Displaying items by tag: Trap Door Theatre

For the final show of its 30th anniversary season, Trap Door Theatre—the little company that could—has selected a sure-fire hit with a production of “Nana,” a play based on the 19th century melodrama about an actress and bordello courtesan, Nana, by French author Emile Zola.

Adapted for the stage by the late Olwen Wymark, and co-directed by choreographer Miguel Long and managing director Nicole Weisner, this reimagining of the original 2002 production at the tiny theater—tucked away behind a restaurant at 1655 W. Cortland—was flawless on opening night. It’s a cabaret style musical, and the premise of the story gives us a Parisian cabaret that doubles as a bordello, allowing occasions for song and dance that fit the storyline perfectly.

As the audience arrives, the actors are already in character, welcoming us as patrons of the establishment. At curtain time, the anticipation builds among onstage patrons—mostly emotionally overwrought, palavering males—all hoping for a glance of recognition from Nana when she arrives.

After this artful build-up, which heightens the expectation of the audience as well, drapes are snapped opened for the big reveal: Nana (Maryam Abdi is miraculous) emerges on a swing as a vision of Venus—long blonde tresses, and a gossamer robe opened to barely cover her breasts, minimally hidden by glittery clamshell pasties. It’s all very nineteenth century, and the men fit exactly in our expectations of swooning romantic gestures salted with salacious innuendo.

Amber Washington in "Nana"at Trap Door Theatre through May 19. 

We also meet the coterie of sophisticated ladies in orbit around Nana. There is Sabine (Amber Washington) just too too, all wrapped in a gorgeous gown and chapeau, waving a cigarette holder while delivering bon mots and pithy observations. And her dresser Zoe (Emily Lotspeich), who carefully manages the arrivals of suitors, parceling them out to every room until Nana’s apartment is filled. And Satin (Emily Nicholson), Nana’s BFF and occupying the same role, just at a lower echelon than our diva.
The song and dance numbers were quite good, and flawlessly performed.

Dan Cobbler, Emily Nichelson, and Emily Lotspeich in "Nana" at Trap Door Theatre through May 18, 2024.

Always in need of cash, Nana is pursued by a chorus of snarling creditors, who snarl in unison, to powerful effect on stage.Yet there is a substantial core to Zola's story: Nana, as she rises in stature as the object of desire for wealthy men, extorts them in their ardor, then walks all over them when their funds are depleted. She does this with greater rapidity, yet their generosity never falters. For example, Steiner (David Lovejoy is terrific) has given her a country retreat amid a high society and royal enclave, yethe never receives thanks or very much of Nana’s attention, who only escalates her demands for cash and orders this paramour to surrender his own key to the house he bought for Nana.

Indeed, Nana plays all her many suitors to the limit, relenting only enough when she senses she has pushed too far, an incredibly adept dominatrix.

Yet amid all this, Nana has a private life, and we learn where her earnings go. She retains her maiden aunt (Tia Pinson is the essence of propriety) to care for her infant. And she also has a significant other, Fanton (Caleb Lee Jenkins is the playful, yet mercenary scoundrel). We soon see that Fanton does to Nana what she does to her suitors, though far worse, as he is also physically abusive.

Nana, whose reputation has preceded her, is rejected by the "polite" society around her country home, though local suitors visit surreptitiously. And ultimately, Nana  meets her fated downfall in full expression of melodramatic justice. 

Costumes (Rachel Sypniewski) are spectacular, as are wids (Igor Shashkin) and make-up (Zsofia Otvos). Most amazing in this Trap Door Theatre production is the performance of Maryam Abdi as Nana. Abdi dominates her suitors, and the stage. She is fully in the role, inhabiting Nana’s character in a star-is-born delivery that would fit comfortably in an Off-Broadway, or even Broadway. So too for the entire cast. The Trap Door Theatre has outdone itself with “Nana,” a jewel in its 30th season celebration. “Nana” runs through May 19 at Trap Door Theatre, 1655 W. Cortland St. in Chicago.

*Extended through May 25th

“Mother Courage and her Children,” written in 1939 by German playwright Bertolt Brecht has been a challenging play for me, and having seen it prior to this Trap Door Theatre production, I wondered why, along with “Threepenny Opera” (1928), it is so popular among theater companies and actors.

But I figured if anyone could make this thing work, it would be Trap Door, and I am delighted to report that they have, in the production which opened this week at their magical space on Cortland Avenue. Directed by Max Truax in a translation by Eric Bentley, “Mother Courage” is accessible, intelligible, entertaining and compelling.

Holly Cerny gives a tour de force performance as Mother Courage, on stage continuously and called to sing, dance, and haul a canteen wagon. Her character is based on a real-life operator of a canteen supplying soldiers in the 30 years war in Europe in the 17th century. More than 4.5 million soldiers died in the prolonged religious conflict, but for Mother Courage and her young adult children, the war means their livelihood. Her two sons, Swiss Cheese (Rashaad A. Bond) and Eilef (Bill Gordon) are conscripted, further entrenching Mother Courage in the battles.

Eventually as peace dawns, Mother Courage is distressed that her means of income will be ended. She has lost a son who was court-martialed for stealing army funds at her behest. Another dies after killing a leader whose death reignites the war. In other words, she is a contemptible character - but the audience bears witness to this chicanery without empathy for Mother Courage or her brood, an approach in this style of Epic absurdist plays that Brecht intended.

Instead, Brecht is asking the audience to hear a statement about war, and the economics that underpin the interests of participants. All this, with song and dance - more macabre than delightful; and sung with the wry humor of cabaret. All the cast is notably good in adopting the non-naturalistic style Brecht intended: Kevin Webb is the cook; Joan Nahid as Mother Courage’s mute daughter Katrin; Caleb Jenkins as the Chaplain; Nena Martins as Yvette; and Tricia Rogers as a Soldier/Officer. We connect with these characters as totems for the forces of war they represent.

Set design by J. Michael Griggs, lighting by Richard Norwood, sound design by Dan Poppen, props by David Lovejoy and music by Jonathan Guillen combine to give an expressive force to the production. Periodically, supra titles let us know where we are in Mother Courage’s adventure - a really good touch, though they were sometimes obscured by the actors on stage. Perhaps they could be placed higher on the backdrop.
Trap Door Theatre, squeezed behind a Mabel’s Table restaurant at 1655 W. Cortland in Chicago (near Ashland Avenue), has over its 30 years taken on the most venturesome and challenging absurdist plays, and that makes it a true treasure. “Mother Courage and her Children” runs through February 24 at Trap Door Theatre. 

*Extended through March 9th

Should a tiger take up residence in your bathroom, Trap Door Theater’s new production presents an entertaining selection of likely scenarios to follow. In a fresh translation of an absurdist play by Polish playwright Sɫawomir Mrożek—Poland’s Ionesco—director Nicole Wiesner turns 'The Martyrdom of Peter Ohey' into a highly entertaining, high energy production that feels as though PT Barnum had decided to produce ‘Cabaret.’

This obscure farce by Mrożek was intended to poke fun at contemporary mores and life in the 20th century in communist-dominated Poland. Mrożek probably penned it as a critique of an overweening government seeking too much control over the individual, constraining freedom. Delivering it straight up as Mrożek would have intended it would risk giving us an artifact of historical interest, but not much fun to watch.

Instead, Wiesner has boiled the message down to its essence, and the forces of conformity seem to be not the government, but social expectations. We see the thoughtful, individualistic Peter Ohey (Dennis Bisto) driven to accept a ridiculous proposition—that his bathroom has a tiger hiding in it—and he is forced into a submission of belief by outside forces.

His son is bribed by self interest into asserting the tiger’s existence by an Official (Carl Wisniewski), and his daughter and wife (Venice Averyheart) accept the story in a rapid group think. Ohey is suddenly alone in rational view, and vulnerable, as the Official, then a Tax Collector (Natara Easter) declare the tiger's presence to be incontrovertible fact.

But it is when the Scientist appears (Keith Surney is magnificent) Peter Ohey has met his match. He soon capitulaes, and is transformed into the tiger, under the Scientist’s lashing whip, in a scintillating leather and fishnet encounter with distinct BDSM overtones. All hope is lost for Ohey. Soon another ominous force appears, The Old Hunter (Bob Wilson) who seems hauntingly reactionary and powerful.

After this the show descends into a circus act under The Circus Manager; Matty Robinson gives an exceptional performance in this role. 

Whatever serious themes this work addresses are unimportant, really. Trap Door has produced a remarkable show, and it is very highly entertaining. It runs through March 3, at Trap Door Theater on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 PM and comes highly recommended.

As Chicago stages turn to Dickens and Tchaikovsky, you can find darker but equally fun fare in Trap Door Theatre’s high-flying production, The White Plague. This imaginative, high-energy show brings us the black-gowned denizens of a futuristic nation in the throes of a plague, with rising fascism and an imminent war as backdrop.

The story is drawn from “The White Disease,” Czech author Karel Capek’s 1937 play (it was also a film by Hugo Haas), sometimes characterized as an absurdist work.

What Trap Door does with this the material is rather miraculous – with the ethos of Terry Gilliam’s "Brazil," it conjures an engrossing tale of a leprosy-like flesh-eating plague afflicting those 45 and older. Terms like "Pandemic" and "Peking Virus" are shouted among the populace. "Death follows in three months - mainly from sepsis," intones one expert solemnly, calling it the "Leprosy of Licentiousness." I had to remind myself this is long before AIDs, because public reactions to its spread were strikingly similar. 

The action takes place in a fascist state (Germany?) where Sigelius (Dennis Bisto) has been running a clinic that is treating the well-to-do as the disease spreads. But he treats just their symptoms, salving their pus-filled sores with ointments that mask the putrid smells, while his minions continue research on a real cure in the laboratory. In a nod to Capek’s robots, Sigelius’s aids, First Assistant (David Lovejoy) and Second Assistant (Emily Nicholson) are Cyborg-like automatons who must dock to recharge when emotions overwhelm them.

Then arrives Dr. Galen (Keith Surney), who has developed a real cure, which he is ready to test on a broader basis. Sigelius, fearful of losing this well-heeled clientele to a real cure, allows Dr. Galen to test his life-saving meds only on the indigent patients, housed, as one might expect, in Ward XIII. Dr. Galen also provides a moral center for the play's action, as he has been asking himself why, as a doctor, he treats people only to see them wounded and killed in war. He is angry about the complicity of his medical profession in war efforts in general. "Preaching against war is against our national interest," Sigelius advises him, but Dr. Galen is unconvinced.

The play also brings us a more middle-class family, and we meet Mother (Robin Minkens, above) and Father (Michael Mejia) and their children who have more conventional struggles with the disease. Minkens and Mejia have developed believable characters who are also caricatures. Mejia does double duty as the conflicted and compromised Commissar, who is loathe to leave his high stature post, even though it will help spread the cure. Likewise, Minkens becomes someone else altogether, as the dictator Baron Krug, and resists giving up her office for the same reasons. 

Soon enough we encounter the powerful leather-clad Marshal (Marzena Bukowska), in steampunk choker and flare collar, riding roughshod over the land, readying the nation for war. Bukowska and Bisto deliver inspired performances, as surely Jeff-worthy as anything I have seen this season. Marshal is the military apparatchik of the dictator Baron Krug. Both drive the war machine.

This rendering of The White Plague is liberally adapted from the spirit of Capek’s script, by director Nicole Wiesner, who says presenting a literal translation would be difficult to follow. Unlike Western Europe and North America, “In Eastern Europe, the director is freer to adapt,” Wiesner says. Capek with his brother Josef were known as science fiction authors, and claim fame for originating the word “Robot” in their other play, a 1920 work called R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots).

Such works, along with a focus on other European scripts, are the métier of Trap Door – which is celebrated for its wide-ranging dramaturgy (credit to Milan Ribisic for this show). The scene design, Plexiglas and voile partitions by J.Michael Griggs, is intentionally minimalist, but director Wiesner amps up the show by keeping actors on stage throughout (80 minutes, no intermission). Each character periodically retreats behind these see-through partitions, and becomes part of the set, creating a mosaic, miming and mugging in their multiple character roles. Also notable - the sound design by Danny Rockett, who rehearsed assiduously with the cast to achieve precision timing to match blocking and scene changes. Rockett's sound score is on par with the best. 

The character’s on stage are individual personalities, but some like Sigelius and Dr. Galen represent archetypes. These two joust with each other not just verbally, but in psychic power struggles where each bests the other in telekinetic trials much like Dr. Strange - a theatrical expression of role-play type board games.

Highly recommended, The White Plague runs through January 11 at Trap Door Theatre, 1655 W. Cortland in Chicago.

Directors say Caryl Churchill’s Love and Information is a challenging play, but in good hands, it is a treasure. And this is what we have at Trap Door Theatre’s production – an absolutely enthralling experience directed by Kim McKean.

It is like a tightly scripted improv show, packed with familiar personalities, some of them offbeat, playing roles that could share the stage in Lily Tomlin’s “Search for Intelligent Life in the Universe.” McKean’s accomplishment becomes clearer when you realize Love and Information brings us more than 100 sometimes loosely identified characters, mostly appearing as couples or trios, in a series of short scenes that end in blackouts.

These are gathered into seven sections, and within each, Churchill requires the director to set the order of the scenes and assign the roles. To further spice it up, the script packs an eighth section of scenes intended to be sprinkled at will in the show wherever they seem to fit.

And those scenes! Listing heavily toward couple encounters, Churchill shows us how information becomes a form of emotional currency in relationships. Couples share (or withhold) knowledge, leveraging it to gain power, debilitate, bond – or just plain flirt. A representative sample:

• A girl whose rare nerve condition doesn’t let her feel pain asks a man to explain what pain is. (He compares it to a failed love affair.)
• A man tries to impress an adoring girl by describing his research in animal learning, but ends up clinically describing dissection of chicken brains involved in his work. (She is not put off.)
• An aspiring male suitor brings a young girl a red flower. On his knees as her feet, his heart is full and open. She thanks him for it, profusely. Then too profusely, launching into a rattling, seemingly endless manic riff about how we see red, things they will do together, envisions a day trip on a train….as she goes on and on, he wilts.

Admittedly it is difficult to describe humor, and really which Churchill gives us is a dark and coldly clinical look at the world and those we share it with. Love and Intelligence doesn't traffick in sentimentality. It opens with a scene in which people are moving mechanically and seemingly inexplicably on the stage. A man enters the crowd, apparently paranoid. Then the electronic dance music rises and we see it is like a dance floor at a rave, and suddenly everything makes sense - but Churchill has pulled back the curtain and we cannot unsee the uncomfortable social aspects of that dance floor.  A  Here's a sample scene with a man who doesn’t recognize his wi

But I am your wife.

You look like my wife.

That’s because I am. Look, even that little birthmark behind my ear. Look.

Yes, I see it. It’s me.

Darling sweet, it’s me. I’m here.

No, she’s gone. They’ve all gone. Who’s gone?

Everyone I know. Everyone who loved me.

No, I love you.

I don’t want you to love me, I don’t know you.

There’s things only we know, aren’t there. That day on the beach with the shells. You remember that? Yes, of course. And cabbages. Why is cabbages a funny word, we’re the only ones who have cabbages as a joke because of what happened with the cabbages. Cabbages is a joke, yes?

Cabbages was a joke I shared with my wife. I miss my wife.

But I am. . . Let me touch you. If you’d see what it feels like to touch me. If we made love you’d know it was me because there are things we like to do and no one else would know that, if I was a stranger pretending to be her I wouldn’t know those things, you’d feel you were back with me, you would I know, please.

You disgust me. You frighten me. What are you?

Director McKean has made the most of this formula, selecting and ordering carefully from this smorgasbord of very fine writing, packing dozens of carefully honed mind-bending scenes by Churchill. Among Britain’s top ranking playwrights, Churchill is known best known this side of the Atlantic for her Cloud Nine or Top Girls. Most recently Chicago had a chance to see her Dark Mirror-style A Number, a stunning 2012 thriller produced at Writer’s Theatre in Glencoe last year. And McKean also brought in a spectacular cast, willing to go with a blank slate that evolved into this fine show: Whitney Dottery, Jake Flum, Brian Huther, Emily Lotspeich, Michael Mejia, Emily Nichelson, Keith Surney, Lilly Tukur, Carl Wisniewski. Love and Information runs Thursdays, Fridays and Saturday’s through October 19 at Trap Door Theatre, 1655 W. Cortland in Chicago.