I love stories about World War II, particularly about survivors of the Holocaust and the Camps. And I love stories based on real people. So naturally I was drawn to THE DANISH PLAY, which Canadian playwright Sonny Mills (he/him/they/them) wrote about her great-aunt Agnete Ottosen. THE DANISH PLAY addresses historical problems that are piercingly contemporary: nationalism, justice, freedom, and the politics of gender and sexuality. What could be more relevant in 2024?

Agnete Ottosen is brilliantly played by Artistic Director Selena Lopez (she/her), who skillfully enacts the different portrayals of Agnete as the story skips about between three eras. The play opens in the middle period, when/where Agnete is being processed and questioned in Ravensbrüch. Happily, more of the action takes place in the immediate pre-War era, examining Agnete’s passionate involvement in Danish Resistance … as well as her personality: difficult is the word used by Mads Pedersen (Stephen Dunn, he/him); I would upgrade that to obdurate, even surly – but always accessible (and likeable!) to the audience – to me, any road.

These pre-war scenarios let us get to know the other characters, with their close associations and deep affection for Agnete. Helga Hansen (Lisa Stran, she/her) is a practical influence; her shop girl Bente Jespersen (Mackenzie Williams she/her) brings emotional depth; and, my personal favorite, Kit Ratliff (they/them) brings to exuberant life her irrepressible and hard-drinking brother, Michael. Dolph Paulsen (he/him) and Madeline Wakley (she/her) multitask as Morten and Lisbet and several other roles. The entire cast was superb, upholding Three Crows’ standard of excellence.

The scenes of Agnete’s experiences in Ravensbrüch were predictably brutal, but more hideous still were our glimpses into Agnete’s life afterwards. Her uncompromising and confrontational nature increased her vulnerability to the ravages of what we now call Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome; that implacable disease has profoundly grievous consequences for Agnete Ottosen. Her poetry, intensely radical and intimate, keeps her tethered to reality, but that stanchion is consistently and catastrophically frayed by societal judgments.

The creative team was equally superb. Director Kirstin Franklin (she/her) and Stage Manager Erin Galvin (she/her) had their work cut out for them! The rapidity of scene changes were as challenging for the crew as for the actors and, though that rapidity was sometimes bewildering, in retrospect I judge that my disorientation was an integral and crucial element of the theatrical experience.

As daunting a task was accomplished – and very well indeed – by Scenic Designer Chad Eric Bergman (he/him), Scenic Painter Hannah Keeler (they/them), Creative Producer Nathaniel Negrón (he/him), Sound Designer Samuel Fitzwater-Butchart (he/him), and Lighting Designer Bryan Byars (he/him). The set was elaborate, and was called upon to depict several disparate surroundings, from a publishing house to a wealthy (and/or indigent) family home, a bakeshop to a concentration camp. The acting skill of the cast was made crucial in these portrayals.

Intimacy/Violence Designer Michael Bevis (he/him) also rose to his formidable task wonderfully, making the Ravensbrüch scenes realistic but bearable. Costume Designer Dagny Mullins (she/her) managed the difficulty of the rapid-fire changes by Keeping It Simple: the most decked-out characters were guards and prison officers, while all others’ raiment was muted and unobtrusive, all in service of allowing Sonny Mills’ story, and the excellence of the actors enacting it, to shine through.

I was fortunate to be seated near Props Designers Judith Laughlin (she/her) and Jim Heatherly (he/him), and I utilized my finely-honed earwigging prowess to insinuate myself into their conversation, thus learning of the Daedalean plenitude of properties and the vicissitudes of their procurement.

This was not a pleasant, relaxing evening’s entertainment. THE DANISH PLAY required substantial concentration during and deliberation afterwards before I came to grips with it. I’m not presumptuous enough to say that I’ve grasped its entirety yet – I’m sure I’ll be thinking about THE DANISH PLAY for a long time.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

THE DANISH PLAY will run at Raven Theatre, 6157 N Clark St, through June 16^th. It is the mission of Three Crows Theatre to make stage performance accessible to all, and their policy is pay-what-you-can. A worthy investment! And definitely worthy of whatever you can pay.

There are no words.

Well, obviously that’s not true cos I’m about to say a whole bunch of words – they can pretty much all be found in the thesaurus under glorious, magnificent, gorgeous … you get the idea. The only bad news is that it’s a short run, just May 17-19, but don’t despair: HUBBARD STREET DANCE is Chicago-based, and they’ll be back. Get on their email list so you can get tickets to their next show. Pricey? maybe. Value for the money? inestimable!

I’m unabashedly biased: I’ve been watching and loving HUBBARD STREET DANCE for almost forty of their forty-six years, but despite that familiarity, OF JOY blew my socks clean off. OF JOY is the third and final series in HUBBARD STREET DANCE’s 2023/24 Season: OF ABUNDANCE. The 47^th season will kick off in November, so start watching your inbox in October.

The program included four pieces with two intermissions. The dances made the need for the intermissions clear: the company needed to recuperate, recover, regain, rehydrate, rebound, and rally. OMG the amount of pure energy expended!

First was Echoes of Our Ancestors, choreographed by the world-renowned Maria Torres and danced by the entire company to music by Philip Hamilton. Its narrative choreography connected with the traditional Caribbean Latino rhythms, and Luis Razo’s costumes used the brilliant colors characteristic of Afro-Latino culture, with enormously wide skirts that became wings and striped shawls swept with the rhythms. One dancer described Echoes of Our Ancestors as ‘a melting pot’, and Torres agreed that she intended the work to form a bond between Afro-Latino and other cultures. The dance was a whirling turbulence with dancers all over the stage – I’d like to watch it several more times to catch the action in other realms of the stage.

After intermission the show resumed with a solo, Show Pony, danced on the night I attended (5/18/24) by Cyrie Topete (she/they) [on other nights the dancers were Alysia Johnson (Alysia/she/her) and Aaron Choate (they/them)]. Kyle Abraham choreographed, and Fritz Masten costumed Topete in a full leotard of gleaming gold, which took on other tones under Dan Scully’s lighting. Cyrie says she danced Show Pony with “spontaneous and playful choices … I feel powerful and confident, and I feel safe to roar!” – all of which was wholeheartedly evident in her dancing. The music, Hatshepsut, was written and performed by Jlin and was equally spontaneous and playful. The music and choreography were truly one, not simply complementary but reciprocal, interchangeable.

A Duo was choreographed by Resident Artist Aszure Barton (she/her), working with dancers Abdiel Figueroa Reyes (he/they) and Aaron Choate (they/them). I adore M/M pas de deux, and I believe it was subtly enhanced by both dancers being nonbinary. Another augmentation was the collaborative choreography: Barton continually evolved it in response to each dancer’s strengths and virtuosity, as well as the chemistry between the dancers, which was palpable. Choate says Barton’s work is so difficult that performing it gives a dancer fresh insight into their capacity and potential. Two words used in reference to A Duo were curiosity and playfulness. Yup, two in a row, Show Pony and A Duo, with ‘playful’ intrinsic to the choreography and performance. The music was amazing as well: “Miu” and “Shaolin Mantis” composed, produced, and recorded by Maria Herlop. Performing on electric bass was Oscar Garrobe; Mix James Ginzburg and Marina Herlop. I needed the intermission myself to get my breath back after this!

The final selection was Impasse, choreographed by Swedish Johan Inger, who also did the Scenic Design, with Fernando Hernando Magadan as Stager. This was a complex piece, very energetic, with fourteen dancers:  Alexandria Best (she/her), Jacqueline Burnett (she/her), Michelle Dooley (she/her), Aaron Choate (they/them), Elliot Hammans (he/him), Jack Henderson (he/him), Alysia Johnson (she/her), Shota Miyoshi (he/him), David Schultz (he/him), Matt Wenckowski (he/him), Simone Stevens (she/her), Cyrie Topete (she/they), and Craig D. Black Jr (he/they; also Rehearsal Director).

It was astonishing to witness some of the incredible contortions a human body can tangle itself into! Dancers reported being initially dubious about some of the choreography, not completely sure a human body could do that … but it could, and they did! The erstwhile impossible configurations were achieved, then passed into muscle memory and were embraced. Aggregates of dancers formed patterns and enactments, working together to weave storylines then unravelling into new compositions. The music included Diagnostic by Ibrahim Maalouf, distributed by Harmonia Mundi – Lily (is 2), Will Soon be a Woman, Maeva in the Wonderland, Your Soul, and Never Serious. Original composition by Amos Ben-Tai.

I have only one criticism: the volume of the music. It was excessive for me, even with my rock band-hardened eardrums. My companion has sensory processing issues and was at times in pain, even with their fingers in their ears. The music was gorgeous, all of it, and absolutely perfect with the choreography, but it was almost too loud to hear – kind of like being too tired to sleep y’know? Neither are pleasant.

I wish I could tell you to see HUBBARD STREET DANCE perform OF JOY, but the run is over … was over before I had this review written. But some individual dances will be repeated, and additional ones performed, in the 47^th season. And just think: the 2027/28 season will be HUBBARD STREET DANCE’s 50^th, so there’s bound to be an extravaganza of dance that year!

VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

TimeLine Theatre has entranced me for years with its historically- and politically-significant plays, riveting and educational – just my cup of tea! So, I felt honor-bound to pay homage to the final event TimeLine will produce in their current (way-too-small) Lincoln Park venue, where they’ve been for a quarter century. BLACK SUNDAY, by Dolores Diaz, sounded intriguing: a 1930’s rural family starving on land that’s been devastated by locusts, drought, and the Depression, leading up to the cataclysmic storm on April 14, 1935 that earned the Plains its moniker “Dust Bowl” (and inspired a Woody Guthrie song).

The story sounds terrific, but unfortunately it didn’t play out on the stage. All five characters were essentially caricatures of archetypal characters, without any individual uniqueness or liaison with one another. The performances were superb but fragmented by rapid runs of brief scenes that blacked out as soon as they got close to showing us who the characters were.

Pa (David Parkes), characterizing ‘strong silent type’, surpassed that cliche and went straight to surly and loutish. There was not one point in the production where I got any idea of how he felt about his wife or teenage daughter. He didn’t want to leave his Land, and that was the sum of his persona.

Certainly, the disasters across the Plains drove people insane and many of those were women. Ma (Mechelle Moe) was a traditionally Freudian hysteric: driven barmy by hardship and despair, she’s become psychotic, having visions that show her … what? I never quite saw. Ma hangs on Pa, imploring him to SEE the message in her visions and leave this hard-luck farm. I saw no trace of affection between Ma and Pa, but no true hostility either – the brief scenes of domestic violence were well played but uninformative. Aside from that one brief flare there was no real sense of how they felt about one another.

The character of daughter Sunny (Angela Morris) was classic rebellious adolescent, amplified by hardship and fear. Her rebellion and desire to fly the coop were authentic, but playwright Díaz returned to Victorian psychoanalysis by making her hypersexual, rubbing her baps on both the Mexican vagrant farmhand Jesús (Christopher Alvarenga) and the timorous preacher Jim (Vic Kuligowski). Jim’s extreme uptightness was noteworthy but never explored, though there could well have been interesting reasons for his qualms – deeply closeted? Wife and kids back in Abilene? Actually, hankering for Ma? Or Jesús? Jesús’s character is billed as having some sort of dark secret, but that ends up being fairly ho-hum and we learn little more about him.

So, these fragmentary folks wandered from one scene to another, moving on to the next before we could grasp why they’d just done … whatever.

The projections by Anthony Churchill and Parker Molacek were absolutely superb, partnering with Sound Designer Forrest Gregor to create a totally immersive experience, particularly the storms… and the locusts gave us an idea of What’s Next for Chicago! Props designer Saskia Bakker maintained TimeLine’s tradition of authentic and exciting touches, and Scenic Designers Joe Schermoly and Catalina Niño gave us a wonderful set, rich in nooks, crannies and levels, though I disagreed with some of the ways Director Helen Young utilized them. And I was a bit squicked by all the animal corpses: first chickens (with several additional references to eggs); then coyotes … one species after another piled onstage.   

This could have been a fine show; the actors were excellent, the production first-rate.  The problems lay with the play itself. Dolores Díaz was overambitious, trying to deliver The Show with Everything. She’d have done better to choose two or three themes to drill down on. She delivered the disaster and tragedy bits, but we could have got those from reading The Grapes of Wrath. And Steinbeck recognized the convoluted interpersonal dynamics as key. In BLACK SUNDAY the characters got lost in Díaz trying to include politics, racism, poverty, agricultural mismanagement, a bit of labor history, psychosis, sexual psychoneuroses, domestic violence … that makes for a pretty full agenda! even without expounding on climate change, not trusting the audience to make that connection ourselves.

Director Helen Young could have mitigated these problems with some judicious scene-cutting and slowing the action from machine-gunfire to a speed that would allow us time for thought and reflection before the next sensational scene superimposed itself. It was also faulty direction that kept the characters from connecting and interacting emotionally.

TimeLine Theatre is relocating to a vintage building in Uptown where they can expand their mission. Current estimates place its opening in 2026. In the meantime, TimeLine Theatre will continue to offer productions at various kindred theatres about the North side.

BLACK SUNDAY plays through June 29th

TimeLine Theatre     611 W Wellington

I arrived at City Lit Theater’s MURDER IN THE CATHEDRAL expecting a heavy, serious, doubtless thought-provoking but rather intimidating major work of literature. By the end of the performance, I wanted to rush out, buy the book and read it immediately. Any production that accomplishes this in three hours must be called a success!

At its most basic level T.S. Eliot’s play is a meditation on Christian martyrdom in a time of great political stress. The quotation from Alexai Navalny, “I’m on the very blackest part of the blacklist,” on the program’s front-page links this theme directly to the times we live in today.  The script was almost entirely in verse (how else would the Nobel Prize-winning poet write a play?) and at many points the extended alliteration and vivacious rhyme remind one of “Skimbleshanks, the Railway Cat,” or “Macavity’s a Mystery Cat, he’s called the Hidden Paw,” and the other wonderful TS Eliot poems that gave us the lyrics to Cats.  

Production operated from many levels. Patti Roeder designed costumes ranging from modern business suits to carefully constructed evocations of medieval garb. The various social classes and estates were delineated, with the Chorus [Sally Olson, Isabel Schmitz, Katarina Bakas, Kara Chandler] representing the working poor of Canterbury while the rich and politically powerful barons were embodied in the Tempters [Sean Harklerode, Varris Holmes, Robert Howard], who doubled as Knights with Fourth Knight Zach Kunde, who also played Messenger.  The Priests of the Cathedral were played by John Blick, Stephen Fedo, and Joel Thompson. As a whole the entire cast was splendid and Paul Chakrin’s fight choreography gave us a bloodcurdling assassination.

Which brings us to Becket himself, masterfully played by James Sparling and appareled with consummate attention to detail. I have no idea what vestments a Roman Catholic archbishop of the 12th Century wore or how his acolytes invested him. I do know what a present-day Anglo-Catholic priest wears and how she vests herself, and costume director Patti Roeder nailed it precisely.

The stage was in the sanctuary of Edgewater Presbyterian Church, and Director [and outgoing Producer and Artistic Director] Terry McCabe presented the play in the (semi) round. The central aisle leading to the stage area in front of an altar table and pulpit was, of course, singularly appropriate, and Mike McShane’s lighting through the stained glass behind the altar had a great effect.  But the most amazing contribution was that of composer Phillip Seward, who set the verses of the four-member chorus (think Greek chorus, not Chorus Line) to haunting music in his world-premiere score.

 The four singer / actresses articulated Eliot’s lines, now lyrics, with great clarity and their four-part harmony was flawless.  As in a Greek play, these chorus members were not characterized in the script, yet their acting ability, as well as subtle cues from their costumes, allowed me to imagine the sort of women they were “in real life” as they went about their arduous daily rounds in the 12th Century city of Canterbury.

The role of the chorus is to propel the plot, and the music – pianist Jacob Adams punctuated by hammered chimes – intensified that effect.  The first act, while intellectually heavy, sped by, and the composer closed with an allusion to a somber, minor key Advent hymn, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” – a falling melody line that carries the lyric, “and ransom captive Israel” – a ransom of martyrs’ blood.  

Dialect coach Carrie Hardin’s work with the cast is clearly evident in the British r-lessness, but for the first minutes I wished she’d paid more attention to de-nasalizing the a’s.  However, I soon stopped noticing this. I was particularly intrigued by the choice to portray Becket’s internal conflict as a dialog alternating his middle-class British accent with a working class, almost Cockney style of speech.  

All the performances were strong, but I was particularly impressed with Sparling somehow managing to make Becket not only compelling but also, for me at least, annoying.  Historically, Becket’s assassination was spurred when King Henry II flew into a temper and shouted, “Will no-one rid me of this meddlesome priest?!”  Four of his loyalists took him literally, traveled to Canterbury and, indeed, murdered Becket there in the Cathedral.  How seriously Henry actually meant the comment is unknowable, but I found myself empathizing with his exasperation. 

This reviewer, as it happens, spent 8th grade in England and this period of English history was on that year’s curriculum.  Knowing a bit about the politics of that time was helpful in my understanding the speeches of the first act.  For anyone lacking a middle school level of familiarity with 12^th Century English history, this Wikipedia article covers what Mr. Dowthwaite told us in class.  

Highly recommended!

Playing through June 16 at City Lit Theater.

All my gratitude to Elizabeth Vann for her invaluable assistance in composing this review.

Blue in the Right Way audaciously chose for their inaugural production a 400-year-old play, WOMEN BEWARE WOMEN, written in 1621 by Thomas Middleton and adapted by the company’s co-founders Kevin Smith (Kevin/Kevin’s, also director) and Daiva Bhandari (she/her, also lead actor and choreographer). WOMEN BEWARE WOMEN was abstractly staged, accompanied by a pair of gender-bending commentators, with Spanish/English translation subtitles, original music, exotic projections … and as many other quirky devices as their extraordinary minds could devise.

The result had me asking other audience members, “Am I the only one who has no idea what’s going on here?” Unfortunately, the ones I asked simply looked at me pityingly, one saying, “It’ll all clear up with the second act.” Sadly, this did not transpire. In the first act actors wore sumptuous Jacobean garb, but in the second act costumer Alaina Moore (she/her) chose contemporary dress, and I had trouble even figuring out who was who, leave alone clarifying all that had gone before.

Smith added some notable supplements to Thomas Middleton’s original script. Most remarkable was the double act of Kidany Camilo (they/she/he, Solange) and Bree Perry (she/they, Clara) appearing throughout the show dressed as ‘maids from the Clue game’, with commentary and heart-rending narrative about Solange’s trans/femme childhood.

Also outstanding were Daiva Bhandari (she/her) as Livia, who ultimately gets embroiled in her own schemes and John Zhou Duncan (any with respect) as Ward, who romped exuberantly with Sordido (Shail Modi he/him). Ward is described as ‘immature’ – was this a euphemism for ‘camp as a row of pink tents’?

Kudos to intimacy consultant Leo Mock (they/them/he/him) and intimacy director Courtney Abbott (she/they); as well as and most particularly to violence designers R&D Choreography (Rick Gilbert (he/him) and Victor Bayona (he/him); the fights were marvelous, and the cataclysmic ending was spectacular.

The entire cast was extraordinary: Lynne Baker (she/her, Mother); Ryan Wright Cassidy (he/him, Hippolito); Johnny Moran (he/him, Fabritio); Huy Nguyen (he/him, Duke); Keenan Odenkirk (he/him, Guardiano); Christin Prince (she/her, Bianca); Mia Van De Mark (she/her, Isabella); and Brandon Wiman (he/him, Leantio). Cardinal was played by understudy Alex Amaya (he/him), who did a fine job with a suitably bizarre performance.

Sound engineer Chris Wood (he/they) gave us a lot of sound! though it sometimes overrode the actors’ voices. Likewise, Eme Ospina-López’s (they/them) videos and projections were powerful; sometimes overly so. The scenic design by Andersonville Scenic Studios was made particularly striking by a mirror on the ceiling so the action below was repeated above – striking, yes, but an additional confusing feature in a thoroughly bewildering show. The show ran more than 30 minutes longer than billed, and during the final scenes I kept wondering when it was going to end… and how would I tell when it did?

Also on the artistic and production team were Katie Mazzini (she/her, assistant director); Sonia Perelló (she/her, Spanish translator);  Tianxuan Chen (any with respect, scenic and lighting designer); Juan Contreras-Kirby (he/him, wig, hair and makeup designer); Sam Flipp (she/her, stage manager); Anna H. Gelman (she/her, production manager);  Lililo (Emma Ladji) (she/her, composer); Viviana Mendez (she/her, lip-sync choreographer); Catherine Miller (they/them, casting director);  Keith Parham (he/him, associate lighting designer);  Hayley E Wallenfeldt (any with respect, properties supervisor); Baylee Speer (any with respect, master electrician); Caitlyn Birmingham (she/her, assistant stage manager), and Claire Michalak (she/her, box office manager).  

WOMEN BEWARE WOMEN presented several problems for me, but these did not override its contributions: a stellar cast giving amazing performances and a wonderful production team. The flaw was that all this excellence exceeded itself – altogether too much of a good thing. Blue in the Right Way is unquestionably a theatre company to watch. Kevin Smith revealed himself as courageous and adventuresome; if Kevin can muster a soupçon of temperance Kevin can offer an invaluable addition to Chicago’s theatre scene.

WOMEN BEWARE WOMEN

at The Edge Theater

Running Wednesdays through Sundays through May 12

I think my favorite thing – well, one of my favorite things – about Wyatt Kent’s take on HAMLET is imagining just how much fun everyone must have been having with it! everyone except Hamlet, of course, but the entire play is about Prince Hamlet (Ashley Fox) having a Very. Bad. Day.

HAMLET is one of Shakespeare’s tragedies, no argument about that, and certainly the corpses littering the stage in the final act [I don’t have to worry about spoilers here, right?] cannot be anything but tragic. But Director Kent broadened the scope, extended our range of understanding HAMLET, by making us laugh.

Yes, I know Shakespeare injects touches of humor into every play – even Macbeth has a few chuckles – but I’m talking about a far more inclusive and deliberate thing here. Last summer I saw Midsommer Flight’s production of Cymbeline, billed as tragedy but staged as comedy. Director Beth Wolf created a totally brilliant comedy while staying true to the Bard’s script word for word. Kent worked the same magic on HAMLET, a categorically tragic work, with sensational results.

In retrospect I realize there was some humor evident as early as Act 1 Scene 1, where Horatio (Reginald Hemphill) sees the Ghost, but I had arrived at the theatre expecting to see HAMLET, a tragedy, so it took a minute to wrap my mind around what was happening up there. And that’s OK! – it worked really well for me to pick up on it only gradually ….

Act 1, Scene 3: Ophelia (Julia Rowley) was saying farewell to her brother Laertes (Ian Maryfield) and, OK, she did go a tad OTT what with leaping into his arms and knocking him to the floor, but I was still considering the desultory laughter misplaced, not to mention rude. Then Polonius (Zach Bloomfield) begins to deliver his loving, solicitous, concerned, pompous, long-winded, verbose, garrulous, interminable paternal speech to his son and at that point it was a no-brainer – the production was categorically comedic. In any production Polonius will be a garrulous guy, that’s who Polonius is, and Bloomfield skillfully played this bombastic buffoon with maximum drollery, making us chuckle all through ‘neither a borrower nor a lender be.…’ Laertes rolling his eyes at Dad’s balderdash was another unmistakable clue as to where Kent was taking us.

I repeat - not one syllable was altered in the script of HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK; it was the artistry of Kent’s vision and the genius of the actors that transmogrified HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK from dramatic tragedy to black comedy. Brilliant!

More giggles in store in Act 2, when Harrison Lampert (Rosencrantz) bumbled, fumbled, and stumbled his way onstage, befriended and ballyhooed by Mary Townsend Cahoon as Guildenstern. Every scene with these two was L.O.L. funny! And again, it was the actors’ postures, expressions and intonation – in a word, their acting – that morphed Shakespeare’s lines into one-liners.

Polonius again exercises his loquacious and circumlocutory logorrhea to alert King Claudius (Robert Koon) and Queen Gertrude (Kelly Levander) that Prince Hamlet has gone mad. Furthermore, Polonius posits the pathogenesis of Hamlet’s madness is none other than that enigmatic enchantment that oft-times doth drive strong men nuts … love.

Right then, that covers the major players. Others included Josh Razavi (Gravedigger et al), Tatiana Pavela (Player etc.) and Tulsi McDaniels (Osric and others) and all did colossal justice to their multiple roles in many scenes.

I can’t leave the cast without some shout-outs to my favorites – you all know I unapologetically play favorites in my reviews! First is Ashley Fox as Hamlet; he is the sole character who doesn’t participate in the farcical variation, and I imagine it was a challenge for Fox to retain that bleak and gloomy aspect amidst the hilarity of her fellows. She truly did a stellar job! 

I already mentioned Lampert and Cahoon’s (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s) wonderful waggery – by their third or fourth appearance we were laughing in anticipation as soon as they took the stage! Likewise, Zack Bloomfield’s Polonius – even his mustache was weirdly chucklesome.

Alarum: I had a bag of Skittles and (probably channeling Rosencrantz) dropped it! Losing the Skittles was oh-so-what, but they rolled like BB’s into the aisles where actors were dashing about. Just my luck if an actor slipped on my sweets and the evening relapsed back into tragedy! From my seat I couldn’t reach to sweep ‘em away, but Ian Maryfield, lovely Laertes, stepped off the stage [and, more difficult, out of character!], to scrape the treacherous little treats out of harm’s way. Gratitude galore to the gallant Laertes! And, just BTW, his performance was every bit as striking as his chivalry. Ian, if you’re reading this: 

I’ll begin my production plaudits with Casting Director Becca Holloway for assembling this phenomenal team. I’ve seen lots of gender-bending casting, particularly in this PC (post-Covid) era, but it seemed that Holloway was simply gender- as well as color-blind, selecting the actor best suited for each role without regard to anything but their talent. I don’t know if that really was her strategy, but it certainly was the outcome.  

And naturally the finest cast won’t deliver the finest production without the finest Direction, which Wyatt Kent delivered, assisted by Sean William Kelly (Assistant Director) and Technical Director Andy Cahoon – who also collaborated on Props with Mary Townsend Cahoon – who also sparkled as Guildenstern. This production was all about multi-tasking, yeah? For Fight and Intimacy Design, I just last week saw Babes With Blades do The S Paradox, so my bar was set really high, but Jamie MacPherson and Fight Captain Ian Maryfield cleared that bar with room to spare!

Pictured left to right - Kelly Levander as Gertrude, Ian Maryfield as Laertes, Ashley Fox as Hamlet

Dr Lexi Signor’s Music was flawlessly selected, and Text Coach Meredith Ernst conveyed excellent translations of iambic pentameter. Sebby Woldt (Sound), Derryl (Lighting) and Rose Johnson (Scenic Design) generated an impeccable environment to sustain both the indigenous tragedy of HAMLET as well as Kent’s comic interpretation – no mean feat, that! In addition, have I mentioned that HAMLET was performed in the round?!  I felt smug at having got a seat in the perfect spot – until several people seated elsewhere said the same thing. How did dey do dat?

No, I haven’t forgotten Costume Designer Madeline Felauer, I was just saving the best for last. Felauer chose to bedizen the characters with a surrealistic thread. Hamlet wore a shapeless moth-eaten sweater, while Queen Gertrude was in a dress Jackie Kennedy might have worn, a mink stole, and 3” pumps. For Ophelia, picture an exceptionally odd floor-length orange fishnet … um, thing … over a miniskirt. Other characters ran the gamut from ugly plaid business suit to crisp, scarlet-trimmed military-style jacket, and blue jeans abounded. Overall, the effect coordinated perfectly with the mind-f*ck tragedy cum farce aspect of the production.

And of course, nothing gets to the box office without the guidance and oversight of a good Stage Manager. I once asked a friend with lots of theatre experience, “Just what does a Stage Manager do, anyway?” to which they replied, “Everything.” So … Tessa Huber did Everything, with a lil’ help from Assistant Junipero “Juni” Cruz.

I hope you have gleaned from this that I really reeeeeeally liked Red Theater’s HAMLET. This gig as a reviewer has certainly broadened my artistic horizons, particularly of The Bard. Everyone knows Shakespeare was a magnificent playwright, but I suggest that one can’t truly appreciate his works until you’ve seen them produced on Chicago’s iconic storefront stages with cast from Chicago’s wicked assemblage of outstanding actors.

I leave you with two take-home messages: (1) keep your skittles in your pocket; and (2) SEE HAMLET!!!

Playing at The Edge Off Broadway Theater Mondays and Wednesdays through Saturdays at 7:30, and Sundays at 3

Running through Sunday May 19.

VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!  

And with more than a dozen performances coming up you have no excuse not to go!

BALLET 5:8 is a female - and minority-led ballet company resident at Harris Theatre in Millenium Park. Under the leadership of co-founder, Artistic Director and Resident Choreographer Julianna Rubio Slager the company is ‘dedicated to engaging communities in conversations of life and faith through innovative storytelling and breathtaking dance’.  Last February I saw BALLET 5:8 perform Butterfly, inspired by the diary of Helga Weiss. Each dancer depicted an actual person Helga had known during her years at the Nazi concentration camp Terezin, where Jews of special prominence and talent were sent. Helga made many paintings of the camp, which Rubio Slager projected onto the background as the terrible story evolved in dance.

I’m fascinated by Julianna Rubio Slager. She’s created more than 50 works in the past dozen years, each inspired by real people, real events, real situations that Rubio Slager feels compelled to chronicle and demonstrate, often so as to build public awareness of unknown circumstances and predicaments. Me, I’m a wordsmith –I record people and events that I see in writing; thus, my brain is always sifting words, formulating sentences as I walk through my day. One need not be a writer for this of course; I imagine many people see and experience the world around them with words, or see them as photographs, etc. But I have to wonder: what must it be like inside the brain of this woman who depicts the world around her as dance? Through BALLET 5:8 Rubio Slager gives us a glimpse of just what it’s like in there, and last Saturday night she revealed the most amazing things!

LOST WOMEN OF JUAREZ was accompanied by three additional compositions, Counterpart, Wind, and The Sea is Flat, and I’ll discuss them first.

I saw the premiere performance of Counterpart last February with Butterfly, and it was just as lovely this time. A pas de deux performed by Samuel Opsal and Elizabeth Marlin, Counterpoint explores partnership and equality to the music of genre-bending string trio Time for Three. As one might expect in a dance that celebrates the thrill of equality, Wardrobe Head Lorianne Robertson’s male and female costumes were not identical but definitely like. 

Natalie Chinn and Christian English in 'Counterpart'

WIND is aptly named; dancers in flowing skirts partner with Alfonso Peduto’s music, and we can see – can feel – the leaves dancing in the spring breeze, and whipped by the furious barrage of a stormy gale. Dancers in the first and third movements included Lorianne Robertson, Caedence Sajdowitz, Savannah Stach, Jonathan Bostelman, Ellington Nichols, Rachel Walker, Alessia Braggiato, Katrina Clarke, Ford Tackett, Christian English and Samuel Opsal. In the second movement Bostelman, Tackett, and English performed a pas de trois  [I do so love all-male pas de deux and trois!).

The Sea is Flat was an incredibly evocative piece, capturing the sea’s capricious nature while simultaneously depicting its tumultuous essence to the music of Ezio Bosso. One sees chaos and tranquility juxtaposed was the male dancers portray Poseidon, while the female principals bring peace, transformation, and faith, drawing the audience as well as dancers toward serene silence. The cast included Caedence Sajdowitz, Jonathan Bostelman, Ellington Nichols, Katrina Clarke, Valerie Linsner, Sarah Clarke, Libby Dennen, Elizabeth Marlin, Melanie Rodriguez, Lezlie Gray, Sophia Snider, Natalie Chinn, Kayla Kowach, Christian English, Sam Opsal, Jenni Richards, Maggie DeGroote, and John Szwast.

OK, now to LOST WOMEN OF JUÁREZ. Julianna would definitely want me to tell you the story behind the ballet:

El Paso is a factory town, and the factories maximize profit by hiring poor Mexican women for paltry pay.  As non-citizens – and, of course, as women – they have no leverage to demand fair wages and must take any work available to feed their families. These impoverished women live in Mexico, in Ciudad Juárez, and must take public transportation through rough areas to reach El Paso.  In the borderlands between and El Paso and home women are mysteriously disappearing, their corpses later found in the desert but never fully investigated. I’m reminded of MMIW and the thousands of Indigenous Women and girls who are Missing or Murdered yet never effectively investigated. MMIW Task Force attributes these grim matters to historical trauma, racism, and sexual objectification of women … and the same applies in Juárez. The ballet employs the music of Oscar Lopez, Vico C, Antonio Garcia Isaac, Stefan, and Cortando Troncos to tell the story tenderly and with compelling urgency, as this femicide must not continue! 

Change can’t begin until there is widespread awareness of the need for change. The Transtheoretical Stages of Change model describes the process of change beginning at the precontemplation stage, in which there is not yet an awareness that a problem and a need for change even exists. Obviously, with the public at large still unaware of the femicide in Juárez, there is scant impetus for change.  

Taking the first step towards change is the same for an individual or a society: advancement from precontemplation to contemplation requires education. This is what Julianna Rubio Slager is doing with LOST WOMEN OF JUÁREZ – she is instructing the world of this issue to bring justice for the dead women, to alert other women of their peril and, most crucially, to enlighten the public that there is indeed a problem – a calamity! – that urgently needs to be changed.  And she does all this through the medium of dance. Wow.

Rubio Slager lost a family member, Yolanda Soto Rubio, to this mass murder, and Rubio Slager writes herself into the production, danced by Valerie Lisner; Elizabeth Marlin dances the part of the murdered Yolanda Soto Rubio. The dancers represent real women, the dead and the mourners: Lily Alejandra Garcia (Sarah Clarke), Luz Angelica Mena Flores (Libby Dennen), Jessica Ivone Padilla Cuellar (Melanie Rodriguez), Maria Guadalupe Perez Montes (Lezlie Gray), Gabriella Espinoza Ibarra (Jenni Richards), Esmerelda Castillo Rincon (Natalie Chinn), Ingrid Escamilla (Sophia Snider), Adriana Sarmiento Enríquez (Rachel Walker), Griselda Murua Lopez (Kayla Kowach), and Danna Jaqueline Reyes Lopez (Darissy Matias). The LOST WOMEN OF JUÁREZ trace patterns of grief across the stage, against background projections showing glimpses of Juárez and fields of crosses scattered over the desert sands. The slain women have become one with the sand, and their devastated family and friends bring grains of sand to their mouths to incorporate and embrace their lost loved ones.

Lighting, designed by Julianna Rubio Slager and Mike Goebel, was vital to every performance. Rubio Slager has a long-standing interest in stage design, evident in every piece. Lorianne Robertson designed all costumes to be eloquent while remaining as simple as possible.

BALLET 5:8 habitually follows the production with Talkback, where Rubio Slager and a selection of the dancers are available to discuss their experiences of the dances and answer questions. The dancers are gallantly open and frank about how they embody their roles and how that embodiment affects and changes them, while Julianna Rubio Slager candidly reveals her motivations and processes. In a touching coda Rubio Slager announced the promotion of Jonathan Bostelman and Lezlie Gray from Company Artists to Soloists.

A spectator remarked that the cast of LOST WOMEN OF JUÁREZ is all female, which Rubio Slager acknowledged was a conscious decision: the work is about the victims, and she has no inclination to give attention and salience to the villains. Another attender asked about the music, which Rubio Slager admitted was a complex issue – for every composition she must acquire consent to use the piece. Luckily, she adores music and listens to it constantly; if she finds a piece intriguing, she may seek proprietary rights even before knowing exactly where or how she will employ it.

The entire program is performed with intense passion and fervor, depicting ecstasy and anguish, fury and tranquility, with such intensity and authenticity that the cast undertakes but a single performance of each production. Very sad!! But I strongly recommend you join BALLET 5:8’s emailing list so you won’t miss the next production of a Julianna Rubio Slager’s masterpiece!

I would absolutely bomb out of jury selection cos I have a very definite bias: I’ve been a fan(atic) of Babes with Blades Theatre Company (BWBTC) forever – since their very first show in 1997. Favoritism notwithstanding, I try to always be scrupulously fair in my reviews, and it’s certainly fair to say THE S PARADOX blew my socks off! My companion was particularly impressed by the fighting, but that’s only to be expected from the Babes – BWBTC is all about women in arms telling the truth with precision and grace.

Playwright Jillian Leff ^she/her  has outdone herself; the script moves at a lightning pace yet leaves one thinking long afterward. THE S PARADOX won the 2019-2020 Joining Sword and Pen Playwriting Competition, and this production is the world premiere of the work. The script is very clever and often hilarious; all the characters are intriguing and believably portrayed.  But what the bloody hell is an S Paradox? It’s a real thing in statistics and, though I wander gormless through the world of statistics, I’ll take a stab at defining it. Simpson’s (S) Paradox is a phenomenon in which associations between two variables can change or even reverse direction when there’s an unrecognized factor that interacts strongly with both variables.

For example, take a study done in 1974 of the relationship between smoking and heart disease, which found just what you’d expect. However, recently the data were re-analyzed and found that, after 30 years more smokers (76%) were still alive than non-smokers (68%).

WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot? Does smoking prolong survival?? 

What confounded the data and produced the paradoxical finding is Simpson's Paradox – they failed to consider a third variable: age at the beginning of the study. Far more nonsmokers were over 64 – logical, because there simply aren't as many smokers who get that old – and naturally these older subjects died off sooner.  

Enough with the statistics already! let’s get back to the Babes. But the statistics are important cos THE S PARADOX is about time travel, where paradoxes abound and may have horrific unintended consequences.

Kayla Marie Klammer (she/her) and Elisabeth Del Toro (she/her) in THE S PARADOX

THE S PARADOX opens in a distant and (seemingly) utopian future: tax reforms have virtually eliminated poverty, healthcare is free, and guns are totally banned – the police are armed with (you guessed it) swords. Sounds good, yeah? Our hero is a young woman named Sloane, gorgeously played by Kayla Marie Klammer^she/her.  Through various machinations and interventions by Dez, the armorer, Sloane acquires a sword and is offered a sensational job with a shadowy government organization.

Dez is brought to exuberant life by Elisabeth Del Toro^she/her. I adored her! Funny and frolicsome, DelToro’s Dez sparkles with such droll enthusiasm that Sloane can’t resist her… and nor could I!

Sloane is pretty pumped about all this, but she gets a sharply unfavorable reaction from her partner Ava, who’s suspicious that the job looks too good to be true. More importantly, Ava is older than Sloane and remembers the times before the reforms; she wants no chance of returning to a world of guns! Cat Evans^they/she/him gives us an Ava who mounts these logical arguments but is primarily motivated by her love and concern for Sloane. This honey works better than the vinegar of logic, and Sloane agrees to return the sword.

All well and good, but she’s thwarted on numerous fronts: first, Dez is weirdly reluctant to accept the sword back. Weirder still, this woman who claims to be from the future appears and warns Sloane that she’s about to make a dreadful mistake … but disappears before she can explain herself. And who are these anonymous cloaked strangers following Sloane? Could something be happening in the future that is paradoxically non-utopian?

I can’t say more without grievous spoilers, but I do need to make a couple more introductions, as their characters will appear (and disappear and re-appear and disappear and re-re-appear and disappear again). William, the businessman who recruited Sloane, is brilliantly played by Steve Peebles ^he/him, who portrays him behaving ever more peculiar, fast approaching frankly creepy.

Sonja Lynn Mata^she/her/ella is a delightful Dez-of-the-future, a perfect sequel to her irrepressible younger self.  Mata portrays Dez as earnest and indefatigably persistent (mulish would not be far off the mark), particularly about this project she’s trying to conscript Sloane into. Thankfully, gravitas has not quelled the vivacity and ebullience of her youth, and Sloane finds her fully as engaging as before [me too!].

And for Sloane the elder, future Sloane – now simply called S – who else to cast but Maureen Yasko^she/her, Artistic Affiliate with BWBTC and stage combat maestro extraordinaire?  Yasko masterfully portrays S as a complex character, scored by grief and regret but preserving the passionate, indomitable woman of yesteryear deep within. She’s courageous, accepting without complaint the emotional pain of truth as well as the physical battering of the time leaps. And S never loses hope. Yasko manages to convey all this; admittedly with assistance from the stellar script, but these intangibles can’t be depicted by words alone.

Also brilliant were the four Nameless, the anonymous cloaked figures who inflict Sloane’s reality, and are still around to daunt the world of S: Tina-Kim Nguyen^she/her, Deanna Palmer^she/her, Jessica Pennachio^she/her, and Thomas Russell^he/they. All four of them were superb, but Russell’s performance was remarkable. Overall, the Nameless ensemble was suitably portentous and creepy.

The cast was uniformly splendid and, happily, their excellence was matched by the production team. Director Morgan Manasa ^she/her devised some amazing conceptual strategems; with Technical Director Line Bower ^they/them and Lighting Designer Laura J Wiley ^she/her, the time jumps were brilliantly accomplished; Wiley’s Light design was crucial during the many scenic transitions in time and space. Fight and Intimacy Director Samantha Kaufman ^she/her (and how fabulous is it that one woman directs both these seemingly antithetical functions?) had the finest material to work with in BWBTC, and she honed them to flawless precision. Scenic (Rose Johnson ^they/them) and Props (Evy Burch^they/she) Designers created a stage set that transformed seamlessly and believably. I loved how Costume Designer Rachel M Sypniewski ^she/her arranged Sloane’s and S’s hair! And LJ Luthringer’s^he/him Sound thrilled me: 1960’s bands Rolling Stones, Jefferson Airplane, The Shondells … be still my heart! Stage Manager Taylor Stageberg ^she/they brought it all together superbly (and I love that they credited their cat!).

That’s the lot, and a stellar lot they are. I expect no less from the Babes of course, but it’s always a happy surprise to see how brilliantly they deliver. Their mission is to speak for marginalized voices, with stage combat a consistent storytelling tool. Rare, and fabulous!  as is THE S PARADOX!

THE S PARADOX plays Thursdays – Sundays at Factory Theatre through May 18.

Highly recommended!

Those were my first words when I left the performance of COCK to David Zak, producer and resident wizard of Open Space Arts, and he dared me to say it in my review so—here you go, DZ!

But COCK truly is. F***king amazing, I mean. Really.

I’ll introduce the venue first: Open Space Arts (OSA) is ‘dedicated to combating homophobia and antisemitism through the transformative power of creativity and cultural expression’. Nothing to argue with there! OSA Theatre is the quintessential Chicago ‘black box theatre’, and one of the smallest I’ve attended: only about 20 seats, with a stage about the size of my living room (which is pretty bloody small!) … plus, right smack in the center of the stage is this big ol’ vertical drainpipe. I always love seeing how companies work with and around the oddities and idiosyncrasies of their space, and Director Wren Wesner did a singularly splendid job with COCK.

The script: written (or premiered, anyway) in 2008 by British playwright Mike Bartlett, this is the Chicago debut. There are four characters: John (Eliot Hall), his long-time lover M (Kevin Woodrow), M’s father F (Michael Lomenick), and a woman John connects with, W (Sonya Robinson) [Obviously Man, Woman, and Father].  

And the story: John comes home to M after two weeks silent absence. The first act is John and M’s discussion of his absence and the past, present, and future of their relationship, where we establish that John has spent those two weeks with W, a woman he met passing on the street (albeit not a streetwalker) and very rapidly grew very attached to. John and M’s tête-à-tête culminates with John promising M he’ll break it off with W.

But the minute he’s away from M John starts vacillating … who is he anyway? What is he? Is he gay? he’s only ever had sex with men, but this woman is so attractive, and her ‘gap’ (we hear many appellations for this female characteristic, most of them from M and most of them unattractive) … did you get lost there? Sorry. I’m talking about John’s impression of W’s gap (she says that while John gets a hard on, she gets a gap-on) which, much to his surprise—and to ours, particularly having heard M’s singularly negative view — (not to mention our pre-conceived assumption of gay mens’ associations thereof) is a singularly positive impression.  [thank Someone for periods—the punctuation kind, not the gap kind—else that sentence might still be driveling on].

I’m not doing a very coherent job of this, am I? but that’s OK, cos this somewhat chaotic narrative is not inconsistent with the flavor of COCK – not that COCK is incoherent, and it’s certainly not drivel! but it did follow a circuitous course, with Bartlett leaving to us the responsibility of making sense of it all. Because that is just what John finds himself unable to do. Like a fundamentalist Christian, he’s desperately seeking a synopsis, a definitive sobriquet, a Revelation that will define What’s What—and thereby What’s Right and What’s Wrong. What a terrific query for election year 2024! How did Mike Bartlett know we’d need this right now? Luckily David Zak and co-producer Elayne LeTraunik did know, and they brought it to life at OSA to assist us in figuring out WTF is What with American democracy!

But I digress (no surprise there). Back to COCK.

The title is provocative; shouldn’t it be COCK & GAP? But no, the title refers to John’s confusion as to where said cock feels most at home. Some Brit producers called it COCKFIGHT—not inappropriate.

John certainly seems to be gay:  he’s had none but male sex partners all his life, his relationship with M is long-term and committed, he’s never felt any attraction to womankind … until W. So just what is John? Bi? [Though for him it’s more like Gay+1.] Naturally John has thought about What He’s Missing: having kids, belonging to the mainstream community, living a “normal” life … and so on and so forth, you know the drill.

Solution: Invite W to a dinner party where, over roast beef and red wine John will… will what? By the time it actually happens he’s promised both M and W that he will give the others their marching orders. Then the situation is further snarled by M announcing he’s invited his dad for moral support. F brings a surfeit of additional issues as well as additional attitudes to the issues already under review.

So, the story boils down to John making a Decision … does he stick with the gay relationship he knows, the man he loves, and a place that’s at least familiar, or will he choose a ‘normal’, mainstream life with this woman he can’t stop craving? Choose, John! Make a decision!

But wait! This decision is about an issue that they—we!—fervently believe is not a decision but an inborn trait! Decades of blood sweat and tears by LGBTQ activists, mental health professionals, religious leaders, and politicians has finally brought us to the widespread understanding that homosexuality (like heterosexuality) is not a choice, it’s a predilection that everyone is born with and that nobody can just change. So, in asking John to Decide, what happens to that issue? Do we bring back the conversion therapies, restore homosexuality to the DSM, return Anita Bryant to her pulpit, fire all the gay teachers and court-martial the gay soldiers? All just so John can decide where to put his cock?

The acting is extraordinary, beginning with Eliot Hall, who brings authenticity to and elicits sympathy for John’s emotional turmoil. Hall makes us see that John is not just a wishy-washy waffler; he’s genuinely torn, flummoxed by a question he never imagined he’d be obliged to answer … after all, no one should!  He projects intense chemistry with both M and W, spotlighting the degree of his conundrum.

Hall’s admirable performance is more than matched by Kevin Woodrow. M’s bewilderment is fully as unsettling as John’s, with the additional distress of total helplessness. There’s nothing M can do to resolve the situation, or even to influence it; he can only wait until John acts. And bake cheesecake. Woodrow illuminates this ferment, while never letting us (or John!) forget that John is the love of his life.  Woodrow also has terrific comedic sense. The entire script is full of wonderful metaphors, which Woodrow delivers flawlessly, bringing down the house with: “There’s so much emotional crap that orbits you, like you’re collecting space junk.” 

Sonya Robinson is a worthy foil – her performance illustrates the unenviable position W is in: unintentionally, reluctantly, involuntarily, she has fallen in love with this stranger, only to find she must fight for him in a battle she is personally disinclined for. W offers John both passion and compassion. My initial, natural proclivity was to root for M (anyone surprised by this hasn’t been reading my reviews), but Robinson made me understand her better and, if not favor her cause, at least appreciate what John saw in her. And, just BTW, she is NOT mannish!

F is in the action for only a fraction of the 90-minute run, but Michael Lomenick makes the most of that time. Lomenick reads through the script to his unwavering love for his son, both his sons. F brings us an historical aspect; he remembers the times of persecution and prison and as a father is relieved that his sons need not face this oppression.

My companion is new to Chicago theatre, especially the storefront sites; afterwards he told me he had assumed that such a small theatre would mount a “small” production. I laughed and told him, “This is Chicago, cher. There’s fully as much talent in the storefronts as at Goodman or Nederlander”, and he couldn’t but agree, particularly regarding the acting. I expect high-quality acting in the black boxes, but Lomenick, Robinson, Woodrow, and Hall [sounds like the name of a law firm innit?] sailed over even that high-placed bar.

Justin Walker managed the lighting, collaborating with Sound director Angela Joy Baldasare to signal scene changes with light and sound. Director Wren Wesner, with Teri Talo as Assistant, did a totally brilliant job with blocking; the physical space afforded them no other manner of defining scenes, and their magic let us clearly see the apartment: from the foyer, through the living room and back to the outdoor deck, as well as illustrating fluctuating moods and relationships. Talo was also Assistant to Stage Manager Desiree Stypinski; together they maintained the scaffolding for a magnificent production.

I must give a shoutout to Intimacy Coordinator Greta Zandstra: the sex was hot as hell, without a stitch of clothing shed or a single physical touch. Bravo! Masterfully done!

COCK is totally hilarious, and none of the humor is too British for us colonials. But the story is ultimately a tragedy, for John is facing the impossible; deciding whose heart he will break—including his own. No spoilers! but it’s a devilishly difficult situation, innit? and a theme with emotional, societal, political, and personal ramifications. I’ll be thinking about COCK for a long time.

And today I’m HIGHLY RECOMMENDING it!

COCK plays through May 11th at Open Space Arts

I love all things Shakespeare, particularly modern iterations and adaptations of his works, and I’ve had good experiences with Idle Muse Theatre Company. So naturally when I learned that Idle Muse was mounting a new version of "What the Weird Sisters Saw," I was pretty excited.

Fifteen years ago, when Idle Muse was in its infancy, the company’s Artistic Director Evan M Jackson conceived/created an adaptation of the tragedy "Macbeth" from the perspective of the three witches: "What the Weird Sisters Saw". And now, in 2024, with Tristan Brandon’s assistance and with several of the original actors and crew, Jackson (still Artistic Director at Idle Muse!) has revisited the witches for a complete rework of his haunting fantasy.

Jackson’s Weird Sisters aren’t ‘weird’ in the modern sense of the term, nor are they subject to the Judeo-Christian concept of evil women in league with Satan [we don’t have much truck with lots of Judeo-Christian concepts, particularly those involving women!]. No, Jackson’s Sisters are magical women, druidesses whose connections to the land, to their beloved Scotland and to the forces of Nature allows them to commune with spirits both living and dead; spirits from the present, the past, and the future. Between their provenance with their teacher Hecate and with the powerful forces of open spaces, the Sisters are able to conjure visions of events destined to unfold in the future.

Murron (Caty Gordon), the lead (eldest? strongest? she’s definitely the leader here) is having premonitions; by the pricking of her thumbs, she’s convinced that something wicked this way comes … but what – or who – is it? Her Sisters Dana (Jennifer Mohr) and Alastriona (Jamie Redwood) share her disquiet and together they concoct a potion to explore the mystery. They find riddles surrounding Macbeth, Thane of Glanis and brave Scots general under King Duncan; they prophesy Macbeth (stunningly played by Joel Thompson) will wear Duncan’s crown, but that future kings will be descended from his friend and fellow general Banquo (Troy Schaeflein) … and we all know how Macbeth feels about this notion.

Dissatisfied with mere augury, Murron becomes obsessed with not simply divining the future, but altering the actions she’s foretold. Sisters Dana and Alastriona are less sanguine, but they respect Murron and, despite their reservations, they follow her lead as she repeatedly conjures the shades of Macbeth, Banquo, and others. As Macbeth’s avarice becomes undeniable, Murron seeks to refashion his machinations and thus to redeem him. Joel Thompson rocks the role of the dark Thane, portraying an aspect of innate royalty – the gleam of nobility divined by the Sisters– that is curiously not at odds with the audience’s foreknowledge of his wickedness. Of course, despite Murron’s interventions, that wickedness gradually escalates, and the noble Macbeth forges his own doom.

Brendan Hutt is superb as The Porter, whose sporadic appearances both entertain and enlighten … though, actually, not so much with the latter, as his inebriated proclamations are not only veiled by his jocularity but are often, frankly, evasive. Frustration amplifies Murron’s unease; yet the greater the perplexity, the stronger the fascination – we all know how that works! Thus, she is lured ever deeper into the mind and motives of Macbeth, her increasingly reluctant Sisters trailing in her wake. Both Dana (Jennifer Mohr) and Alastriona (Jamie Redwood) become more distinctive in their caution of Murron’s inquest, allowing each actor to further display her skill – did I already say the cast is overall superb?

Case in point: Mara Kovacevic’s sterling portrayal of Macbeth’s not-so-sterling wife. Initially Lady Macbeth, recognizing that the witches are at cross purposes with her vaulting ambition, appears to be deliberately misleading the Sisters. No less baffling is the Lady’s descent into madness, and she further mystifies the Sisters with her macabre hand-washing and eerie mutterings. It’s so interesting to watch this play where we know the storyline of its progenitor, yet are totally absorbed with the Sisters’ nescience!

Hecate (Elizabeth MacDougald) is often onstage, covertly overseeing her acolytes, but unlike Murron she doesn’t intervene. Rather, Hecate allows Murron’s – all the Sisters’ – cabal to evolve, likewise its grisly human consequences. Only at the bloody finale does Hecate reveal herself to her subordinates and upbraid their presumption. I’m sorry we didn’t hear more from Hecate, as MacDougald was a compelling Goddess of Magic, one I’d like to have known better. Likewise, Troy Schaeflein (Banquo) also left me hungry for more of his brilliant stage presence. The story provided more opportunity for us to enjoy Watson Swift’s performance as Macduff, and Erik Schnitger as Duncan and Orion Lay-Sleeper’s Malcolm also used their limited stage time well. I’ll say it again: overall, the cast was exemplary, and each gave fine performances.

The cast was displayed by an equally amazing production crew; they were marvelous as a whole, but I must give a shoutout to a few remarkable aspects. Jennifer Mohr’s costumes were striking and accurate. Most productions I’ve seen of "Macbeth" dress the Scotsmen in kilts, but the ‘kilt’ as we know it today did not actually appear until the late 18th century, having evolved from the feileadh mor (‘big wrap’) that was characteristic in the 15th to 16th centuries; and Mohr outfitted her Scots in feileadh. I also noted that the doctor wore a plague mask, as the Black Death was a consistent threat across Europe at the time. Thank you, Jennifer Mohr, for your due diligence! And I loved The Porter’s criss-crossed belts of dangling fetishes and charms. I could have sworn I spied the head of a Barbie doll in there – if so, I forgive the anachronism in deference to Ryan Gosling’s Oscars gig. I must also offer lavish kudos to Laura Wiley and L.J. Luthringer for lighting & projection and music & sound (respectively). The collaboration of these two artists contrived both light and sound into actual cast members, so effectively did they ‘speak their lines’ of atmosphere, ambience, and tonality. Bravo!

The excellence of the fighting was no surprise to me – after all, violence designer (and assistant director) Libby Beyreis is a member of Babes with Blades Theatre Company, Chicago’s very own troupe of Weird Sisters. And I thought it appropriate for Tristan Brandon to oversee the properties; the co-adaptor of the play would have an intuitive ken [still got Gosling on the brain!] for the objects required. Stina Taylor and Breezy Snyder wisely composed a minimalist set, allowing the story to unfurl via the performances rather than through static objects. As a fervent aficionado of Chicago’s Black Box theatres, I appreciate the challenges these spaces pose for set design and was pleased to see Birnam Wood plausibly wrought without hindering the (considerable!) action.

My sole concern is one common to many – most? – Shakespearean productions: the complexity of the language often made it difficult for me to hear the lines. Granted, that difficulty is partially mine – gotta love getting older! – but some may, I hope, be remediable. For example, further rehearsals and performances will give Luthringer time to fine-tune sound levels to ensure the voices are not eclipsed – but please! without effacing any of the incredible music and … well, noises.

Elizabethan England, William Shakespeare, and the play "Macbeth" are all imperatively and inescapably masculine. With "What the Weird Sisters Saw" Jackson has toppled this patriarchy at its base: sorry fellas, that was then, this is now and it’s a women’s show! The gender imparity created thereby is vital and I wouldn’t want it attenuated in any way.

The script was extremely dense and might benefit from judicious editing. At times I felt the actors were almost tripping over their own tongues in their effort to deliver every word at a brisk (not to say breakneck) pace.
Perhaps Jackson, with text & dialect coach Carrie Hardin, could address all these matters by slowing everything down just a wee bit. The occasional judicious 1-2 second pause would give my poor old brain a chance to travel between then and now, between male and female.

Such a complex production needed all the work of stage manager Becky Warner and her assistant Lindsey Chidester, technical director Line Bower, production manager Shellie DiSalvo, dramaturg Cori Lang, and all the dozens of other people required to bring a vision before the footlights. It takes a village!

Highly recommended, "What the Weird Sisters Saw" will play at The Edge Off-Broadway Theatre through April 14, 2024.