Theatre in Review

Displaying items by tag: City Lit Theatre

"The Night of the Hunter" is not a feel-good play, but it is a very good one, exceedingly well performed and produced. Playing at City Lit Theatre through December 3 it was adapted for the stage by Shawna Tucker from the novel of the same name by Davis Grubb.

It is based on the true story of Harry Powers, a serial killer hanged in 1932 in Clarksburg, WV. 

John Harper (Alex Albrecht), driven to despair in the Great Depression, impulsively robs a bank, killing two people. He stumbles home and gives the $10,000 he stole (an exorbitant sum in 1932) to his nine year old son John and little Pearl, who’s not yet four. Before surrendering himself to the police he extracts from young John a pledge to always protect both his little sister and the money, cunningly hidden inside Pearl’s favorite dolly.

Harper’s cellmate in Moundsville Penitentiary is Powers (Bryan Breau), a con man who murders widows once he’s reaped their savings. Unable to winkle the secret from Harper before he’s hanged, Powers is eventually released, and promptly heads for Harper's tiny Appalachian hometown to try his luck with the widow.

hunter3

Kendal Romero and Bryan Breau in "Night of the Hunter" at City Lit Theatre.

The struggling young widow Willa (Kendal Romero) is waiting tables at the cafe – the hub for town gossip – and speculation on “Where did he hide the money?” has become a town obsession. Willa swears her husband never told her, but most don’t believe her, especially Powers, and he proceeds to charm her, along with the rest of the town. Bryan Breau is indeed tantalizing as Preacher; one wonders, with café owners Icey (Sheila Willis) and Ben (Alex Albrecht) at Willa’s hesitation to accept his proposal.

Mary Margaret McCormack is full-grown and taller than Pearl’s ‘elder’ brother John (Jacqui Touchet), yet she plays the role of Pearl so credibly that one sees not the actor but the little girl. McCormack eloquently depicts the turmoil and distress of a little bitty girl burdened with far too big a secret, especially as, unlike John, Pearl is enchanted with her "new daddy." But she trusts her big brother, even when she’s sure John is wrong.

Jacqui Touchet’s John was just as persuasive: a youngster poised at the transition from childhood into manhood, forced too early into the role of "man of the house," only to be challenged by a man John neither likes nor trusts. Touchet gave an authentic picture of a boy trying to protect his mother and little sister from a man that everyone insists is a good man, a Man of God; a “Preacher.”

Sheila Willis was brilliant as Icey, a scold and a quidnunc with the classic heart of gold and generally good intuition … except about Preacher. Other townsfolk – Ruby, Miz Cunningham and Birdie – were variously played by Rich Cotovsky and Simmery Branch.

I was impressed by Kendal Romero’s interpretation of Willa as an ineffectual woman whose instinct to refuse Preacher capitulates under peer pressure, only to be verified on their wedding night, when Preacher declares their union will be platonic. Evidently he’s not quite ruthless enough to bed a woman he intends to defraud and then kill – what a guy, huh?

Willa is naturally disheartened by his rejection, but under his high-falutin’ pretexts and vindications (not neglecting to mention an Apple from a certain Tree), her disappointment and chagrin mutate into shame at her own depravity. She seeks to purge herself by active participation in the Preacher’s tent revivals where her testimonies, a savory amalgam of titillation and self-loathing, garner huge collections. But it's still not enough for Preacher; he’s haunted by the image of that $10,000.

Director Brian Pastor divided the action into multiple brief vignettes separated by commentary from the Narrator Shawna Tucker, who also wrote the stage adaptation. Set Designer Jeremiah Barr built a very simple set, ably lit by Lighting Designer Liz Cooper, whose raised platform created multiple levels and facilitated rapid transitions using only a couple of benches and a café table. The apparel chosen by Costume Designer Rachel S Parent effectively illustrated each character: ‘accidental’ glimpses of Pearl’s little-girl underpanties complemented McCormack’s portrayal of the child, and dropping Willa’s hemline below that of other townswomen clinched her irresolute persona.

I’ve seen the work of many violence choreographers and Paul Chakrin’s was top shelf, and Stage Manager Ayla Sweet choreographed the swift scene changes expertly. The Depression-era Appalachian accents were adroitly piloted by Dialects Coach Carrie Hardin.

Published in Theatre in Review

City Lit Producer and Artistic Director Terry McCabe announced today that the theatre’s 2023-2024 season—its forty-third—will be his last on its staff.  He has been City Lit’s artistic director since February 2005 and its producer since July 2016.  He will retire at the end of June 2024 following the close of both the season and the theatre’s fiscal year.
 
His final season at City Lit will comprise three world premieres—a play, a literary adaptation, and a short musical—as well as the Chicago premiere of a play by its resident playwright and the first local full production in over seventy years of a modern classic. “I love working at City Lit, and I am jazzed about the new season” McCabe said, “but I look forward to being home for dinner every night.”  An announcement concerning McCabe’s successor will be made soon.

City Lit’s forty-third season will open with the world premiere of The Innocence of Seduction by Chicago playwright Mark Pracht, the second play in his projected “Four-Color Trilogy” of plays set during the early years of the comic book industry.  The first play in the trilogy, The Mark of Kane, opened City Lit’s forty-second season.  The Innocence of Seduction examines the 1950s Congressional investigation into the supposed link between comic books and juvenile delinquency, and the effect of the investigation on the careers of three persons:  William Gaines, the originator of the horror genre of comic books; Matt Baker, a Black closeted gay artist of romance comics; and Janice Valleau, creator of a pioneering comics feature starring a woman detective.  Pracht will direct.  The Innocence of Seduction will run from August 25 through October 8, 2023.  Press opening will be September 3, 2023.
 
The season’s second production will be a world premiere stage adaptation of the noir novel The Night of the Hunter by Davis Grubb, adapted by Chicago adaptor Shawna Tucker. Inspired by the crimes of West Virginia serial killer Harry Powers, who was executed in Grubb’s hometown in 1932 for the murders of two widows and three children, The Night of the Hunter is about Henry “Preacher” Powell, who has LOVE tattooed on the knuckles of his right hand and HATE on those of his left, and preys on widows in Depression-era West Virginia.  Having killed Willa Harper, he zeroes in on her two children, John and Pearl, who he is convinced know where their late father has hidden ten thousand dollars.  City Lit’s resident director, Brian Pastor, will direct.  The Night of the Hunter will run from October 20 through December 3, 2023.  Press opening will be October 29, 2023.
 
The third production of the season will be Two Nights in a Bar, a double bill of one-acts comprising the Chicago stage premiere of Waiting for Tina Meyer by Kristine Thatcher (with material by Larry Shue) and the world premiere of Text Me, a musical written and composed by Kingsley Day.  Waiting for Tina Meyer is the only collaboration between Thatcher, City Lit's resident playwright, and Shue, the late playwright of the farces The Nerd and The Foreigner.  Written while they were best friends and resident actors at Milwaukee Repertory Theater in the 1980s, it concerns a pair of best-friend actors--a man and a woman--sitting in a bar because the man is expecting to be met there by Tina Meyer, a woman he doesn't know who sent him a note backstage earlier that evening.  Day's musical, Text Me, commissioned by City Lit as a companion piece to Thatcher and Shue's play, is a 21st Century look at the problem of meeting people.  In this version of the bar, a group of people come to try to make connections--on their phones.  Fittingly for our fractured times, all the songs in the show are solos.  McCabe will direct both pieces.  Two Nights in a Bar will run from March 8 through April 21, 2024.  Press opening will be March 17, 2024.
 
The season will close with the first full production in Chicago since the early 1950s (though there have been concert readings from time to time) of Murder in the Cathedral by T.S. Eliot, author of Cats and a series of letters to Groucho Marx, among other works.  The play dramatizes the martyrdom of Archbishop Thomas Becket at the hands of knights loyal to Henry II in 1170.  Eliot wrote it on commission to be performed in the sanctuary at Canterbury Cathedral, the room where Becket was murdered; his depiction of the killing draws from the eye-witness account of Edward Grim, a monk who was wounded trying to protect the Archbishop.  City Lit’s production will be staged in the sanctuary of Edgewater Presbyterian Church, the building in which City Lit resides.  McCabe will direct.  Murder in the Cathedral will run from May 3 through June 16, 2024.  
 
City Lit Season 43 subscriptions are available at $99.00, good for all performances, or $77.00 for preview performances. Subscriptions may be ordered online at www.citylit.org or purchased over the phone by calling 773-293-3682. Single tickets for the Season 43 are priced at $30 for previews and $34 for regular performances and will be on sale soon. Senior prices are $25 for previews and $29 for regular performances. Students and military are $12.00 for all performances.
 
McCABE BIO
 
Terry McCabe has worked in Chicago theatre since 1980, when he assisted director Michael Maggio on a production of Moss Hart’s Light Up the Sky at Northlight, at the time called North Light Repertory Theatre.  He joined the staff at the Body Politic Theatre in 1981 as assistant to artistic director James O’Reilly; two years later he used the money he made there to found Stormfield Theatre Company.  Stormfield specialized in new plays by Chicago writers.  Of its thirteen productions, eleven were world premieres, including the first three plays by future Tony-winning playwright and Oscar-nominated screenwriter John Logan.  Stormfield’s production of Logan’s Hauptmann was the first Chicago theatre production to play by invitation at the Edinburgh International Arts Festival, where it won a Fringe First award.  When McCabe closed Stormfield in 1988, it had just won its second consecutive non-Equity Jeff for Best Production and was entirely debt-free.
 
From then until 2005, McCabe directed around Chicago on a free-lance basis at many theatres, including Victory Gardens Theater (where he forged a professional relationship with playwright Kristine Thatcher, now City Lit’s resident playwright, and from where his revival of Hauptmann transferred to off-Broadway), Court Theatre, National Jewish Theater, Body Politic (where he directed the Off-Loop movement’s first King Lear, with his former employer O’Reilly in the lead), Next Theatre, and Oak Park Festival Theatre.  Among the many great Chicago actors he was privileged to work with during this period were William J. Norris, Barbara Robertson, Tom Mula, Thatcher, Nicholas Rudall, Stormfield alums Ann Whitney and Denis O’Hare, Linda Emond, Roger Mueller, Pauline Brailsford, Ernest Perry Jr, Alexandra Billings, and Gary Houston.  He was also resident director at Wisdom Bridge Theatre for four years in the early 1990s, where he directed Hollis Resnik and Steve Carell in the world premiere of Tour de Farce, a comedy by Kingsley Day and Philip LaZebnik (creators of City Lit’s current show, the world premiere musical Aztec Human Sacrifice) that has since been produced across the country and in several European cities, and the Chicago premiere production of My Children! My Africa! by Athol Fugard, which transferred to Vienna’s English Theatre, thereby becoming the play’s Austrian premiere as well.
 
When he became City Lit’s artistic director in 2005, midway through its Season 25, it was a part-time theatre, dark for more than six months of each year.  The board at the time had considered closing up shop altogether.  Instead, they hired McCabe, who expanded the season and added ancillary programming (including the anti-censorship outreach program Books on the Chopping Block, now in its eighteenth year); to date he has either directed or overseen seventy-five City Lit productions, most of them world premieres of either plays or literary adaptations.  Among these premieres have been Frank Galati’s adaptation of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Thatcher’s plays The Safe House and The Bloodhound Law (part of City Lit’s five-year commemoration of the Civil War Sesquicentennial), Paul Edwards’s adaptations of Peyton Place and a trio of Shirley Jackson novels, L.C. Bernadine and Spencer Huffman’s adaptation of the cowboy novel The Virginian, Mark Pracht’s The Mark of Kane, the first in his trilogy of plays about the history of the comic book industry, Nicholas Rudall’s final translation of a Greek tragedy, Prometheus Bound, McCabe and Marissa McKown’s adaptation of surfing culture’s founding document, the novel Gidget, Douglas Post’s plays Somebody Foreign and Thirty-Two Stories, and a handful of Sherlock Holmes adaptations by McCabe. 
 
Mixed in with the world premieres have been revivals equally eclectic:  Thatcher’s Voice of Good Hope, about pioneering Black congresswoman Barbara Jordan; the first Chicago production in 120 years of Dion Boucicault’s London Assurance; Post’s musical adaptation of The Wind in the WillowsDashiell Hamlet, a film noir/Shakespeare mashup from 1980s Chicago, co-written (and directed at City Lit) by Mike Nussbaum; Oh Boy!, an almost forgotten Jerome Kern musical from 1917; Lope de Vega’s Fuente Ovejuna, from the Golden Age of Spanish drama; and Harold Pinter’s Old Times and The Birthday Party, among many others.  Since 2016 he has also served as City Lit’s producer.
 
ABOUT CITY LIT THEATER COMPANY:
 
City Lit is the seventh oldest theatre company in Chicago, behind only Goodman, Court, Northlight, Oak Park Festival, Steppenwolf, and Pegasus theatres.  It was founded in 1979 with $210 pooled by Arnold Aprill, David Dillon, and Lorell Wyatt.  For its current season, its 42nd, it operates with a budget slightly over $260,000.  It was the first theatre in the nation devoted to stage adaptations of literary material.  There were so few theatres in Chicago at the time of its founding that at City Lit’s launch event, the founders were able to read a congratulatory letter they had received from Tennessee Williams.
 
For four decades and counting, City Lit has explored fiction, non-fiction, poetry, memoirs, songs, essays and drama in performance.  A theatre that specializes in literary work communicates a commitment to certain civilizing influences—tradition imaginatively explored, a life of the mind, trust in an audience’s intelligence—that not every cultural outlet shares.
City Lit is located in the historic Edgewater Presbyterian Church building at 1020 West Bryn Mawr Avenue. Its work is supported in part by the MacArthur Funds for Arts and Culture at the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, the Ivanhoe Theater Foundation, the Illinois Arts Council Agency and is sponsored in part by A.R.T. League.  An Illinois not-for-profit corporation and a 501(c)(3) federal tax-exempt organization, City Lit keeps ticket prices below the actual cost of producing plays and depends on the support of those who share its belief in the beauty and power of the spoken written word.
 
LISTING INFORMATION
 

CITY LIT THEATER'S 2023-2024 SEASON:
 

The Innocence of Seduction

by Mark Pracht
WORLD PREMIERE
Directed by Mark Pracht
August 25- October 8, 2023
Previews August 25- September 2, 2023
Preview ticket prices $30.00, seniors $25.00, students and military $12.00 (all plus applicable fees)
 
Regular run Sunday, September 3 – October 8, 2023
Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 pm; Sundays at 3 pm; Mondays Sept 25 and Oct 2 at 7:30 pm.
Regular run ticket prices $34.00, seniors $29.00, students and military $12 (all plus applicable fees)
Performances at City Lit Theater, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr Ave. Chicago 60660
Info and tickets at www.citylit.org and by phone at 773-293-3682.
The second play in Mark Pracht’s projected “Four-Color Trilogy” of plays set during the early years of the comic book industry, The Innocence of Seduction examines the 1950s Congressional investigation into the supposed link between comic books and juvenile delinquency, and the effect of the investigation on the careers of three persons:  William Gaines, the originator of the horror genre of comic books; Matt Baker, a Black closeted gay artist of romance comics; and Janice Valleau, creator of a pioneering comics feature starring a woman detective. 
 
The Night of the Hunter
by David Grubb
WORLD PREMIERE ADAPTATION
Adapted by Shawna Tucker
directed by Brian Pastor
 
October 20 - December 3, 2023
Previews October 20 -  28, 2023            
Preview ticket prices $30.00, seniors $25.00, students and military $12.00 (all plus applicable fees)
 
Regular run October 29 – December 3, 2023
Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 pm, Sundays at 3 pm,. Mondays November 20 and 27 at 7:30 pm.
Regular run ticket prices $34.00, seniors $29.00, students and military $12 (all plus applicable fees)
Performances at City Lit Theater, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr Ave. Chicago 60660
Info and tickets at www.citylit.org and by phone at 773-293-3682.
 
A world premiere stage adaptation of the noir novel The Night of the Hunter by Davis Grubb. Inspired by the crimes of West Virginia serial killer Harry Powers, who was executed in Grubb’s hometown in 1932 for the murders of two widows and three children, The Night of the Hunter is about Henry “Preacher” Powell, who has LOVE tattooed on the knuckles of his right hand and HATE on those of his left, and preys on widows in Depression-era West Virginia. 
 
Two Nights in a Bar
A double bill of one-acts:

Waiting for Tina Meyer 
by Kristine Thatcher (with material by Larry Shue)
CHICAGO PREMIERE
           
Text Me   Music, Lyrics, and Book by Kingsley Day
 WORLD PREMIERE
Directed by Terry McCabe
 
March 8 - April 21, 2024
(No performance Easter Sunday, March 31)
Previews March 8 -16, 2024
Preview ticket prices $30.00, seniors $25.00, students and military $12.00 (all plus applicable fees)
 
Regular run March 17– April 21, 2024
Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 pm, Sundays at 3 pm. Mondays April 1, 8, 15 at 7:30 pm
No performance Easter Sunday, March 31
Regular run ticket prices $34.00, seniors $29.00, students and military $12 (all plus applicable fees)
Performances at City Lit Theater, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr Ave. Chicago 60660 (Inside Edgewater Presbyterian Church)
Info and tickets at www.citylit.org and by phone at 773-293-3682.
 
A double bill of one-acts. Waiting for Tina Meyer concerns a pair of best-friend actors--a man and a woman--sitting in a bar because the man is expecting to be met there by Tina Meyer, a woman he doesn't know who sent him a note backstage earlier that evening.  The musical Text Me is a 21st Century look at the problem of meeting people.  In this version of the bar, a group of people come to try to make connections--on their phones. 
 
Murder in the Cathedral 
by T.S. Eliot
directed by Terry McCabe
 
May 3 - June 16, 2024
Previews May 3 – May 11, 2024
Preview ticket prices $30.00, seniors $25.00, students and military $12.00 (all plus applicable fees)
 
Regular run May 12 - June 16, 2024
Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 pm. Sundays at 3 pm.  Mondays June 3 and 10 at 7:30 pm.
Regular run ticket prices $34.00, seniors $29.00, students and military $12 (all plus applicable fees)
Performances at City Lit Theater, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr Ave. Chicago 60660
Info and tickets at www.citylit.org and by phone at 773-293-3682.
 
Murder in the Cathedral dramatizes the martyrdom of Archbishop Thomas Becket at the hands of knights loyal to Henry II in 1170.  Eliot wrote it on commission to be performed in the sanctuary at Canterbury Cathedral, the room where Becket was murdered; his depiction of the killing draws from the eye-witness account of Edward Grim, a monk who was wounded trying to protect the Archbishop.  City Lit’s production will be staged in the sanctuary of Edgewater Presbyterian Church

Published in Upcoming Theatre

City Lit Theater artistic director Terry McCabe brings us an inspired pairing with Two Days in Court, a double-bill of one act plays with a legal theme - and pieces not often seen.

The Devil & Daniel Webster is a 1938 play about the famed 19th century orator who reclaims the soul of a client who has ill-advisedly sold it to the devil; and Gilbert & Sullivan’s breakthrough 1875 operetta, Trial By Jury, brings us a woman who sues for breech of promise when her fiancé abandons her for another woman.

The legal themes aside, the works couldn’t be more different. Gilbert & Sullivan serve up sly wit in a marvelous parody of society, and skillful mimicry of operatic forms, in a highly polished, high caliber musical work. The Devil & Daniel Webster is interesting as a bit of Americana, a decidedly rustic and really rather primitive morality play that originated as a 1936 story in the Saturday Evening Post by Stephen Vincent Benet.

Despite being stilted and laced with phrases like “Tarnation!” The Devil & Daniel Webster is also packed with still-biting commentary on American social foibles, and a backcountry wit. (It’s set in rural New Hampshire sometime after 1830.) And it trades on the abiding respect and affection felt for Daniel Webster, whose oratorical skills were legendary – and thus the reason the character was tapped to argue the case to save a soul. The story is also a cultural meme, reappearing regularly including in a Simpson’s episode and in a video game by Cuphead.

Terry McCabe added one more insightful touch: he found a cast that could sing, dance, and mine period language for its humor. Trained voices are required for any Gilbert & Sullivan piece, and this cast has them. To bind the two works in Two Days in Court more securely, McCabe inserted two songs from a 1938 folk opera version of The Devil & Daniel Webster - a nice touch.

City Lit does a lot with limited props and sets, and successfully relies on its devoted players who turned in strong performances. The polished pro Bill Chamberlain, as Daniel Webster, displayed his notable voice in “I’ve Got a Ram,” a song from the opera version of the play. Playing the Devil – known as Scratch – with an otherworldly style, was Lee Wechman. Though at certain moments his style seemed a little bit out of synch with the rest of the players, overall it worked.

On the Gilbert & Sullivan side we had a chance to really hear some voices, with Ryan Smetana a standout as Counsel for the Plaintiff and Sarah Beth Tanner as the Plaintiff. The one-act Gilbert & Sullivan work left me wanting more – a good feeling to depart with from any production. City Lit Theatre’s Two Days in Court runs through May 26. It ‘s highly recommended for those who don’t want to miss two rarely-played works that are important cultural touchstones.

Published in Theatre in Review

An alluring play with a less familiar name - Fuente Ovejuna – is delivering a startlingly great moment of theater. Written in 1619 by Lope de Vega – the prolific writer who is considered the foremost playwright of Spain’s golden age - it is based on a true story that had become legendary even in its own day.

Set in 1476, it tells the story of a village in Spain, Fuente Ovejuna, captured by loyalists to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in a battle for the crown of Castile. As the story unfolds, Commander Fernán Gómez returns victorious from battle and is feted by the villagers, who shower him with gifts – though not gold and luxuries, but simple fare from their farm town - food, livestock, and crockery.

But Gomez (Varris Holmes) is a tyrant, and he also claims as spoils of victory the young women of the town for himself and his solders. His henchmen Ortuno (Jimmy Mann) and Flores (Ty Carter) represent what is coming to be called toxic masculinity, though when the play was written in the 16th century (and onward if we are being honest), it was common male behavior.

Gradually intimidating the townsfolk until they are afraid to resist, Gomez finally crosses the line when he accosts Laurencia – a self-possessed and what we would call today “empowered” woman - and played with compelling vigor by Carolyn Plurad. Through the build-up to that moment, Laurencia and her companion Pasquala (Kristen Alesia), assert themselves against the increasingly forcible entreaties of Gomez and his soldiers. Thwarted, Gomez beats her fiancé and carries Laurencia away - on the very day of their wedding.

Though subjected to attempted rape (medieval Droit du seigneur allowed overlords to have their way with young women under their dominion), Laurencia makes a daring escape, then shames the leading men of Fuente Ovejuna, and in a dramatic exhortation, rallies the men and significantly, the women, to overthrow the tyrant Commander. 

We have City Lit Theatre to thank for helping familiarize us with Lope de Vega, who is revered just a notch below Cervantes in classic Spanish literature. The work is like a highly evolved morality play as it tracks the arc of the historic event, a blow by blow direct narrative. But de Vega invests what are presumably vaguely known historical characters with fully developed, colorful and likeable personalities. 

Standout performances by Rob Garbowski as Esteban, the town magistrate; Jimmy Mann as the Inquisitor and soldier Ortuno; Val Gerard Garcia, Jr. as townsman Mengo; and Dan McGeehan as jurist Manrique. But without question the most powerful performance is Carolyn Plurad as Laurencia – who brings to the role a rousing power. Her delivery will remind you of one of Shakespeare’s heroines.

Terry McCabe, who adapted and directed the work, provides an amazing evocation of the village center, with a continuous cavalcade of performers – 16 actors in 20 roles, including a musical band, with the requisite pool and working fountain in the town square. All this takes place in the tiny quarters of City Lit Theater’s space on Bryn Mawr. De Vega's play has a living heritage: In its home town, it is performed regularly as part of a theater festival, with 150 of the townsfolk in the cast.

Much more than a historic artifact or literary novelty, Fuente Ovejuna is a something quite special, like a fine art house movie – and for that reason comes recommended. See it at City Lit Theater through February 17. www.citylit.org

Published in Theatre in Review

The parallels between "The Good Fight's” retelling of the British Suffrage Movement -  and the Women's March going on in all countries around the globe now are truly uncanny and a little bit frightening. The Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU).British women's suffrage movement coined the powerful phrase “Deeds, not words" in response to the 50-year-long refusal by Parliament to allow women to vote in the UK. 

Babes with Blades latest production, “The Good Fight” is a stark reminder of today’s issues at hand. History is doomed to repeat itself, and in Babes with Blades latest production, “The Good Fight” at City Lit Theatre the already revved up Chicago audience finds a thought provoking reminder of yesterday's issues which are still being fought for today. 

There are many interesting, and also tragic, scenes that are presented well in this production. WSPU members were regularly subjected to police brutality like being beaten and arrested while demonstrating peacefully or simply selling their Women's Press newspaper, "Votes for Women".  The aging leader of the WSPU, Emmeline Pankhurst (Jean Marie Koons), and other members were arrested repeatedly under an actual law with the degrading and disgusting title “The Cat and Mouse Act".

"The Cat and Mouse Act" allowed police to not only repeatedly arrest and imprison members like Pankhurst but also to brutally force feed them while in prison when they chose to go on hunger strikes. As one character in the play mentions, "You are never the same after the force feeding." 

Force feeding was done by restraining the female prisoner on a medical table by her arms and legs then applying metal clamps to her mouth and teeth to open them so that a feeding tube, which often tore open their vocal cords in the process, could be forcibly shoved down their throats in an effort to punish them. This created a hollow appeasement to the public that they were being "fed by prison guards" in order to save their lives. 

Another fascinating and little known story is told about the group of fighting Suffragette’s called "The Bodyguard", a group of specially trained women who learned the martial art of Jiu Jitsu in order to protect their leader from the police brutality and repeated arrests at each WSPU demonstration. 

The fact that these early suffragettes NEEDED to learn to fight using hand to hand combat just shows clearly how violently they were abused by the police and lawmakers at the time. It's too bad this production didn't get a mention in about the South Asian British suffragettes without whom this battle would not have been won. 

Some scenes were real reminders of how male autocrats use physical force to rule over their subjects. Playwright Anne Bertram includes scenes about Parliament arguments over whether to allow women the vote, which included arguments that the women's hats would be too large to see over if women were voted into government. Another argued the stressing of women's physical weakness as an indicator that they must be ruled over because men are born capable of physically subduing women, etc.  

Although this quote is not in the play it was one of these infuriating responses that served to agitate the movement completely when in June of 1908 the WSPU held a 300,000-strong "Women's Sunday" rally in Hyde Park. The suffragettes argued for women's suffrage with the Prime Minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. The Prime Minister agreed with their argument but "was obliged to do nothing at all about it" and so urged the women to "go on pestering" and to exercise "the virtue of patience".

Some of the women present had been virtuously patiently fighting for their rights for FIFTY years and so the advice to "go on pestering” was felt as an unbelievably patronizing and disgustingly inhumane response from the Prime Minister, which spawned the more militant actions to come. 

One of the most interesting things I did not know about the WSPU and the formation of " The Bodyguard" is that the WSPU members debated  among themselves whether or not to return violence with violence or continue to resist peacefully, doing only damage to abandoned buildings and closed stores in order to avoid using violence to defend their aging leader and other young members from  the  physical destruction of lives through the "Cat and Mouse" torture and release legislation.This production mentions the interesting and bitterly ironic fact that Parliament also passed another legislation protecting it's armed forces that forbade women attending WSPU peaceful marches or protests to wear "hat pins" to fasten their hats because so many police were "poked with hat pins while attempting to arrest protesters that the hat pins were now considered by baton and gun wielding policemen as weapons! 

Hence, the brilliant and necessary formation of " The Bodyguard" which utilized the peaceful art of jujitsu; one of the only martial arts in the world which uses ONLY the energy of an attacker’s momentum to respond to and end the attackers violent actions. 

The essential scenes for this production directed with passion by Elizabeth Lovelady and fight choreographer Gaby Labotka made great use of the relatively small space for so much physical action and complex action scenes. I loved the use of the sumptuous period costumes and official colors of the WSPU. As is stated, “In 1908 the WSPU adopted purple, white, and green as its official colours. These colours were chosen because Purple...stands for the royal blood that flows in the veins of every suffragette...white stands for purity in private and public life...green is the colour of hope and the emblem of spring."

Some of the British accents could use some work because it was a little bit distracting to hear them come and go within a couple cast members. Each member of this ensemble did a great job expressing the fever, excitement and anguish of meeting each day’s challenges and humiliations. 

Emmeline Pankhurst was played beautifully with great wisdom and pride by Jean Marie Koon. Grace Roe, a jailed WSPU member and one of the founders of the movement, was played with wonderful sensitivity and forceful energy by Arielle Leverett. 

I enjoyed watching this play surrounded by Chicagoan's who are right now marching 300,000 strong downtown to protest all GOP of the human rights being eroded by the current Trump administration. 

The fact that in 2018, it has been less than 100 years since women have been given the right to vote and the fact that not only are women still fighting for equal pay, they are also still fighting to keep their rights to abortion, healthcare and protection from career ending sexual harassment while an accused sexual harasser of the worst kind  has been " voted" somehow into the highest office in the land, makes this production a must see for all who are struggling daily to keep up their own energy physically and emotionally to fight "the good fight".  

I highly recommend taking your sons and daughter to see this informative and sadly, still VERY relevant, production to show them how long it takes to win this type of good fight and also that the good fight has not yet been entirely won. 

“The Good Fight” is being performed through February 17th at City Lit Theatre - http://babeswithblades.org/winter-2018-good-fight/.

Published in Theatre in Review

Bard Fiction retells the cult classic Pulp Fiction, transplanting the story in time and space to London 1614. Cool cars become carriages, motorcycles become stallions, guns become swords, a quarter pounder becomes cottage pie and drugs…. well they stay drugs! Written in Shakespearean prose by Ben Tallen, Aaron Greer, Brian Watson-Jones, and the members of the Pulp Bard Wiki, it recreates the Quentin Tarantino hit a truly creative way.

Presented by Commedia Beauregard at the City Lit Theater, the play follows the unconventional and somewhat disjointed storyline of Pulp Fiction very closely.  If you are not familiar with Pulp Fiction, this may make the play hard to follow.  Similar to watching a Shakespeare play, it can be tough to really catch all of the intricate dialogue but if you listen closely it will be sure to have you laughing as you catch the inspired translation from the original. 

The acting was well executed all around with Julius (Steven Royce) and Vincenzio (Josh Zagoren) being true standouts and really channeling the original roles played by Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta. Accents were a bit all over the place but everyone was committed to their characters. The costumes by Jackie Davies, based on the original design by kClare Kemock, took modern textiles like jeans and terrycloth bathrobes, and converted them into Elizabethan era designs. My initial impression was that it was a cheap, budget version of proper Shakespearian costumes, but they grew on me as the show went on and I started to appreciate the homage to the early 90’s fashion of the original.

City Lit Theater is a small black box style theater and the play was staged with very limited set pieces. Produced as 16 scenes, they used a few tables, benches and chairs to set the stage. The original movie had no score but instead used an eclectic mix of music, with a particular focus on surf music. For Bard Fiction, Joe Griffen brings back some of the iconic songs of the movie that sound like they are being played on a harpsichord and a lute, helping to transition us from scene to scene.

Before seeing this show, I re-watched Pulp Fiction. Thanks to that, I was able to pick up on some more subtle jokes and appreciate the unique “translation”. It was an entertaining show and will be sure to please fans of the movie. Those who have not seen the original, or did not like the original, I would recommend either skip this or better yet watch the movie on Netflix before catching the show. It will certainly heighten the experience.

Bard Fiction will be playing in Chicago at the City Lit Theater through August 2nd.  Purchase your tickets at www.cbtheatre.org or by calling the box office at (312) 487-1893.

Published in Theatre in Review

 

 

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