Displaying items by tag: Aaron Henrickson

A new company, Heart of Gold Theatre, is presenting the Chicago premiere of Mike Barlett’s An Intervention. Bartlett is a noted British playwright, whose future-conjectural work Charles III received five Tony nominations in 2016, including Best New Play. Bartlett’s Cock (2009) and its companion work Bull (2013) played to accolades off-Broadway in New York. 

Directed by Aaron Henrickson and just 75 minutes long in five acts, An Intervention is played against a velvet curtain with no set, intended by Bartlett to resemble a vaudeville comedy act. There we see two 30-something friends: character A is played by a sparkling Amanda Egle and B is played more circumspectly by Taylor Adams. They are caught in the middle of an energized, fast-paced repartee that when we first see them has been reduced to single-word declamations and terse phrases (“Oh.” “Yeah.” ‘You - “ “Yup.”) 

Their tone conveys a dispute of some kind, but the audience doesn’t yet know what it’s about. “I don’t believe it,” says A; “Well it’s true,” B retorts. Context soon reveals it is over the matter of a military intervention in a Middle East war. 

First performed in 2014, it was a period that saw the rise of ISIS, the Gaza War by Israel against Palestine, and the entry of the U.S.-led coalition into Iraq, among other conflicts. But the timeliness (and unfortunate timelessness) of the setting makes An Intervention very much of-the-moment. 

The character A, we learn, has just come back from a protest against the intervention, only to learn that B, whom she counts as a trusted friend, supports it. He even encourages it to happen. She is crestfallen, and the argument moves on to the nature of their friendship.

Stepping down from the stage with one foot, B gives us his take on A in a lengthy aside. Later A will do likewise about  B. So the argument is no longer centered on the politics or justice of the impending military action, but about how these two feel about each other. 

What we see are two friends whose friendship is based on loving to argue. Well, actually, it’s a bit more than that. Because they love to argue about politics, for example, their regular argumentative battlegrounds form a vehicle for intimacy. 

Subsequent acts—here are five in this tightly wound show—reveal more about their lives at large. Periodically the two reach through the curtains for props - a harmonica, wine glasses, and lots of liquor. The two also take issue with each other's personal lives. B charges A with being an alcoholic (another type of intervention), while A argues against B’s romance with a “harridan” and soon their friendship reaches a breaking point.

Many months later, in the last act, the threads are tied together in such a satisfying resolution that the continuously puzzling nature of that opening scene is successfully explained. 

Adams, the founder and artistic director of Heart of Gold and (full disclosure) a personal friend, has brought us a play for the moment. When we argue, as Adams tells us in the program, aren’t we asking, “Why aren’t you the person I want you to be? Why can’t you be … less like that?” 

Bartlett has written a “thinking” play in An Intervention, in which the dramatic tensions are equally “characters” in the work. So producer and co-star Adams has given us a deft bit of dramaturgy in bringing it to  Chicago audiences. 

The play examines the timely matter of how human beings can engage each other while bearing deeply held convictions that conflict. Nothing could be more important to our civic life than to seek guidance and clarity on this issue, which vexes us continuously. This is what theater is for. 

The production also resurrects to the Chicago theater scene Pierce Hall in the landmark Chicago Temple Building. Pierce, fittingly, was home for the Silk Road Theatre Project, formed after 9/11 to address the challenges of backlash facing Asian, Middle Eastern, and North African communities. 

Finally, because I know this producer and actor well, I have watched most of the steps along the way in development of the performance you will see. The passion a single individual must muster to licence a worthy script from a noted author, to secure a stage, to field a corps of able actors, director, lighting, costumes, and then to publicize and market ticket sales - well as the thousands working in this field in Chicago well know - it’s not an enterprise for the faint of heart. The inevitable rise and fall of the fortunes of a single production are familiar territory for this city’s theater producers. We in the audience are spared the sturm und drang. The lights come up and a polished presentation appears, as if by magic.Though magical, a stage show takes hard hard work. 

Recommended, An Intervention runs through August 9, 2026 at 7:30 pm at Pierce Hall, the lower level theater in the Temple Building, 77 W. Washington Blvd., Chicago. 

Badfic Love, the new play directed by Aaron Henrickson and written by Adam Pasen, proudly delves into the nerdy world of fan fiction – its readers, its creators and its auditors. What is fan fiction some might ask? For those of you who are not familiar with this somewhat underground phenomena, fan fiction is the act of fans taking characters or settings from an original work (in this case Harry Potter) and creating their own storylines, steering the story into whatever direction they want, despite the fact that the work they create is hardly ever authorized.

In Badfic Love, Kyle works by day at Staples, but his nights are consumed as he is part of an organization (FIC) that monitors fan fiction writing, making sure to keep readers safe from the bad. The group particularly targets Michelle whose self-made continuation of Harry Potter is the epitome of what the organization stands against with its ridiculous storyline and poor grammar. Kyle, thoroughly condemning Michelle’s writing plans on spoofing (“sporking”) her work in his highly-followed blog to the delight of the other FIC members. However, the story takes a turn when Kyle instead falls for Michelle. What would happen to the characters should Michelle stop writing?

A good portion of Strange Bedfellows Theatre’s Badfic Love has Michelle’s fanfic of Harry Potter acted out as her story progresses. Utterly hilarious are Conor Konz and Jake Szczepaniak as Harry and Draco in this twisted adventure where the two former enemies become gay partners and Michelle writes herself in as the hero in every battle. Konz not only strikes an uncanny resemblance to Harry Potter but nails the campy dialogue going far over the top with reckless abandon while Szczepaniak is simply hysterical in his line delivery and physical comedy. But together, they are simply dynamite.

Also funny are the many references to the iconic fantasy epics such as Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and of course Harry Potter. Kyle and other likeminded individuals spend their time at a coffee shop called Middle Earth. Kyle’s favorite table is in the back just under a large picture of Legolas. Benny, a member of FIC, tries in vain to create force fields over doors or pick things up with telekinesis. Proudly donned Marvel t-shirts are worn and insults are thrown around that only have meaning if familiar with the fantasy from which they are spawned.

For the most part, the show is nonstop funny. It would be hard not to be with such an entertaining cast. Badfic Love does slow down a tad towards the end - character and plot resolution, etc, etc, but not enough to take anything away from this very amusing tale of nerdy creativity, being an outsider and finding love.

Besides the show’s fun costumes, projections and sound effects are also used to help in creating the alternative reality of our newly fashioned Harry Potter and Draco, not to mention a handful of well-choreographed fight scenes where blows are met with the trumpeting sounds reminiscent of the 1960’s Batman series. With C2E2 a couple weeks away, Badfic Love is the perfect show to take in to help in preparing your inner geek.   

Badfic Love is at the Den Theatre (1333 N Milwaukee) through May 2^nd. I should also mention that doors open a half hour before each performance for the Badfic Love Wizard Rock Concert Series (free with Badfic Love ticket) where bands including Diagon Alley, Tonks and the Aurors and Hawthorne and Holly will be performing Harry Potter-inspired rock music. A graphic novel of Badfic Love is also available for purchase. For tickets and/or more information visit www.strangebedfellowstheatre.com or call 773-697-3830.