teens. The crew objects to the charge, grumbling that their varied ethnicities should protect them from charges of prejudice. “I’m getting profiled; I don’t do the profiling,” objects Llermo. “We get fired; white guys get transferred,” laments Karina.  

Nevertheless, they determine to try for those harder to nab but more prized thieves. Things go awry when rookie Stevie gets knifed by a thief, and the plot becomes complicated – and frankly, it gets somewhat lost in its own details.

Davis has based the play on his own experiences working in the very job the play describes, and it tells. The lingo and setting are convincing, with perpetrators handcuffed to a bench while they either pay fines or await the police. The situations conjured up are spot on, as well. And the tribulations of the workplace resonate with everyone who has been paid for productivity – which in this case means catching more thieves before they get out the door.

Davis says he wants Plainclothes to follow the pattern of Broken Nose Theatre’s production of At The Table last year, which was developed, workshopped, and then produced in New York before moving on to Chicago.

Plainclothes offers plenty of potential but the for such development, but will need some more refinement. There are dozens of memorable lines but some, while entertaining, distract from the advance of the action. There are probably a couple characters too many in the show. And the byzantine array of details and events makes it a little difficult to distinguish the high points in the turns of the plot.

The performances are very good, with Alejandro Tey, Ben F. Locke, and Carmen Molina real standouts. Even stronger are Rob Frankel as Jim, the older white guy from management. Frankel is a seasoned performer, and it shows. And RjW Mays is kind of a scene stealer, amping up her smaller role to something delightful. Shum is full throttle in her delivery, and maybe should vary the volume a bit. 

Plainclothes definitely has legs as a theatrical work, and hopefully it will get some refinements if the producers choose a next iteration. Regardless, this is still a fun show, and with tickets at Broken Nose’s “pay-what-you-can” scale, Plainclothes is well worth a look at The Den Theatre, running through December 15.

It’s an intriguing proposition for a play: two actors meet for the first time on stage. One, the First Actor,  has rehearsed the play, while the Second Actor has never even read it.

In An Oak Tree, this dynamic repeats for each day’s performance – 22 in all by the time it ends its run on December 9 - with a freshly cast Second Actor encountering anew the script, the audience, and the actor he plays against.

Written by Tim Crouch, An Oak Tree is also a daring exercise in dramatic abstraction, and a multi-layered exploration of meta-theatrical performance.

The storyline gives a suggestion of how An Oak Tree plays out. The First Actor is a stage hypnotist (played by Gage Wallace with tremendous precision and verve), putting on shows that incorporate audience participation - giving us the first of those meta layers, a “show within the show.”

The dramatic tension rises as we learn that First Actor’s little girl has been killed in a car accident, and that Second Actor is the responsible party. Calling for volunteers from the audience (but it’s another layer, an imaginary audience - we live patrons were warned at the outset not to volunteer), the First Actor sees among the audience volunteers the very driver (the Second Actor) who killed the little girl.

First Actor’s grief and anger rise. He hypnotizes Second Actor and puts him through a series of demeaning exercises, including an admission of guilt for the act. The eight other volunteers (none are visible, of course) are dismissed, so that only Second Actor and First Actor remain.

The dynamics become ugly between First Actor and the hypnotized Second Actor, who slips in and out of awareness in this scene, and there is increasing discomfit between the two characters. We feel the discomfort as well, and witness a shift in power between the characters as the scene progresses.

So how does a non-scripted character perform his or her role (both men and women are cast as Second Actor, including Alejandro Tey the night I saw the show). Actors are freewheeling spirits, generally – but they do like to rehearse the script, and to be prepared before they enter the stage. An Oak Tree has elements of improvisational performance and sight-reading of lines. These 22 venturesome Second Actors – Alejandro Tey showed his quick wit and deft dramatic skills - have willingly subjected themselves to the trial devised by Crouch's play.

As to practicalities of producing the show, Crouch and director Jeremy Aluma allow First Actor to brief the real live audience on some background, and their role, as the show commences. When Second Actor is introduced, he or she is given two or three pages of dialog to read from directly, at various points. And Second Actor also wears an audio device to receive whispered verbal cues from First Actor, who at other times offers those cues and prompts aloud, or whispers them into the ear of Second Actor.

This one-hour show by Red Theater is provocative and intriguing, even mind-bending for avid theater goers. It will have you thinking about it for days afterward. An Oak Tree is at Chicago's Athenaeum Theatre through December 9. 

Blue Man Group premiered the newest version of its show Thursday night at Briar Street Theater, where it has been ensconced since 1997 – making it the longest running act in Chicago. 

Wearing shiny blue face paint, skull masks covering hair and ears, and blue rubber gloves, the Blue Men are clad in non-descript black sweat suits and soft leather boots, giving the individual performers a generic look - though the program gives bios of seven Blue Men whose background trends toward percussionists. The Blue Men move with reptilian precision, navigating the stage, and inspecting each other and audience members in an inherently hilarious manner.

The updated 90-minute program, which is described as "new moments" in this latest iteration (developed by director Michael Dahlen and creative director Jeff Turlik) is a series of sketches that includes some now legendary vignettes, a bit of it inspired by that adolescent humor in which bored frat boys might engage on Saturday morning.

But Blue Man Group is also transgressive, breaking the  bounds of propriety and expectations – a steady series of small shocks that is provocative and creative. The vibrant additions to the show give audiences a whole new reason to attend the Blue Man Group - even if they have seen it before. 

In a reprise of greatest hits the Blue Men chomp and spit out Cap’n Crunch (ewwww!); unerringly catch by mouth marshmallows (and paint balls) hurled 30 feet across the stage; and pound paint-laden drums, splashing the audience – the first five rows of which wears protective ponchos.

One fixture of the shows is a large screen projection of a video cam that follows embarrassed latecomers to their seats. Another pins an audience member against a large canvass and Blue Men shoot paint at them from super soakers. Volunteers for this and several other scenes are selected silently by the blue performers, and frankly no one resists. The troupe marches across the top of the audience's seats, picks through shopping bags and incorporates the ticket holders into the act. 

Another  recurring feature is the selection of quirky hand-built musical instruments whose components could have been sourced from Home Depot’s plumbing aisle and a bike mechanic’s benchtop. From PVC pipe and other elements, the group has long created such devices, one of which is a cross between a drum and a trombone – sounding like a digiroo. Newly constructed and remastered instruments include the Light Horns and the Trigger Vibes. Original music compositions in this updated Chicago production include the theatrical debut of “Vortex,” a piece from Blue Man Group’s latest studio album “THREE.”

For its latest show, the Trigger Vibes percussion instrument has grown to the size of a pipe organ, and is beaten with paddles, generating loud xylophonic sounds. Another addition is a stringed instrument, the Spinulum, that looks like a tall vertical slide guitar crossed with a bicycle drive train. Though the Blue Men are always silent, the instruments are not, and a back-up band behind a screen in a loft above the stage is even louder – unfortunately at times overshadowing the Blue Men’s acoustical efforts.

Awareness of this trio of blue-masked men is high, with more than one million tickets sold to their shows in Chicago, which combine drumming, mime, music, original digital video, and in the latest version an even higher degree of audience participation. The performers were historically largely anonymous, and are likely interchangeable among the major cities in which Blue Man Group claims residence: Berlin, New York, Orlando, Boston, Las Vegas. I’ve seen them in three cities for a total of seven shows over the years.  

That’s more than I’ve seen of a similar stage syndication, Cirque de Soleil, which acquired Blue Man Group from its founders in July 2017.  Like Cirque, Blue Man Group is also a marketing phenomenon, performing private shows and at conventions, and releasing albums. YouTube videos of their NPR Tiny Desk appearance will give you a feel for the music. A clip of Blue Man Group’s Meditation for Winners (not performed in this show, unfortunately) is both hilarious and a trenchant social commentary.

Though the Blue Men are genericized in dress, Scott Bishop, Tom Galassi, Eric Gebow, Callum Grant, Gareth Hinsley, Michael Angelo Smith and Brian Tavener are credited in the program (three perform in each show). 

In fact, Blue Man Group is not just silly, but through the years has maintained implicit social commentary in its shows about the perils of surrendering our humanity to technology. The audience must swear a pledge to disconnect from its phones during the show, and one very powerful sketch finds three individuals wearing a digital Find Friends apparatus, which leads them on a wild goose chase (complete with a Wayze- or Google-like GMS misdirection) to find friends – who were actually standing right next to them to begin with. The strength of this single vignette is enough to merit a ticket to the new show.

Bringing out a new show is certainly a bit unnerving for the creative team behind Blue Man Group, given its origins as a just-for-fun street performance art team in New York City. It was formalized in 1991 by founders Chris Wink, Phil Stanton, and Matt Goldman. And like successful rock starts, the Blue Men must balance the demands of a growing roster of greatest hits, with a need to refresh the show, stay current, and be true to their own creative leadings. Packing the hits up front gave them just a whiff of being obligatory, while the new stuff seemed a bit squeezed in the remainder of the program. Nevertheless, having seen Blue Man Group multiple times, I still laughed spontaneously throughout. This show is highly recommended – catch it at at the Briar Street Theater. 

Refuge Theatre Project likes to pick up what it calls under-appreciated musicals and put them on in non-traditional settings.

They hit that mark with The Last Session, an off-off-Broadway musical from 1997 that ran for about 20 weeks off-Broadway. Set in a 1990s Los Angeles recording studio, this production takes place in a real-life commercial music recording studio, Atlas Arts Studio at 4809 N. Ravenswood – giving complete realism to the setting and excellent sound quality for the performances.

Directed by Christopher Pazdernik, The Last Session tells the story of Gideon, a 1990s songwriter, who is tiring in his battle against AIDS. (In the early years of the epidemic, the treatments for the disease were much more intrusive than today’s refined drugs, with brutal after-effects like those associated with powerful cancer chemotherapies.)

Gideon’s medical weariness has led him to a decision to end his life – but he wants to do it after recording one last album. This concept album-in-the-making is to capture Gideon's life journey, from son of a Texas preacher, to married religious musician (the "Baptist Barry Manilow"), then to a man living in an openly gay relationship and penning pop-music hits. It also will capture his battle with AIDS. 

The Last Session is largely autobiographical, with music and lyrics by Steve Schalchlin – the real life Gideon - with book by Jim Brochu, his lover. Brochu encouraged Schalchlin (who was, like Gideon, suffering with AIDS) to channel his angst into a creative work. Thus, The Last Session stage musical. 

It's a workable dramatic piece, with interesting characters (all of them in the music business) and motivations for the encounters on stage – though the plot is contrived, e.g., no one knows it’s his last session - they only know that they must sing in a cold read from the sheet music, and each take is to be the final track recording.

As the play opens, we meet two back-up singers for this session who are also sworn enemies: Schalchlin’s ex-wife Vicki (a zestful performance a tad overplayed by Elizabeth Bollar); and a dishing-but-wise diva, Tryshia (Darilyn Butler’s excellent performance is on another plane from the show). And then there is Buddy (Ryan Armstrong is surely Broadway bound), a fundamentalist fan-boy musician who has tracked Gideon down, hoping to apprentice to him. Jim gets hired for The Last Session recording too, discovering to his horror that his Christian idol has veered from the path of righteousness, to put it mildly.

Putting in a striking performance as the star, Gideon, is Erik Pearson – who plays and sings affectingly and with deep conviction - performing pretty much continuously through the two acts. Pearson is mesmerizingly good. This demanding role has him at the piano, singing or speaking, almost non-stop. Brochu and Schalchlin modeled Gideon from real life, and Pearson inhabits that role.

What about the music? It’s good, even very good. The songs run the gamut from comical ditties, sensitive ballads, and lots of blues-inflected tunes. There are a several memorable pieces – Going It Alone is a standout. (You can hear The Last Session soundtrack through Spotify). http://www.thelastsession.com

As a gay-themed play, The Last Session is much more personal and focused than, say, Torch Song Trilogy or Angels in America. It’s a personal story and a good showcase of Schalchlin’s range as a songwriter. See The Last Session through December 2, 2019 at Atlas Art Studio. 

Singer Nancy Wilson first rose to fame on the strength a demo single of what became her signature number, “Guess Who I Saw Today.” In Wilson's searing rendition this torchy anecdote becomes a torturous revelation of a husband's infidelity. 

That demo recording was so powerful it led Capitol Records to sign Wilson in 1960; the song’s popularity spawned five albums. And Wilson continued to sing that song masterfully for decades. 

It takes a certain kind of singer to do that, and in an October 13 tribute to Wilson at the Studebaker Theater, local jazz eminence Bobbi Wilsyn delivered that song and a taste of the magic of Nancy Wilson in a retrospective put together by the Chicago Jazz Orchestra. Actually it took a trio of prominent jazz vocalists - Wilsyn, along with the incomparable Roberta Gambarini and rising star Sarah Marie Young - to give just a sampling of Wilson's ouvre. With these three remarkable performers, it was clearly a labor of love. 

Wilson was chanteuse, jazz interpreter, song actress, and pop and R&B singer all rolled into one. Those of us who can recall popular music before the British Invasion know Nancy Wilson well, even if we haven’t recalled her lately. In the early 1960s her jazzy renditions of Broadway standards repeatedly climbed the pop charts. It wasn't always clear to contemporaries that Wilson was a jazz singer; she was simply a popular singer, and jazz was more a embedded into our musical idiom then. In retrospect, she is definitely singing jazz - now a rarity outside those who specialize in it.

Wilson’s career retrospective (she stopped singing in 2011) was part of a year-long celebration of is Chicago Jazz Orchestra's 40^th anniversary that continues with a December 21 Holiday Ellabration (Ella Fitzgerald as interpreted by Dee Alexander) and a May 18, 2019 All-Star 40^th Anniversary Concert. 

The orchestra was also beefed up to 40 pieces, with a full complement of strings along with the orchestra’s retinue of percussion and brass. This was terrific, as each of the singers made three appearances, delivering two or three songs in each: a jazz classic, a song book standard, or a song closely associated with Nancy Wilson. The strings were brought to bear on some of those numbers, like Lush Life, which Roberta Gamborini performed magnificently - ala Wilson. The performances were studio quality across the board. 

For some numbers, the strings were silent and the orchestra pared back to just vibraphone (Thaddeus Tukes) guitar (Lee Rothenberg) piao (Dan Trudell) and bass (Dennis  Carroll). When the brass was in the lead and sax were soloing, I only regretted they were set way back on the stage, instead of up front of the strings. 

The artistry by these three was not in mimicking Wilson, but in resurrecting her interpretations. And for the orchestra, it was recovering and recreating the orchestrations – a specialty of the Chicago Jazz Symphony under Jeff Lindberg, the conductor and artistic director. It’s a little known fact that Chicago has a Jazz Orchestra. And it is renowned for its growing library of transcriptions – sheet music of arrangements drawn from recordings of the genre’s masters.

Founded in 1978, the Chicago Jazz Orchestra is the city’s oldest professional jazz orchestra in continuous operation and one of the oldest jazz repertory orchestras in the country. Its mission is to develop and promote an appreciation for and understanding of music for the American jazz orchestra as it was originally conceived, performed and recorded by jazz master composers and soloists.

Jeff Lindberg and the late Steve Jensen first came up with their big band concept in 1978 (founded as the Jazz Members Big Band), which evolved into the Chicago Jazz Orchestra, a 17-piece premiere jazz ensemble that has garnered both national and international recognition. Lindberg is one of the foremost transcribers in jazz. As a result, the orchestra’s repertoire draws upon his vast library including the works of Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, Benny Carter, Oliver Nelson, Ray Charles. Because the CJO has its own transcriptions of the original recordings, much of the music in its concerts cannot be heard anywhere else. The CJO also performs compositions and arrangements by CJO members, including Associate Artistic Director Charles Harrison. www.chicagojazzorchestra.org

Martin McDonagh's The Lonesome West brings us Coleman and Valene Connor, two brothers fighting continuously over issues large and small: which brand of potato chips is better, who of the two do girls find more attractive, and who really owns their house.

As the play opens, Coleman (Robert Tobin), the older brother is at the table with the village priest, Father Welsh (Mark Tacderas), who is wheedling for a glass of poitin – the illegal local hooch brewed from potatoes. The two discuss a funeral held that day, Coleman complaining to the priest about the lack of refreshments. 

“If I held the purse strings” there would have been food and drink, Coleman says. That complaint pales in contrast, or perhaps increases in significance, as we learn that it was Coleman's own father who was buried today. His lack of engagement with the loss of his parent, however, is our first signal that something is amiss. And somehow, it becomes slightly understandable, as we learn that Coleman has killed his father with a shotgun.

Father Welsh, who is also very thirsty for his poitin, handily provides the audience some exposition in this scene - recounting aloud to Coleman how fortunate he is that a witness saw him trip, providing an alibi that described the shooting as completely accidental.

Soon enough Valene enters the cottage,and the two go at each other, attacking each others' emotional vulnerabilities, and battling physical as well. Father Welsh is forced to intervene to stop them, reminding them of the solemnity of the occasion - about which neither brother seems to care. We also see that Valene has marked items around the house with his initials - V  -and we learn by and by that he has used his father’s death and Coleman's emotional state, to seize ownership of all the property from his sibling. How this happened is the crux of the drama, and we will avoid spoiling that.

Let it be said, though, that this worsens what is clearly a very bad dynamic between the brothers since their early years. Now Coleman must beg, borrow and mostly steal to wrest his sustenance from his younger brother. How this happened is a key to the intrigue of the play, and as it is revealed, we witness Martin McDonagh’s signature touch in a slow, unfolding of the plot. In all McDonagh’s works, we see a gradual reveal of the story, as he peels the onion – shocking and surprising us as the action advances. 

For the dramatic action, McDonagh’s characters are not merely arguing vehemently.  Colin and Valene are at each other’s throats, and private parts, with knifes, guns and fists. It becomes apparent that their father kept the two young men from killing each other, thus far.

Years of childhood enmity repressed by Dad come roaring to the surface, like a volcano erupting. With him gone, we watch in ensuing scenes as Coleman and Valene come perilously close to mutual injury and possibly murder. 

All the pummeling draws Father Welsh to intervene several times in the course of the play – stepping into the role Dad must have held. But this priest is a fragile figure, and he soon despairs of ever straightening out the boys, or anyone in his benighted parish.

“I thought Leenane was a nice place when I turned up here,” he confides to Girleen Kelleher (Phoebe Moore). “But then I find out it’s a murder capital.” Unfortunately for Father Welsh, Kelleher is a sadistic blackguard who taunts the suffering priest mercilessly, driving him further to despair. She also happens to be the local purveyor of poitin, on which Father Welsh is very dependent.

The brothers are chastened by Father Welsh after another neighbor commits suicide, and the two make efforts to mend their ways and to get along. But the deeper patterns of emotional dysfunction rise to the fore, and things go from bad to worse.

I won't reveal more of the story; go see this play. The performances by the cast are very strong.  The black humor of The Lonesome West is also part of its attraction, as well as the gradual unfolding of the plot. In his recent star turn, Three Billboards Outside Billings, Missouri we see how far McDonagh's mastery has progressed. This earlier work is a little less smooth, but is still a strong, if shorter, pleasure. 

The current production excels in physical performance, and this show is very physical. But it is somewhat hampered by the challenge of capturing the lilt of McDonagh's Irish English - the cast is consistent in their reach for the script's accent, but the language (and meaning) is lost at times to pace and cadence. Nevertheless, most of it comes through, and the underlying performances are uniformly good. 

The Lonesome West is directed by Dana Anderson and produced by AstonRep Theatre Company. It runs through November 18 at The Raven Theatre in Chicago. 

Martin McDonagh has lately become even more widely known for his screenplays, and is among those select writers whose byline can draw ticket sales. (He wrote and directed In Bruges with Colin Farrell and Ralph Fiennes; and Seven Psychopaths with Farrell, Woody Harrelson, and Sam Rockwell. His star rocketed with highly acclaimed Three Billboards Outside Billings, Missouri, which he wrote for Frances McDormand and which garnered two Oscars and won Golden Globe Awards. 

But before all that McDonagh was writing plays in Ireland in his native Irish English (he was born in England of Irish parents), set in Western Ireland, with titles like A Skull in Connemara, The Cripple of Inishmaan, and The Banshees of Inisheer, all towns in the vicinity of Galway and the Aran Islands.

The Lonesome West (1997) is the third in McDonagh’s Leenane Trilogy, perhaps the most famous being The Beauty Queen of Leenane (a Tony nominee for Best Play 1998). He set the very successful Pillowman outside Ireland, and A Behanding in Spokanee was his first set in the U.S.  All this by way of saying, do not miss an opportunity to see a Martin McDonagh work played live and well on stage in Chicago.