‘Too Hot to Handel’ captures all the majesty of Handel’s baroque music masterpiece, but adds soul, infusing it with the power of equally classic jazz, gospel and blues interpretations. This annual tradition - it ran December 3-4 this year - was launched in 1992, and was first performed at Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre two decades ago, where it returns for two performances each year. It never fails to surprise and delight—so much so this reviewer has seen it six times.

By reinterpreting portions of the classic work with treatments that include varieties of jazz, along with gospel, backbeats, and scat, “Too Hot to Handel” amplifies and highlights Handel's 1741 score. Purists may be tempted to scoff at any meddling with the original, but there are actually many variations in the canon, such as tempo, instrumentation (modern and original instruments), etc.

It is no accident that numerous jazz masters from Keith Jarett to Herbie Hancock move with fluidity between jazz and baroque musical forms. “Too Hot to Handel” shows why. It allows both performers and the audience to respond emotionally to Handel’s inspirational original through the free forms of modern music, relinquishing the intensive restraint imposed by baroque.

Perhaps chief among the numerous powerful performances is that of Rodrick Dickson, an opera star of international renown. His clarion tenor all alone equals in force and magnitude the combined power of the chamber orchestra, jazz combo, and symphonic choirs against which he performs. Dickson’s delivery of “Comfort Ye,” “For He is Like a Refiners Fire” and other sections, carries everything Handel had to have intended for it, and then amps it up with the departures from the work.

Likewise opera soprano Alfreda Burke, whose role hews tighter to Handel’s score, carrying it with clarity and power against the driving backdrop of a swinging orchestra and chorus. An accomplished principal in major productions of Puccini, Poulenc, Beethoven and many others around the world, Burke’s voluptuous voice delights in “There Were Shepherds Abiding in the Field.”

Then there is Karen-Marie Richardson, mezzo-soprano, bringing unabashedly jazz delivery to “Oh Thou that Tellest Good Tidings to Zion” and other sections with a style that contrasts distinctly from Burke and Dickson, and yet is equally as affecting.

There is much more to say about “Too Hot to Handel,” most importantly the tour de force performance by Detroit pianist Alvin Waddles, who at one point must improvise through 18 bars; the sheet music is simply blank, and he runs with it. And each year it seems another star performance emerges, which without question was principal saxophonist Greg Ward, whose stand-up solos were emotionally intense reveries on whatever had preceded them.

Created in 1992 as a collaboration between conductor Marin Alsop with orchestrators and arrangers Bob Christianson and Gary Anderson, “Too Hot to Handel: The Jazz-Gospel Messiah” had its Chicago premiere at the Auditorium Theatre in 2006. The production has returned every year since, formerly during the weekend before Martin Luther King Jr. Day. This year, Too Hot to Handel landed right in the middle of the traditional Messiah season in the weeks leading up to Christmas.

Using the original musical material from Messiah, Alsop, Christianson, and Anderson reinvented the basic melodic and harmonic outlines of Handel’s original by using scat, backbeats, jazz and gospel vocals, and instrumental improvisation. If you missed it this year, mark your calendar for December 2023 when “Too Hot to Handel” returns to the Auditorium Theatre.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Man of the People,” an original play by Dolores Diaz, tells the incredible but true story of a 1920s medical charlatan, Dr. John Romulus Brinkley, who garnered a large following with a popular medical advice radio program.

He then scammed thousands of his devoted listeners into buying useless tonics, some of it merely colored water. And at his clinic he would perform dangerous surgeries, implanting goat testicles into men’s scrotums, intended to restore virility, but often killing or maiming patients instead.

Produced by Stage Left Theatre and running through November 20 at the Chicago Dramatists, “Man of the People” recounts Brinkley’s seemingly unstoppable rise to fame and fortune, despite the best efforts by the American Medical Association, the Federal Communications Commission, the Food & Drug Administration, and local government regulators. Even the U.S. Congress investigated Brinkley, and Michael Peters is stunning in the role of this antihero who simply relocated and adapted to each restriction, eventually circumventing the FCC by broadcasting from Mexico.

Playwright Diaz, whose most recent credit was “Zulema” at the Goodman in 2021, wraps the story in a tale of the real-life crusading investigative reporter, Chicago’s Dr. Morris Fishbein (Andrew Bosworth gives a knock-out performance), who as editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association outs Brinkley’s chicanery. But no blow was decisive enough to stop the quackery.

In “Man of the People,” Diaz poses a question: Why did people believe Brinkley, even after a series of revelations made public his chicanery?

The question resonates in our world of political demagogues and podcasters cashing in on conspiracy theories and patently false information on subjects ranging from mass shootings, to COVID vaccinations, and even election results. And it seems no matter how demonstrably wrong are the falsehoods, the fans and followers cannot be convinced.

The answer Diaz offers is that, in the case of Brinkley anyway, people were attracted to the hope he offered, a possibility that they could be cured from maladies for which there was no remedy. Clearly “Don’t confuse me with the facts” is a constant in the human condition.

The script wraps the factual saga of Brinkley’s rise and fall with parallel tales: Brinkley’s relationship with his partner in crime and common law wife Minnie (played by Joan Nahid), and Fishbein’s relationship with his AMA research partner Maxwell (played by Shawn Smith) who did the spadework to prove Brinkley’s fraud. Even Fishbein’s mother Fanny (Sandy Spaz) was seduced by Brinkley’s appeal despite her own son’s credentials as an M.D. who persistently discourages her.

While the script is a little uneven, dwelling too long on some areas, and needing a bit more emphasis on the motivation behind the characters, the story is so compelling, I highly recommend this production. The cast is uniformly good, and Smith and Bosworth give highly energized performances. See "Man of the People" through November 20 at the Chicago Dramatists,

'The Magnolia Ballet' is an exceptional show—perfect in performances, direction (Mikael Burke), staging. And then there’s the script, by Terry Guest, who also plays the lead as Ezekiel “Z” Mitchell VI. While this show merits a Jeff Award (Chicago's Tony) without doubt, I believe it’s Pulitzer material, at least in my book. Why?

On the surface, 'The Magnolia Ballet' may seem an unassuming tale of a young black boy, Z, and his gradual coming out as gay in an unwelcoming rural South. Bright and sensitive, Z longs for affection denied by a stern and authoritarian father Ezekiel Mitchell V (Wardell Julius Clark). After his mother dies, Z takes solace in a grammar school friend, Danny Mitchell (Ben Sulzberger), a white boy. Best buddies, they do homework and listen to music together, and develop a tacit sexual relationship after puberty. And they probe whether they may have found that unicorn sought so sorely by white people, a post-racial friendship that jettisons five generations of slave and master dynamics.

All this in just 95 minutes (no intermission) that is humorous and adept. Terry Guest as Z is a remarkable actor, and we may have something on the order of 'Hedwig and the Angry Inch,' with author and performer in one. Sheldon D. Brown hovers over the action as Apparition, a ghost and stand-in for numerous men and women, black and white. His performance is a wonder, truly. Wardell Julius Clark is excellent as Z’s father, and periodically, Danny’s father, a white sheriff. Ben Sulzberger as Danny Mitchell nails the role.

Powerful and touching material for a sentimental memoir on its own, but the playwright takes it so much further, providing a sweeping context for examining how he as a gay Black man was formed. It includes the history of his father’s emotional constraints passed down over generations from the progenitor, a slave for whom expressing paternal love could be dangerous. We get a review of four centuries of white apologists for the “necessary evil” of slavery. We hear the specious argument from Z’s best friend about “remembering” the Confederate history but not embracing its roots in the economic defense of slave labor. A host of asides and details like the fact Z’s friend wears a Confederate jacket reproduced in 1910, provide clues to the overarching story: This jacket is not really an artifact saved from 1865, but evidence of the collective cultural consciousness that, replicating and propagating itself, perpetuates racism today.

Playwright Terry Guest gives us the white view of the world accurately, in a way we can understand. Z’s friend Danny laments his generational past: his ancestors helped perpetrate church burnings and the Selma bombing. They were at the revival of the Ku Klux Klan. Danny aspires to be released from his roots, and offers a sincere apology to Z for this baggage. And we get high points of cultural icons like “Gone With the Wind” and the threatening white sheriff seen through white and black eyes.

Guest is schooled in theater and a skillful playwright. Before this Chicago premiere 'The Magnolia Ballet' was staged at Indianapolis' Phoenix Theatre. Guest's other works include 'The Madness of Mary Todd Lincoln,' 'Andy Warhol Presents: The Cocaine Play,' and most recently 'At the Wake of the Dead Drag Queen.' This play is described as a "Southern Gothic fable that melds high drama, poetry. and spectacle to explore masculinity, racism, and the love between a queer kid and his father." 

The production incorporates balletic renderings of a barbershop haircut, evocative song, and Sheldon D. Brown's Apparition renders these and so many other poetic scenes that evidence his prolific background as a an actor from Shakespeare to contemporary works, and educator credits at Steppenwolf and Northlight. It is an underpinning of the play and production.

In the end, the white boy Danny meets a crossroads, forsaking Z in an incident triggered by homophobia, but powered by the centuries of separate and unequal power whites have over Blacks. The suggestion is that the racial divide is so ingrained it perpetuates itself. The playwright artfully gives white people an accessible view of the white world through Black eyes. We see this young Black man suffer for opening his heart to a white man. Guest paints a specific portrait of our racial split, and shows why it is so intractable. If that divide is ever to be bridged, it will be helped by great artists like Guest and the creative team of About Face Theatre. Highly recommended, it runs through June 11 at the Den Theater, 1331 N. Milwaukee Ave. in Chicago.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lifeline Theatre has remounted 'Middle Passage' for its return to live production. It is every bit as good, even better, than the run cut short by the pandemic in March 2020.

But this time around I was better able to appreciate the artfulness of the script. Adapted by Ilesa Duncan (who co-directs with David Barr II) from a best-selling National Book Award winning novel by scholar Dr. Charles Johnson. Middle Passage the book is a fictional first-person narrative set in 1830 by a 20-year-old freed slave, Rutherford Calhoun (Ajax Dontavius), who makes his way from Southern Illinois to New Orleans to sow his wild oats.

It is an exciting show: absolutely entertaining, well-produced, extremely well-acted. It would have been a crying shame if audiences didn't get another chance to see the inventive staging, a realistic ship's deck crammed into Lifeline's compact quarters at 6912 N. Glenwood in Chicago. It runs through June 5 so don't miss it.

Entertaining as it is, 'Middle Passage' also recounts the enslavement and transport of Africa’s Almuseri people, their inhumane treatment by a cruel ship’s captain, and plans by the captain to sell their most sacred possession, a statue of a living god kept stowed with the slaves below. How do these opposites co-exist in one play? Sadly, just as they do in daily life. 

Ajax Dontavius as Rutherford Calhoun carries the weight of the show, onstage nearly every minute, and he acquits hiimself exceptionally well as the wandering young man. Like a 19th century literary character (think Thackeray’s Barry Lyndon), we live his experiences through Calhoun's first-person point of view. As the good and bad pass before his eyes during his adventures, he makes frequent asides to speak directly to the audience—really very Shakespearean, with some of these in metered rhyme. As in life the lighthearted moments and the tragic co-exist, and at first, Calhoun drifts through them all, witnessing but unaffected.

Calhoun is on the make in New Orleans, and without means – courting young ladies, but also running up debts. This comes to the notice of Papa Zeringue (Lynsey Falls is excellent), a Creole mob boss holding 50,000 francs in Calhoun’s promissory notes. Papa Zeringue tells Calhoun he must pay, or he will be thrown into the deeps of the Mississippi. 

Thankfully for Calhoun, he has won the heart of the chaste school marm, Isadora (Shelby Lynn Bias is superb in the role), a very refined young Black schoolteacher from Boston, whose family has been free four generations. Isadora has some savings, and unbeknownst to Calhoun, negotiates to pay his debts to Papa Zeringue, on the condition Calhoun is forced to marry her.

Calhoun is not interested in marriage, and so escapes by stowing aboard the ship Republic. Discovered days after it puts out to sea, he joins the crew, but soon learns the Republic is an illegal slaver, on its way to Africa to pick up human cargo. With that, the story opens to an exciting seafaring tale with all the trappings—storms, cannon fire, mutiny, betrayals, culminating in a shipwreck following a slave rebellion. Here, as my companion noted the blocking is remarkable, the tiny stage presenting a ship tossed on the sea, conveyed by the carefully orchestrated movements of the crew and cargo tossed to and fro. 

Calhoun is there for selfish reasons - “Of all the things that drive men to sea, the most common disaster, I've come to learn, is women” – as one character puts it. As an “everyman” character, we watch Calhoun try to avoid dirtying his hands in a mutiny, and later negotiating with the slaves who seize the ship. But Calhoun changes through his experience, befriending the slaves and shifting from aloof observer to their advocate. convincing the slaves to spare the helmsman who alone can guide them back to their homeland. Calhoun develops his moral compass through the trials, and as my companion suggests, is like the hero in the tale of Gilgamesh, back where he started as the boat finally returns to port in New Orleans, but a changed man, and a beautiful resolution of the series of plot points follows.

In addition to Baily and Dontavius, the cast is uniformly good - really good - and most play multiple ensemble roles, as well as their principle character: Hunter Bryant (Calhoun’s brother Jackson), also, notably plays the role of a young slave learning English who bonds with Calhoun. All the players are good: Patrick Blashill (Captain Falcon) and Christopher Vizurraga (Peter Cringle); Benjamin Jenkins (Santos), Monty Kane (Jackson/Ngonyama), Robert Koon (Josiah Squibb), MarieAnge Louis-Jean (Baleka), Kellen Robinson (Tom), and Gerrit Wilford (McGaffin).

The production team are also stars, kudos to Alan Donahue (Scenic and Properties Designer), Elise Kauzlaric (Dialect Coach), Maren Robinson (Dramaturg); Amelia Ablan (Production Manager), Noah Abrams (Master Electrician), Kyle Bajor (Co-Lighting Designer),, Barry Bennett (Sound Designer), Connor Blackwood (Assoc. Sound Designer), Alex Gendal (Projections Designer), Galen Hughes (Asst. Stage Manager), Harrison Ornelas (Technical Director), Nicole Clark Springer (Choreographer/Movement Designer), Mattie Switzer (Stage Manager), Scott Tobin (Co-Lighting Designer), Shawn Wallace (Composer/Music Director), and Anna Wooden (Costume Designer).

Alan Donohue's gives us a lovingly crafted sailing vessel with multiple decks, stowage, working winch, mast and beam – all integrated to the projection design and sound design makes us feel for all the world we are at sea, particularly during storms and battles. 

The play originated at Pegasus Players in 2016 as 'Rutherford’s Travels.' But this version seems very strongly rooted in African storytelling culture, which taps a type of magical realism, to my mind (like Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad). Its title is far more resonant today: Middle Passage also refers to the slave shipping route that represents the crucible of emotional and spiritual transformation of human beings from free, cultured Africans to impoverished American slaves.

Highly recommended, see 'Middle Passage' at www.lifelinetheatre.com.

A rare opportunity to see Brian Friel’s ‘Molly Sweeney’ is being presented at the historic Chopin Theatre building at its intimate Studio through May 8. The celebrated Irish playwright won a 1996 Tony Award for this very contemporary tale of a 40-year-old woman blind from infancy who has her vision restored, examining the aftermath.

It is based on a case study written up in 1995 by Oliver Sacks, telling of the real patient on which ‘Molly Sweeney’ is based. The notoriety of playwright Friel, who died in 2015, has been eclipsed by more recent Irish script writers like Conor McPherson (‘The Weir’ and with Bob Dylan, ‘Girl from the North Country’) or Martin McDonough (‘Beauty Queen of Leenane’ and ‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri’).

The Irish Theatre of Chicago has given the two-act play a skillful production under director Siiri Scott. Molly (Carolyn Kruse) is a vibrant figure, an athletic and successful woman living a rich life, who has married Frank Sweeney (Matthew Isler) who is a bit too much of a dreamer who attaches himself to efforts like saving whales in which he hopes to gain fame and distinction. But things end badly, usually, as in the case of introducing Iranian goats to Ireland. (The animals never quite adjusted to the time zone change and must be milked at ungodly hours).

Mr. Rice (Robert Kauzurlaric), an ambitious doctor also hoping to reclaim his clouded reputation with a medical miracle for Molly, who begins to suspect she is a foil in other peoples’ goals. The playwright’s mastery becomes apparent as the action is simply a series of monologues—each recollecting aspects of their lives and the story at hand. Yet my interest never flagged, and the recounting of dances and parties, by which other characters are injected into the action. The simple stage becomes all the world, as the Bard says. And we are left wanting more at intermission.

Like the real patient, Molly regains her sight, but with unintended consequences and a steep personal cost. The Irish Theatre of Chicago brings careful attention to dialect, and the Irish English which is its own language (like Puerto Rican Spanish, perhaps) is delivered convincingly to Chicago ears. Kruse is most vibrant and the perfect picture of Molly as it unfolds in the script. And likewise Kauzurlic as Mr. Rice and Isler in the role of Frank Sweeney.

One quibble would be the stage which spreads wide across the front row, so the spotlighted characters are far from each other, giving those in center rows a better view than the left or right seating. But it's a small thing in this lovely space. ‘Molly Sweeney’ is a lovely return to live production at the Chopin Theatre Studio, and demonstrates Irish Theatre of Chicago hasn’t been diminished a bit by the pandemic. Performances run Thursday through Sunday (except Easter) through May 8. www.irishtheatre.org

Playwright Eleanor Burgess has delivered one of the best scripts I've read or seen, in ‘Wife of a Salesman.’ While it may be viewed somewhat as a “prequel” to Arthur Miller’s 1949 classic ‘Death of a Salesman,’ it never directly references that play, and is an intriguing and challenging work of art that is an instant classic. Its world premier, running through April 3 at Writers Theatre in Glencoe, IL, is a theatrical event of the first order.

Produced in partnership with the Milwaukee Rep, 'Wife of a Salesman' is set in the 1950s (television is just arriving), the play opens in the apartment of The Mistress (Amanda Drinkall), a young blonde awakening to her day perhaps still basking in the glow of an amorous adventure the night before. When a knock somes to her door, she opens it, giving us a glimpse of a matronly woman with a briefcase, then slams it shut immediately, scurrying to straighten up the room, and pull herself together. A minute later she opens the door to this visitor, The Wife (Kate Fry) of the title.

From that opening moment The Mistress conveys through a gasp that she recognizes this unbidden visitor. Then the door reopens and The Wife enters, posing as a fabric saleswoman.Moments of increasing intensity follow, The Wife unable to open her sample case, and The Mistress deftly managing it for her. The Wife comments on a figurine of the Madonna, noting awkwardly that The Mistress must be Catholic. “My neighbors are Catholic,” she notes, and adds that they are nice people. She begins her halting sales pitch on the various samples. And soon The Mistress takes her to task for her poor salesmanship, offering with ratcheting intensity examples of how a sales presentation should be made. And the frey begins.

The Wife, we learn, has driven from New York to Boston, to confront her husband’s mistress, grist for any soap opera, a story from time immemorial. But Burgess unfolds this telling with precision strikes, and Kate Fry and Amanda Drinkall do not miss a beat in the imaginative script under the tight direction of Jo Bonney.

Burgess, whose plays include ‘The Niceties,’ plays out this examination of women’s roles in the 1950s with master craftsmanship. Every beat of the performances draw us into the story, the conflict, and to contrast contemporary views of women’s status in society with expectations from an earlier era.

Then, with a magical stroke (no spoiler), Burgess allows us to meet the actresses playing the roles, and see ways their personal lives parallel those of the 1950s characters. We listen to a generational divergence, Millennial vs. Genx types, in how to chart careers.

But the playwright goes further: the actresses ask the director Jim (Rom Barkhorder) to restore two powerful monologues that he has cut, and to let them speak to the playwright directly. In this meta transformation, Burgess is naming several of the fraught dynamics of theater: the tendency of at least some directors to view actors as”necessary evils” in staging plays, like herding cats. Jim also has an indifferent patriarchal power, and he fends off with familiar tropes of male disregard the multiple entreaties by the actresses to be given their due.

The creative team has given the show a set that is a delight to behold. Tickets to this outstanding production of 'Wife of a Salesman' are available at Writers Theatre. 

Shakespeare the dramatist is a genius at the craft of theater, and brings a timeless artistry that is unexcelled. So it was with some trepidation that I took my seat at the Edge Off-Broadway Theatre for Idle Muse’s 'Upon This Shore: Pericles and the Daughters of Tyre.'

I can report Shakespeare remains intact, the language there, and the production and performances exploiting the full force of his original. Admittedly I was filled with bias against what might unfold in this adaptation of Shakespeare’s original ‘Pericles, Prince of Tyre.’ In a nod to topicality, perhaps - March is Women’s History Month - Idle Muse’s production offers some characters Shakespeare may not have imagined. Avoiding a spoiler here, suffice it to say the arc of the action and the emotive power of Shakespeare are unaffected by these additions and ticket buyers will probably enjoy them.

Director Evan Jackson, who adapted the script, gives us a very strong rendering of ‘Pericles,’ eliciting strong performances and engaging staging, with low-tech storefront creativity in storms and sword fights that assures “the play’s the thing,' and is not overshadowed by the stage mechnics. 

Particularly strong is the performance of Brendan Hutt as Pericles, who moves convincingly through the stages of the prince’s life from venturer to suitor to grieving widower. Hutt brought me near tears with his loss of wife and daughter, and just as readily my heart tracked his transformation to joy when the happy resolution arrives at the end. 

Laura Jones Macknin as Heilicanus owns the stage each time she appears. Watson Swift in three roles (Antiochus, Simonides, and Philomen) is strong in his physical performances, though I could not always understand him as he moved about the stage in his role as the villainous Antiochus. Caty Gordon is exceptionally good as Marina, Pericles' lost and regained daughter. She communicates the essence of a powerful woman through the trials she weathers in the shifting stations of her life.

'Upon This Shore: Pericles and the Daughters of Tyre' runs through April 3 at Edge Off-Broadway Theatre, 1133 W. Catalpa Ave. in Chicago on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Visit idlemuse.org or the Idle Muse Theatre Company Box Office, 773.340.9438.

Invictus Theatre delivers the finest acting in Chicago. The current run of Lynn Nottage's 2009 Pulitzer Prize winning play 'Ruined' is no exception.

Originally commissioned by Goodman Theater, where Nottage workshopped it in 2007, 'Ruined' is set in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It tells the story of sexual exploitation and abuse of women, where rape of women is a weapon used by warlords in factions battling within the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The action takes place in Mama Nadi's tavern and brothel, where women are fed and protected by Mama Nadi, but in exchange for accepting a controlled exploitation. As Mama Nadi, Tekeisha Yelton Hunter is on stage most of the play, and rules as an actress who is fully immmersed in her role. Please order the Jeff now. 

But most surprising is Courtney Gardner as Salima, a farmer's wife stolen from her garden, and enslaved at an encampment. Largely silent in her early scenes, Nottage teases out ever more of Salima, as she does with all her characters. In this evolution on stage, Gardner goes from quiet and retreating, to bitingly sarcastic, funny, even wise, and delivers the essence of the play's message in a shattering and tragic soliloquoy.  

The production team includes Rueben Echoles, whose costume design was notable, and Kevin Rolfs came up with a set that is practical and functional, and realistic.  

Goodman mounted the world premier of 'Ruined' in its 2008 season, and Nottage's script does not shy from the brutal facts. As an audience, we are spared directly witnessing the suffering and degradation leveled upon these innocent women, carried off and tied down in their abusers encampments. And yet their words, and the power of the acting in this Invictus show, delivers the story viscerally, bringing this reviewer to tears, to cry out in woe, to bury my head in my arms

This is the third play by Lynn Nottage I have seen. 'By the Way, Meet Vera Drake' was a homerun for me; both 'Sweat' and 'Ruined' seem to have a diffuse first act. But the second act in 'Ruined' is incredible, and at curtain, I realized how I was applauding for a dozen fully-formed characters that Nottage had built right there on the stage. She's good. And so is 'Ruined.'  It runs through March 20 at Invictus new home, the Reginald Vaughan Theatre, 1106 W. Thorndale.