If you are familiar with the Marx Brother 1933 film “Duck Soup,” it is probably from clips of some of the timeless schtik delivered by the erudite punster Groucho, the womanizing “Italian” Chico, the mute Harpo and the straight man in the bunch, handsome brother Zeppo.

So when I first heard The Conspirators was going to adapt this seemingly light-hearted confection to its stage at Stars & Garters (formerly Otherworld Theater), it didn’t sound like a fit—not based on their more hard-hitting satires of the past. Were they retreating from a world grown too contentious? But having read up on it, then viewed the film recently—which as a whole remains laughworthy—I learned that “Duck Soup” delivers serious social commentary, a send-up of fascism and authoritarianism—so topical in its day, and today for that matter. And so it does indeed fit right into The Conspirators’ sweet spot.

The Clark Street troupe’s stock in trade is theater that perceptive audiences willing to scratch through the surface will find speaks bitingly of the times. The pill is made easier to swallow because it’s delivered in a unique farcical performance mode, known as The Style (more on that later). It has you laughing at its silliness even as the baleful messages hit home. That makes “Duck Soup” perfect grist for the script mill of Sid Feldman, founder of The Conspirators with director Wm. Bullion. Both are in the final phases of casting and adapting the film for an October 30 opening.

Past productions are a good indicator of where The Conspirators take aim. Shows are often hung loosely on the bones of works by 20th century modernist playwrights. Dario Fo’s “Accidental Death of an Anarchist” became the 2019 “Accidental Death of a Black Motorist.” Brecht’s “The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui” (1941) is hinted at by the similarly named “The Resistible Rise of Herr Helmut Drumpf” (2016). Its follow up, “The Deckchairs,” finds an iceberg denier elected captain of an already sinking ship (subtitle: “Make the Titanic Great Again.”) And then there was the latest production, adapting Macbeth from William Shakespeare to Chicago vernacular for “Chicago Cop Macbeth.” 

A circle of hell in “Commedia Divina: It’s Worse Than That”

Other works include “Commedia Divina: It’s Worse Than That,” a riff on "Dante’s Divine Comedy," or the 19th century “The Epidemic,” an obscure political farce by French writer Octave Mirbeau, adapted as a Covid19 parallel in “The Ineptidemic.” The Conspirators’ shows are hilarious satires, laughworthy regardless of one’s political orientation. But they also point up some heavy-duty dramaturgy at play. Bullion and Feldman are deeply knowledgeable theatrical professionals at work on serious artistic expression.

If there is a challenge for audiences watching The Conspirators productions, it lies in adapting ourselves to their performance method, known as The Style. They are the only company in Chicago using it (it originated with actor Tim Robbins at The Actors Gang in Los Angeles; Robbins was a schoolmate of Bullion’s), and it can take some moments to get used to it. For one thing, actors are heavily made up, in thick white greasepaint with dark exaggerated brows, lines and mouth drawn in.

"The Deckchairs, or Make the Titanic Great Again"

The lighting is starkly bright. Delivery is exaggerated, in quick bursts. A stage-side drummer punctuates the lines. And sets are minimalist. There is no dramatic naturalism to be found, quite a departure from Steppenwolf or Goodman or any of Chicago’s storefront stages.

Most arresting is the acting method. No individualized background story is developed in the minds of the actors to inform their expression of character. Instead, just four emotions are allowed, usually delivered full throttle: happiness, sadness, anger and fear. All these elements are the foundation of the version of The Style employed by The Conspirators, introduced to Chicago by a player from LA’s The Actors Gang, Chicago’s John Cusack, for the now defunct New Crime Theater.

The Evanston Connection
“Sid and I both come from Evanston, which is kind of important,” says Bullion. “The high school theater program was really advanced - right next to Northwestern.” Bullion went on to study theater at UCLA, in the same program as actor Tim Robbins who, along with Cynthia Ettinger, originated The Style 40 years ago. Robbins founded The Actors Gang, which describes The Style as rooted in “Théâtre du Soleil, Grotowski, Viewpoints, punk rock and popular culture.” It is still used and taught at Robbins’ Culver City stage near Los Angeles, currently presenting “Topsy Turvy” through September 27, written and directed by Robbins.

The history of The Style corresponds to Bullion’s and Feldman’s backgrounds. Feldman went to school in Evanston with Cusack. After his time with The Actors Gang, Cusack started Chicago’s New Crime Theater in the 1990s as a local platform for productions in The Style.

Feldman ended up connecting with Cusack at New Crime. “I was always a business guy,” Feldman says. When a producer at New Crime melted down during a production of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” its co-directors Cusack and Steve Pink then tapped Feldman to step in at the Chopin Theater, in 1991. (Jeremy Piven was in the cast.)

“It was just a monster of a show to produce,” Feldman says. “And Steve told me I had to come over, and I found the producer in a fetal position, rocking in a corner, it was just too big of a show, she just couldn’t handle it. So I got in through that end, and as I was watching their workshops in The Style, I realized what storefront theater was missing.” Feldman felt drawn to change it.

“Billy [Bullion] and I did a few plays together in the late 90s,” says Feldman. “That’s when we got together. Then we broke up, I started writing screenplays and I went to LA.” Feldman spent the winter months each year on the West Coast during this period. “I had some minor success and I did some rewrites for people who needed help.”

"Accidental Death of a Black Motorist"

Bullion meanwhile was in Chicago, “living the storefront life,” he says. “I had a company called Sliced Bread Productions, and I was doing Brecht, Richard III, two Charles Ludlam plays—farce—wacky, statement making shows.”

Bullion and Feldman had first met up in the subculture music scene in Chicago, but eventually their paths crossed again in theater as well.

Feldman eventually soured on the movie business when one of his scripts, all of them written on spec, finally was made into a movie that he didn’t get paid for.

“That was the turning point,” says Feldman. “The producer never gave me a contract, he stole my possession, he never gave me a dime, I tried suing him for years.” When Feldman returned to Chicago, he and Bullion decided to do some shows together.

“We did Sternheim's "The Underpants" and Friedrich Dürrenmatt's “The Physicists." Bullion had been directing and acting in Chicago. “I was in “Hizzoner Daley the First” for about four years [at Prop Theater] and by the time that was ending we were finding our way back together. During the run-up to the 2016 election Feldman asked Bullion, "Why don’t we put on some workshops and try to put on a show?”

When Bullion, who had also been directing for Babes with Blades in 2014, received a script by Aaron Adair for “L’imbecile” — a gender reversal of “Rigoletto,” he immediately thought of an approach. “There was only one way this play can possibly be done, and that was in The Style,” Bullion says. Soon after The Conspirators was formed.

“So he brought me in and I taught them The Style,” Feldman says.“The plays I had done with New Crime were all in The Style. A lot of our terminology comes from them. Tim Robbins has gone to a more softened version of The Style for major productions at The Actors Gang. At The Conspirators, we have kept it pure, we have actually made it more pure in some ways. It’s a living beast with us; we’re always changing it.”

Because there is no ready cadre of actors schooled in The Style to cast for its shows, The Conspirators have taken to running free workshops, training actors in the technique. From these workshops, it casts its shows.

As Feldman explains, “In college you study to learn who the character is, you study the background and the backstory - and you let that form how you deliver the monologues.
“This is what I teach them,” says Feldman. “I tell them to come in with a one to two minute monologue, with nothing, and in our workshops we only use four emotions: happiness, sadness, fear, and anger - all extremes. There’s no jealousy (“No bemusement” Bullion says.) You come in with a monologue, with nothing prepared - and I just randomly shout out what your next state is, in which you have to deliver the next line or two, in that state. And it always works, no matter what the character is, no matter what the words are. It always works if you commit to it.” This departure from all the character building methods most actors have been trained to can be mind blowing for performers.

“We all say it’s not real, it’s not realistic,” says Bullion, who will direct “Duck Soup.” ”But what makes the style work is the absolute sincerity, and the absolute commitment to real emotion. And that is what gives a harmonic. I don’t want someone ‘acting’ mad. I want the real emotion.”

Feldman notes, “If you pretend to be angry, you can see it immediately. And that exercise is the most important one that gets them to be real actors. This confidence to make choices that other people might not make.”

Outlandish as this approach might sound, it is firmly rooted in deeply established performance traditions, beginning with 16th century commedia dell arte, which used masked archetypal characters and a mix of script and improvisation. This has cropped up on Chicago stages in a variety productions, including Court Theatre’s 2016 “One Man, Two Guvnors” 
In The Conspirator’s adaptation for The Style, heavy make-up along with an abrupt, exaggerated delivery recalls the stylized performance of Japan’s Kabuki. But there is more to it than that.

Promoting the training workshops to actors, The Conspirators describe The Style’s combination of classic commedia dell’arte, kabuki, and sprinkles of Ariane Mnouchkine via actor Tim Robbins’ The Actors’ Gang, “a soupçon of clown” along with the aesthetic of actor John Cusack's New Crime Productions, with influences of “Bugs Bunny and punk rock.”

“One of the things Billy and I talked about before we did “Chicago Cop Macbeth” was not only how people treat Shakespeare too preciously, but also too linearly. As though every single monologue has one point to it. What we see is that people grow during these monologues. People are trying to outwit the other characters to get what they want. Sometimes it’s sarcasm. Our style punches that up. When you compare it to the recent Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand, that was a snoozer. By putting it in the style we’re giving people not just entertainment to watch, but I think it breaks the story down better and makes it more understandable.”

Bullion agrees. “It’s accessible. Because you are laughing along with this meta reality we are creating, because you are laughing along with the cast, you are with them.” To attract contemporary audiences, Feldman believes more radical approaches to theater are called for.

“I would argue, and this is going to be controversial, people are not interested in realism in the theater. When you give them reality in the theater they go to sleep. Young playwrights will give me something, and I’ll say, ‘This is boring.’ And they’ll say, ‘Yeh, but it’s real.’ Nobody wants to watch me get ready to go to bed. That’s real too. Give me something outrageous.”

How this will play out in ”Duck Soup” will be known soon enough. We’ll meet Groucho’s character Rufus T. Firefly, just appointed dictator of Freedonia, who in the film lets us know,. “If you think this country's bad off now, just wait till I get through with it!” What can be said is we can expect the unexpected from The Conspirators’ version opening October 30 at Stars & Garters (formerly Otherworld Theater).

Hershey Felder has made a significant part of his life’s work playing the roles of piano prodigies, and at Writers Theatre he takes on the role of Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943), considered the last of the romantic Russian composers, and a virtuosic pianist. Felder, a very good actor (he received a Jefferson award in his role of Chopin last spring) and remarkable pianist, is perfect in the role, for which he has developed an extensively researched script. The Writers Theatre production, directed by Trevor Hay, is the Midwest premiere of the rolling national debut of “Rachmaninoff and the Tsar.”

Felder has mined this territory for decades, developing shows centered on musical luminaries including historic figures—Chopin, Liszt, Debussy, Mozart , Beethoven—as well as modern figures like Bernstein, Irving Berlin and Gershwin. (He has also produced film versions of some of these stagings.)

Ordinarily performing solo, for “Rachmaninoff and the Tsar,” Felder has for the first time incorporated into the script a second character—Tsar Nicholas II (Jonathan Silvestri), the last Romanoff to rule Russia, until the Bolshevik revolution forced him to abdicate in 1917. Rachmaninoff fled Russia for New York City. This allows for a more robust script, with two characters playing against each other, and sharing the burden of exposition, which can be a downside for story-telling plays. Many other characters are incorporated in silent films shown periodically as a backdrop to what’s on stage.

Jonathan Silvestri as Tsar Nicholas II and Hershey Felder (right) as Sergei Rachmaninoff

The disruption that the Russian Revolution brought to Rachmaninoff’s career meant there were lengthy gaps in his work as a composer. Rachmaninoff was a favorite of the royal family and celebrated across Russia for capturing timeless slavic themes. Felder livens up the story with a creative conceit, set in 1943 as Rachmaninoff lays dying in his Beverley Hills home. On a morphine drip, Rachmaninoff conjures up visions of conversing with Tsar Nicholas II, and the play covers wide terrain as the two converse, and recall their intersecting history.

Throughout, Rachmaninoff takes to the gleaming ebony Steinway concert grand piano, playing 15 works, mostly the musicians own works with one piece by Tchaikovsky, and one by Lvov. At times Felder’s Rachmaninoff plays live against recorded orchestral arrangements, most times he solos. One particularly notable piece was an arrangement Rachmaninoff did of “The Star Spangled Banner.” In open question and answer period at the show, Felder explained the arrangement had been taken from a paper piano scroll recorded by Rachmaninoff himself. It was quite lovely.

Felder also took the time to expound on the reason he added a second character for “Rachmaninoff and the Tsar.” It alleviated the burden of telling the back story and history all by himself. “It gets lonely on the stage,” Felder said. The addition of Tsar Nicholas II also allowed for a divergence into the story of Anastasia, the Tsar’s youngest daughter who for decades was theorized to have survived. Ultimately DNA science dispelled this as myth.

Silvestri as Tsar Nicholas II adopted a growling Russian accented delivery. We learn during the question and answer period that his daughter in real life plays Anastasia in those film reels shown during the performance.

The performances are great overall, and the show is entertaining and engaging, though there is little dramatic tension, and I found my interest lagging in the storyline. Still, “Hershey Felder’s Rachmaninoff and the Tsar” comes recommended, and runs through September 21 at Writers Theatre in Glencoe, IL.

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

Notable New York playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis’s 2000 breakthrough play, “Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train,” is receiving a dynamic revival at City Lit Theater, with a fantastic cast delivering excellent  performances and inventive staging, all under the direction of Esteban Andres Cruz. Guirgis went on to win a a Pulitzer Prize in 2015 for his celebrated work, “Between Riverside and Crazy.”

Berwyn-born Cruz has a history working with Guirgis, and played the role of Angel Cruz in a 2008 Raven Theatre production for which they received a Jefferson Award. Now Cruz is guiding a brace of accomplished actors in Guirgis’ drama, along with 2024 University of Michigan graduate and relative newcomer Lenin Izquierdo, “an angel sent to us from heaven,” says Cruz. “He just had the beautiful thing about his heart that you can’t teach or fake.”

Izquierdo has the lead role that Cruz played, the young Latino Angel Cruz, who wounds a cult leader—Rev. Kim—who he believes is stealing away with his friends and family, and their money. Angel is arrested and sent to Rikers Island to await trial. When Rev. Kim dies from complications following surgery, the charges rise to murder. “Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train” thus carries the inherent dramatic tension of a jailhouse drama, and a courtroom trial.

Maria Stephens as Mary Ann

Guirgis’ play is structured in two acts, with a series of interconnected vignettes that allow each of the characters to deliver exposition, and full portrayals of themselves. Sometimes the vignettes feature a single character, or Angel paired with another—the sadistic guard Valdez (Manny Tamayo is stunningly good as an unvarnished tyrant); the court-appointed lawyer Mary Jane Hanrahan (Maria Stephens in a knock-out performance); the sympathetic guard D’Amico (Michael Daily brought me to tears); and Luscius Jenkins (Bradford Stevens) in a demanding role as a fellow prisoner, a convicted serial killer awaiting execution.

Lenin Izquierdo as Angel (left) and Manny Tamayo as Valdez

Scenic design by Tianxuan Chen is surprisingly effective in its minimalism: layers of canvas graffitied and draped as backdrop to an open stage. A backlit scene (lighting by Josiah Croegaert) is very striking representing off-stage prisoners tormenting Angel. Several scenes stay lodged in my mind: Angel Cruz forlorn in his cell, struggles in his first night in prison to recall the Lord’s Prayer, as prisoners taunt and complain in the background; the empathic guard D’Amico recounting his witness of an execution; Angel’s vivid recollectionis of the joyful play with his friends in the days of his youth.

With all its strengths, “Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train” falters perhaps on the basis of script: we get a little too much of the ravings of Lucius the serial killer, and the closing scene of the play seemed more like a diversion than a resolution.

“Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train” runs through September 27 at City Lit Theater in Chicago. It comes highly recommended.

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

In its world premiere at Writers Theatre in Glencoe, “Dhaba on Devon Avenue” is a strong play, from a promising writer, Madhuri Shekar, winner in 2020 of the Lanford Wilson Playwriting Award. A TimeLine Theatre production, it is directed by Chay Yew.

Another of Shekar’s plays, “A Nice Indian Boy,” produced by Chicago’s Rasaka Theater Company in 2015, was adapted to a 2024 film released theatrically (now streaming) —a kind of “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” crossed with “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” set in India and with a gay white American boy as the surprise fiance.

“Dhaba on Devon Avenue” is in that vein, but a more serious drama: the widower Neeraj (Anish Jethmalani), patriarch of the struggling Dhaba Canteen, a South Asian restaurant on Chicago’s Devon Avenue, is coaching his sous chef daughter Rita (Tina Muñoz Pandya) on the eve of the restaurant’s 30th anniversary banquet. As Neeraj reveals his secrets of Sindhi cooking (Sind is a region of what is now Pakistan) we move into “The Bear” territory—a bit of demanding “Yes Chef” performance as Rita never seems to get the sauce up to Neeraj’s expectation—despite having made it for years.

We suspect Neeraj is tasting with his emotions rather than his palate, and indeed this proves to be the case. Neeraj is one of those old timers that thinks if we can just get things back to exactly where they were in the old days, the problems will go away. But that’s complicated by a diagnosis of Parkinson’s, with early symptoms just beginning to show.

Though she is frustrated by her father’s demands - Rita has been successfully making these dishes for years - she submits to Neeraj’s demands, starting dishes over multiple times to get the flavors just right. The pressure for this “Big Night” banquet is seasoned with urgent calls between Neeraj and his bank, with a deadline for satisfying his loan closing in. When Rita suggests forestalling foreclosure may be more important than perfecting the meal, Neeraj is dismissive. “We always have money problems,” but we can’t serve “substandard food,” in a cruel slight to his daughter Rita.

While the dramatic force plays between father Nareej and daughter Rita, it is the supporting roles that provide color and flair to “Dhaba on Devon Avenue.” Enter Neeraj’s daughter Sindhu (Arja Daire is terrific), an emancipated married professional living the upper middle class life in Seattle. She tries to connect with her dad, and could advise him well, if Neeraj would only give her the chance. He won’t.

Enter brother-in-law Adil (Muheen Jahan, in an excellent comedic performance), who is inspired to invest in Dhaba Canteen. Reluctant to admit his impending failure, Neeraj responds with a wall of “No,” even as the pressure builds. To add more fuel to the dramatic fire, Rita has struck up a romantic tryst with the line cook, Luc Fuentes (Ina Arcinegas in a solid performance), the one non-South Asian character.

All these components add a lot of baggage to the core of the drama - Neeraj’s resistance to the changes necessary for the business to survive. Or more broadly, a man facing the end of the road by doubling down on the past, and with little grace.

How all this gets resolved is nicely packaged in a 90-minute, no-intermission show. But I couldn’t help feeling that keeping the focus on the patriarch, making it more like Lear or Death of a Salesman, might have made for better drama.

The set (Lauren M. Nichols) with a fully equipped kitchen—commercial range, stainless work surfaces, under counter coolers, even tiled floors—was spot on, but props seemed scant for a truly working kitchen. Transition music between scenes was rather too loud. And in certain scenes—such as Rita rummaging around in a file box for a long lost recipe book—she finds it in seconds. It should have taken longer, perhaps, with more stuff in that box.

Definitely worth seeing, if only to get on the track to follow Madhuri Shekar’s next work, “Dhaba on Devon Avenue” runs through July 27, 2025 at Writers Theatre in Glencoe, IL.

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

“Six Men Dressed Like Stalin,” now at A Red Orchid Theatre in Chicago and directed by dado, draws upon the true story of Felix Dadaev, drafted in 1942 to stand in for Josef Stalin, Premier of the Soviet Union.

The character Soso (Esteban Andres Cruz) is based on Dadaev. Like him, Soso is a juggler, ballet dancer and magician; bore a striking resemblance to Stalin; and was mistakenly declared killed in action in WWII. What became the KGB snapped up Dadaev, but this was to be no ordinary stand-in for the Soviet leader. Dadaev was carefully educated, so that he could credibly play Stalin in high-level discussions with other government leaders, and prepped to mimic Stalin’s tone and movements.

Playwright Dianne Nora uses this history as a jumping off point, imagining how the Stanislavsky Method, which demands the actor become the character emotionally and psychologically (and originated in Russia), might have been applied to polishing Soso’s performance. She takes another real-life figure, Alexie Dikiy (John Judd), one of the Soviet Union’s foremost actors, as the basis for her character Koba, who in the play trains Soso in Stanislavsky techniques.

Now we’re at the heart of the action: the Method mentor Koba reshaping the inner Soso to become Stalin. Having been declared dead at the war front, Soso presents fertile ground for recreation as the Soviet leader. For two grueling years, Soso reported daily at 6 a.m., and Koba instructed him. Soso hadn’t really acted before, he was a stage performer. Eventually, he has trial runs - walking across the street as Stalin - and returns elated, developing confidence in his role.

There are vibrant moments. At the opening the actors break the fourth wall, describing the setting and their characters before settling into the performance. Placards with time and date are hung before us, providing a timeline. And in a striking bit of avant garde showmanship, we witness state secrets being divulged to Soso as he and Koba gesticulate wildly under strobe lights and blaring operatic themes.

The intensity of the relationship between the two - Koba, an actor's actor, trying to force feed stage excellence into Soso, a street performer - is a constant: Kobo frustrated, Soso struggling. Gradually we understand that Soso has, indeed, become Stalin. But for me, there is not much in the emotional engagement that might be expected. Mostly, I came away bewildered.

A timeline in the lobby of A Red Orchid tells the remarkable backstories of Felix Dadaev and Alexie Dikiy, and gives context for “Six Men Dressed Like Stalin.” Sometimes fact is stranger than fiction, and perhaps even more interesting.

“Six Men Dressed Like Stalin” runs through June 22, 2025 at Chicago’s A Red Orchid Theatre, 1531 N. Wells. 

*Extended through June 28th!

You’ll want to join this “Neighborhood Watch," a fast-paced comedy having its world premiere in Jackalope Theatre’s performance space in the Broadway Armory. Harsh Gagoomal plays Mo Rizvi with deft emotional range, a bearded, swarthy Middle Easterner who has moved into a house in white suburbia, in the weeks just after Donald Trump's return to the presidency.

Unfortunately for Mo—short for Mohammed—his bothersome next door neighbors are the widowed GenX-er Paul (Frank Nall), who wears his excessively liberal credentials on his sleeve (literally, a Bernie Sanders sweatshirt) with a Harris-Walz sign in the yard; and on the other side, Shawn (Victor Holstein) a 30-something ever-Trumper.

The broad comedic interplay between these opposites could lead one to believe ”Neighborhood Watch” is a lighthearted farce. Even the bouncy scene segue music keeps the situation-comedic vibe going.

But playwright Rehana Lew Mirza, who was commissioned to write "Neighborhood Watch" by the National New Play Network has more in store for us, using the laughter to slyly lure the audience into deeper matters, gradually, though not too deep. It's funny, first and foremost. Kudos to Karina Patel, Jackalope's darmaturg, for snagging this lovely script.

Shawn is suspicious as he eyes Mo unpacking household goods—a pressure cooker, electronics, a tank of propane and a mysterious black backpack, laughably obvious memes of terrorism, all in plain view. But ever-nosy Shawn feels compelled to draw Paul’s attention to the “danger” lurking from the new neighbor.

After he blithely disregards Shawn and introduces himself to Mo, we cringe at Paul’s virtue-signalling as he holds Mo hostage to a ham-handed, somewhat oblique “supportive” conversation. Paul is so caught in his conundrum of trying not to offend that he becomes even more offensive. Mo finally figures out this neighbor has cast him in the role of suffering minority, a moment of tokenism that’s laughable too, because it’s so exaggerated. As Harsh Gagoomal conveys Mo’s internal dialog so effectively, we can see him bemused on the inside as he figures out Paul’s designs on establishing a relationship—Paul the white savior, Mo the suffering minority. That’s how unconscious racism exhibits itself in the liberal camp.

Mirza imparts a comic air on all this, reminding me of TV’s “All in the Family,” if Archie Bunker were a liberal, with his Meathead son-in-law the bumbling Shawn next door. The assertive Gloria character would be Becca, Paul’s 22-year-old daughter Becca (Jamie Herb). After Paul advises her to dress more modestly, in deference to what he imagines are Mo’s Islamic religious leanings, Becca goes to meet Mo for herself, and we find both as their truest selves: mutual date material. Sparks fly.

Reporting back later to her dad, Becca gives us a laugh-filled take on how GenZ handle their GenX parents’ social missteps, excoriating him for “man-splaining, then coaching her father with that query I hear frequently enough from my adult son: “What have we learned?”

We also see Paul and Shawn partnering on common ground, as they spy on Becca to see what she’s up to with Mo. Shawn has his own romantic design on Becca, while Paul is just a run-of-the-mill helicopter parent of his generation.

Mirza brings us something deeper as the plot thickens around the core of the drama: the unexpected arrival of Mo’s “cousin” Javed at the end of Act I. Fresh out of federal jail, and now a devoted Muslim, Javid’s domineering relationship to Mo fills Act II. Avoiding spoilers, we learn there is much more between Mo and Javed than we might have guessed. We also get a small recount of the emotional dynamics involved in Javed’s journey to and from extremism, as he alights on a deeply held spiritual connection to Islam.

In “Neighborhood Watch,” Mirza scores light-hearted laughs at the expense of white liberal culture and the racism of a different sort that can thrive among. Stereotypes abound. And it’s funny. Comedy is all in the timing and director (and casting director) Kaiser Ahmed nails it. Nothing drags.

Also notable are the sets (Tianxuan Chen) and in particular the lighting (Maaz Ahmed), who instead of merely darkening areas that are inactive, casts them in a bluish light, a small thing perhaps but I thought it innovative.

“Neighborhood Watch” has been extended through July 12 at Broadway Armory Park, 5917 N Broadway in Chicago

Riots of laughter greeted the City Lit Theater world premiere of “R.U.R. [Rossum’s Universal Robots]” Wait. Could this be the same 1920 science fiction play by Czech Karel Čapek? His 1937 science fiction piece at Trap Door Theater “The White Plague” was a serious treatment of public reaction to a very AIDS-like disease seemed to anticipate current history. He was a serious writer, not a comedian.

Yes, this is Čapek’s “R.U.R.,” credited for putting the word “robot” in our lexicon. And this story revolves around that same scientific genius who has figured out how to make advanced automatons, some of which we would call androids. 

But still suspicious, I flipped to Čapek’s original script and found a fast-paced 1930s melodrama that, played straight, would probably have come across as ludicrous. Faced with generating unintended laughter from the original, City Lit Theater opted for a comic version freely adapted by Bo List, one that maintains all the major plot points of the original, but plays them for like a screwball comedy. well directed by Brian Pastor.

Harry Rossum (Bryan Breau) has inherited an island factory where robots are churned out by the millions, and exported around the globe, intended mostly to supplant servants and factory workers. Harry Rossum's late father, a mad inventor, created the robot formulae, but his son has also innovated, creating the first cordless phone - it weighs 80 lbs. - no problem when you have a robot available to carry it for you.

Robot Radius (Sean William Kelly) ferries an 80-lb. portable phone wherever its inventor Harry Rossum (Bryan Breau) needs it.

As robots crowd out humans there is, needless to say, a public reaction. Rossum’s factory receives a visit by two advocates on the societal concerns: Nana (Shawn Tucker) who thinks robots should be removed from the globe; and Helena Glory (Madelyn Loehr) who believes the sentient robots should be given rights.

The playwright Bo List has incorporated AI into the storyline, and we meet more advanced, thinking robots like Sulla (Alex George) and Marius (Brendan Hutt) who learn on the go. Helena also happens to be the daughter of the mythical country’s president, and Harry is smitten with her. Romance ensues, and the comedy kicks in.

Unfortunately for the automatons, they have a limited lifespan and cease operating under this planned obsolescence after two years. Eventually Sulla and Marius lead a robot rebellion, seeking the secret formula that would allow robots to replicate themselves. Humor abounds.

Some of the jokes are inherent to the retro-science fiction premise. Robots operate typewriters, with precision typing at ungodly speeds. Or robots communicating with each other via telegram. In one gag that is flogged to death onstage, humans require a long explanation of why an intercepted robot telegram closes with LOL. The robots demonstrate what it means by laughing mechanically in unison. While I found some of the gags sophomoric, the conceptual humor had me laughing frequently.

Scenic design by Jeremiah Barr is quite successful, as are costumes for robots and humans, by Beth Laske-Miller.

“R.U.R. [Rossum’s Universal Robots]” runs through June 15, 2025 at City Lit Theater in the Edgewater Presbyterian Church, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr in Chicago. 

Brendan Hutt (left) is Marius and Alex George is Sulla in City Lit Theater's "R.U.R. [Rossum’s Universal Robots]” running through June 15, 2025.

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