Grand Hotel at Theater Wit is a revelation! It shows how much punch you can pack in a storefront stage production with the right mix of great singing talent and artful production.

Kokandy Productions has brought to life the 1989 Broadway musical extravaganza, which traces its roots back through the 1932 MGM feature film (starring Joan Crawford and Lionel Barrymore) to a 1929 German novel.

Grand Hotel is very reminiscent of Cabaret - but that 1966 blockbuster, currently in yet another revival, remains the standard for decadent pre-war Berlin shows. Grand Hotel tracks the passage of some larger-than-life guests during a single weekend in an elegant hotel in 1928 Berlin: a fading Russian prima ballerina; a fatally ill Jewish bookkeeper spending his final days living in luxury; a handsome and conniving, down-on-his-heels, Baron; a corporate executive who turns crooked under business pressures; and an actress (and typist) aiming at Hollywood while resisting the casting couch.

These characters and the Joan Crawford background could easily lead to a high camp meltdown. But director John D. Glover keeps it serious, allowing us to appreciate the artistry of the players. This is no Cabaret, in the sense that there aren't really memorable songs, but we do havve memorable performances. 

The singing is truly spectacular, with amazing voices bubbling up through the versatile chorus members, and real standouts include the wonderful baritone Erik Dohner as the Baron; the rich mezzo soprano Liz Norton as Raefella, the manager of the Russian ballerina; and Jonathan Schwart as bookkeeper Otto Kringelein.

I also loved Jenny McPherson (she plays Tootsie, Sandor, and a telephone operator). "I would like to occupy the royal suite, rather than mop the floors/with the whores," she sings. Pavi Proczko brings real menace to his role as Chauffer; and Jeff Pierpoint and Nick Arceo stand out among the chorus. 

Like Cabaret, the original Broadway production of Grand Hotel garnered lots of Tony Awards including best direction and choreography for Tommy Tune. Broadway was hoping it would repeat Cabaret's tradition, but the material is not at that level.  

Glover and music director Aaron Benham have uncovered magnificent talent in these Chicagoland performers, including Michelle Jasso as fading ballerina Elizaveta Grushinskaya. 

Glover says his vision was "to create a ‘vanished luxury’ and the fever dreams of a world on the brink of depression and war," and indeed this production does that very well. The characters may largely be caricatures, but it’s a great excuse for a musical. Don’t expect any post-show discussions, but do expect to rise and applaud! Grand Hotel runs through May 27 at Theatre Wit in Chicago.

Lettie, by Boo Killebrew and directed by Chay Yew, is a very finely crafted work, an artfully produced show with sensitive performances that gradually unveil the complicated personalities on stage.

When we meet Lettie, she is in the visitors lounge area of a halfway house somewhere in Chicago, transitioning from her time in prison, working her way through a training program as a welder.

A visitor, Carla, arrives with shopping bags filled with gifts. Lettie seems perturbed by Carla’s gifts, and quickly lets her  know that no visitors can go beyond this area. We're not quite sure who anyone is just yet, and Lettie adds to the mystery with the line, "I would really like to see them." Who, we don't know. Carla seems clueless about Lettie, and as the scene ends our sympathies lean toward her. 

We see Lettie next in the welding shop, studying the technical manual and meeting Minny (5 Stars for Charin Alvarez!), a working welder in the shop where Lettie is training. Minny is funny, life affirming, outgoing, offering friendly advice, and dispensing wisdom, advising Lettie at one point, "There is no moving forward,there is only moving around."

Lettie reacts ungraciously to Minny's friendly overtures, and we see now see her in a different light: mean spirited, inordinately angry. 

Next time Carla returns to visit, we learn she is Lettie’s older sister. That she and her husband Frank (Ryan Kitley turns in a solid performance) have fostered Lettie’s children – Layla (Krystal Ortiz is completely convincing as the ingenue) and River (Matt Farabee) during her years in jail. And we learn that Lettie wants them back. She wants her family together, and our sympathies shift again.

Caroline Neff shows again in the role Lettie that she is quickly becoming one of Chicago's finest actresses. She really carries it off. Kirsten Fitzgerald as Carla is wonderful, bringing the same energy and excellence she showed as the mayor in The Traitor at A Red Orchid Theatre. 

The Virginia Toulmin Foundation helped fund the development of the script, and the Edgerton Foundation contributed to more rehearsal development. So we have a very refined show. 

For all the excellence in writing and acting, the playwright chose to focus on the family drama, rather than the workplace – where women struggle to make it in the trade careers. It might be even more interesting to look at the drama inherent in women as a frequently unwelcome intruder in those male-dominated precincts.

With Lettie, we risk characterizing an apprenticeship in the trades as a dangerous (Lettie sustains burns) job meant for rehabilitating felons. As presented in Lettie, welding sounds like a dead end, and that doesn't ring true in Chicago, though it may seem so to writers. Welders' median income is more than $57,000, and they are in great demand everywhere.

That said, it is a very well wrought play. As Lettie progresses through layers of revelation, and as scenes unfold, our insights into the characters' back stories tug our sympathies to and fro. We learn that Frank and Carla are running a deeply Christian household, and the children are expected to obey, and are pressured not to dream too much, and aim for practical lives. While it sounds oppressive, Killebrew deftly demonstrates the upside of a solid structure for the kids: emotional security.

We see that River and Layla are disaffected teens, curious but suspicious of their mother Lettie, and still reliant and attached to their foster parents. We discover Frank has lost his job and is struggling with the obsolescence many middle-aged white male managers have experienced.

And we learn more of the trials that Lettie has lived through, sexual abuse and adolescent pregnancy. In other words, there was suffering enough to go around for all. Our hearts are drawn to compassion for each of the players on this stage - and that is quite an accomplishment. 

Lettie challenges the status quo with her demands for her children’s return, but in the long run she does not have what it takes to create a home for them, or even herself.

The spare sets (Andrew Boyce in scenic design) help keep the focus on the dialog, and the projections of imagery on a backstage brick wall are very nicely done. 

Lettie runs through May 6 at Chicago's Victory Gardens Theatre in the Biograph. 

Lydia R. Diamond deserves most of the credit for the many wondrous theatrical moments in her play, Smart People. But without the spectacularly able cast and the razor’s edge pacing set by director Hallie Gordon, you would not be able to enjoy her excellent script. 

Smart People covers all the social terrain maturing adults must traverse – from romance, to careers, consumerism, social competition, to sex, and yes, racism. But this is not your father’s racism, by a long shot. No, this is the peculiar, post-modern type that could only be conjured up in our “post-racial” America. Author Diamond says as she wrote it, she realized the play would need to face racism directly. But it’s about much more than that – because it’s about the whole of life, and how we engage with each other. 

The characters are indeed smart – sharp and witty, well off, even smartly dressed. Set in the environs of a university medical center, the story centers on a white researcher Erik Hellman (Brian White) whose pioneering studies point to a biological basis for white racism against blacks. A rising research star, he is celebrated among liberal academics for nailing incontrovertible evidence of, and the objective basis for, white racism.

His best friend and basketball buddy is Jackson Moore (Julian Parker), an African-American M.D. who works as a resident in the emergency room by day, and volunteers in a free clinic in a tough neighborhood at night. Parker, whose extended family still struggles financially, is on the way up himself. But he has identified friction for his career in a source of racism – the white doctors supervising him who he feels certain are hazing him.

White’s love interest is Ginny Yang (Deanna Myers), a high power academic figure who is researching the forces that cause Asian women to punish and subordinate themselves to spouses and families. Tough as nails and the most brilliant of the lot, Yang makes a hobby of terrorizing clerks at Nordstrom’s and Hugo Boss as she power shops her heels and handbags.

Into this trio of self-absorbed achievers stumbles Valerie Johnston (Kayla Carter), an actress. Disappointing her well-to-do African-American family, she has abandoned their career aspirations for her own goal: to become an actress. She faces the “you aren’t black enough” racism from her own community, and racist typecasting when she reads for roles.

Valerie runs into Jackson in the emergency room, where she arrives dressed as Kate from Taming of the Shrew, for stitches to a head wound from hitting a stage scenery flat. Asked repeatedly, "Were you beaten?" she declares in exasperation, "What does a black woman have to do to convince people she hasn't been beaten?"  

For the audience, Valerie is the most sympathetic character. A stand-in for the author, perhaps, Johnston’s Valerie is a delectable feast of acting skill, as her character reads for roles, and reads and re-reads scenes at an unseen director’s request. 

The repartee and dish is loads of fun. When Brian meets Valerie on a double date with Ginny and Jackson, he tells her of his work. "I'm trying to show all white people are racist," he says. "It's kind of hot when a white guy says that," Valerie replies. 

As Ginny and Brian get acquainted, she sizes him up. "Professionally, you are almost as self destructive as I am. "I'm liking that!"

In fact, this brace of actors is something to relish: Deanna Myers is a force on stage as Ginny; Jackson Moore excels in a range from home boy to ironic bud, to reluctant lover. And Erik Hellman brings the natural style so evident in his frequent roles at Steppenwolf.

The paths of this foursome cross as the action progresses, and White gets into trouble for overplaying his discoveries about racism and threatening the institution. We watch, along with the other characters, as he falls from grace. 

Diamond has given us a great play, creating characters who are sincere, but whose foibles and failings are transparent to the audience, and to each other. Largely a romantic comedy, Smart People is highly recommended. It plays through June 10, 2018 in the Gillian Theatre at Glencoe’s Writers Theater.

It’s 1997, and Beth Peterson, an aspiring 19-year-old musician, has journeyed from her home town in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to Chicago. She is bearing a guitar, and a business card of a gentleman who heard her at an open mic near her home in Escanaba. He invited her to come make a demo record.

Now she has arrived at the address on the card – site of a small but very professional northside Chicago recording studio that does a mix of vanity recordings, and serious music.

When Beth arrives, the studio director Alex (Mary Jo Bolduc is in terrific form) at first puts Beth off, then hears her out at the behest of the sound engineer, Steve (Nick Freed is quite good in his role). It turns out the gentleman who invited her is Alex’s dad, or more precisely, her late dad. Though the originator of that invitation has passed on, Steve and Alex feel sorry for the wandering Beth (Allison Grischow is the picture of Escanaba innocence), and they invite her to sing a little, and try to imagine what the late owner might have seen in her. They decide to let her stay and record a sample.

We learn the late founder had declined to record another young woman from Michigan – Madonna – so he was probably trying to make up for his earlier error by inviting Beth. There are also some lively touches when Beth’s fantasies of success and cavorting with the stars come to life. We have a cameo by doppelgangers for Marilyn Manson and a caped Smashing Pumpkin. These are very nicely put together. The story line has some nice possibilities, but things get a bit too complicated, and take some unlikely turns.

The recording studio happens to have a dormitory, where prospective artists are housed while working on their music. Beth is invited to stay there, and ends up as a roommate with Monica, a poor little rich girl who is a candidate for a permanent slot of the recording artists at the studio’s parent firm.

Also on tap for the plot is Clive, a driven studio exec who is a competitor to Alex, played with remarkable panache by Tim Newell. And skulking around is Toby, a studio technician and eventual love interest for Beth, played as a smoldering Jim Morrison or Kurt Cobain type by Raj Bond. Oh yes, a blonde zoned out doofas drummer, Evan, played quite hysterically by Jake Szczepaniak, who also plays the flaming Beck.

For added seasoning, we switch to a bar, where we are regaled by the earthy wit of Mike (Blake Dalzin does a great job as a Chicago bar tender.) And oh yeh, it’s a coming of age story for Beth, who falls for a married man before finding the man of her dreams.

This is probably a little too much for one play, but it is the type of creative The Factory Theater likes to produce, and it gives the actors plenty of room to demonstrate their chops. The story also advances at a reasonable pace under the direction of Robyn Coffin - no small feat. But the script probably takes too man detours along the way. It’s fun, and a chance to see some great performances. The Next Big Thing runs through April 21 at The Factory Theater. 

On Your Feet! is the compelling rags to riches tale of Emilio Estefan and Gloria Fajardo Estefan’s odyssey - from dreaming Cuban immigrants, to stars who brought a fresh Latin flavor to the American song book.

It’s also a love story, and a musical journey. It wasn’t painless, either. And the story line – they flee the island as the Communists rise to power, they fight against great resistance by recording studios to allow them to cross over to general audiences - provides sufficient grist for a dramatic mill that makes this much more than a juke box musical.

The Estefans’ music, popularized through their band, the Miami Sound Machine, in the 1980’s, may be less a fixture of our contemporary music scene – Shakira, from Columbia, is now better known as a Latin music star and alone has sold more albums than Gloria. But without question the Estefans’ songs are embedded in our collective culture.

At first, producers refused to release their music outside the traditional Latin markets, thinking it couldn't sell to "ordinary" Americans. In the show, Emilio goes nose to nose with the record label executive, telling him, “This is the face of an American!”, a line that won healthy applause from the Cadillac Theatre audience.

The Estafans resorted to guerrilla marketing, bringing records directly to dance clubs and pop stations, and performing for free at bar mitzvas and a Shriners convention. The strategy worked, launching the 1985 hit, “Conga,” to the top of the charts While nowadays YouTube, Vimeo and Facebook would do the trick.

To tell their story, the two developed On Your Feet! With its creative team and the rich vein of Gloria Estefan’s music, On Your Feet! made for a likely slam dunk, and indeed it is. The road show is directed by Jerry Mitchell – he won a Tony for Kinky Boots - with choreography by Sergio Trujillo (you saw his work in Jersey Boys). And the book is Alexander Dinelaris, who received an Academy Award for the movie Birdman (about a Broadway play, by the way).

Excitement comes from the moment the curtain rises on the big orchestra, which plays from back stage. The scene soon moves to Miami’s Little Havana, where the dutiful young Gloria Estefan is doing laundry, and singing traditional songs. In fact, the varieties of music - from renditions of street songs, to a fully orchestrated and choreographed night club act from pre-revolution Havana (starring Gloria’s mother, played with panache by Nancy Triotin - shades of Chita Rivera!) - enrich this show musically.

The quality and precision of the choreography is also worth noting. These highly expressive yet disciplined dancers are among the best I have seen in any musical, anywhere.

In addition to featuring the best-of songs (“Rhythm is Gonna Get You,” “Conga,” “Get On Your Feet,” “Don’t Want To Lose You Now,” “1-2-3” and “Coming Out of the Dark”) the Estefan’s added some new transitional pieces for the show. Some familiar greats, such as “Words Get In the Way,” aren’t included in the show.

The drama crescendos when a severe bus accident nearly paralyzes Gloria, and her struggle to recover. In a fresh approach, Emilio (Mauricio Martinez) solos on, “I Don’t Want to Lose You Now,” one of Gloria’s most beautiful singles. It is a real showcase for Martinez, Mexico’s telenovela heart throb, who commands the stage and dominates his scenes. It also turns out he can dance really well.

While Gloria Estefan’s lovely contralto can’t be matched, she is said to have hand selected Christie Prades to play her character for this road show. Prades delivers a great performance both in song and dance, and she is a good actress to boot.

On Your Feet! originated here in Chicago in 2015 before making its celebrated Broadway run, and then returning to a road tour across the country and around the world. (It opened again in Chicago at the Cadillac Palace Theatre on March 23 and runs through April 8.)

It’s an unsettling opening scene: actor Gregory Fenner silently dons a noose strung from a tree in as he steps into the role of Darnell. When the spotlight hits him, he lifts his head to speak, and Stacy Osei-Kuffour’s Hang Man takes flight as a play.

Darnell is hanging from a tree in rural Mississippi - a repugnant image that has been seared into our national consciousness. But he is really two characters: Darnell, the corpse, and, when he lifts his head and opens this mouth to address the audience, he becomes Darnell the commentator, letting us know that there is more to this story than what we might surmise. Along the way, he hands out clues to keep us off track. “Can’t a black man just commit suicide?” he suggests at one point. (But it’s not that, either.)

Hang Man can touch this “third rail” image because of Osei-Kuffour’s fearless artfulness. The character Darnell and Fenner’s performance are among the highlights of the play. Notably, Darnell speaks sparingly, occasionally addressing the audience, and carrying on lengthier conversations with his young niece.

At one point, opening his eyes, Darnell lifts his head and says, “I like living in Mississippi. It’s pretty.” Then he resumes his corpse-ly repose. I wished that we had heard even more from him.

In fact, Darnell is on stage throughout the play – though the spotlight is not always on him. He goes back into the character of corpse after he has his say, or speaks lovingly to his favorite young niece, G (Mariah Sydnei Gordon is excellent). And G is the play’s Everyman.

To avoid a spoiler, we won’t want to give more away on Darnell’s story, but suffice it to say Osei-Kuffour has packed this character, and the play, with ironic commentary, giving us characters that are parodies of types, some of them ripped right out of the news pages. Because they are largely inept, we don’t take them too seriously.

There are black types: Sage (Jennifer Glass), hard bitten and tough (and G’s stern but loving mom) who has adopted a cowgirl persona and dances in a local country bar. And Jahaad (Martel Manning is terrific), recently converted to Islam, and just released from incarceration (he was jailed for stealing Beany Baby’s!). Jahaad, is tracking down Darnell to collect a gambling debt, falls for Sage, who holds him at bay: “I ain’t bringing no ghetto Muslim to a honty tonk with me!” she tells him.

There are white types: Paul D’Addario, as Archie, displays the mean-spirited emotional and physical cruelty through which white racism is expressed. Andy Fleischer, as his sidekick Wipp, a deputy sheriff, is an unrestrained send-up of white yokels. Archie and Wipp also share both a bro mentality, and a love interest in Margarie.

And finally there is an outlier, a trans-racial type, Margarie, played with complete abandon by Angela Morris. Margarie is a bit unhinged, and becomes progressively more so as the action progresses. Embodying white guilt (“Sorry!” she says in recompense  for slavery), Margarie is redolent of a real life character, Rachel Dolezal, who rose to prominence two years ago when she was outed as actually white, despite posing as an African-American woman in her role as an as a regional NAACP director and an Africana studies director.

With this stew, the Hang Man provides rich terrain for farce, and we get a lot of that. But as the mayhem escalates, something unravels, and playwright seems to be struggling to tie up the strands. We eventually get to the curtain, but a gun is discharged multiple times. And I couldn’t help thinking of comedic writer Michael O’Donohue’s advice to authors struggling with an ending: "Observe how easily I resolve this problem: Suddenly, everyone was run over by a truck." 

The string of scenes forms a cohesive, if loosely knit, plot, and a lot of worthy ground is covered in the skit-like parodies. But at a certain point, I found myself hoping it would end soon, and not sure where what could or should have made that happen. 

Nonetheless, serious followers of the theater will want to see this provocative work. Hang Man runs through April 29 at The Gift Theatre.

Got to admit I was floored to arrive to find Sweet Tap Chicago, a tap dancing show, was packed for its Sunday matinee at Chicago’s City Winery.
The promise that had lured me - jazz and tap dancing together – was borne largely out of curiosity. In fact, the show delivered so much more than jazz – venturing into uncharted territory for tap dance arrangements to a broad survey of musical styles, and all of it rooted in Chicago.

The Sweet Tap Chicago Band (led by bassist Kurt Schweitz, with Bob Parlier, Corbin Andrick, Cole DeGenova, and with singers JC Brooks and Taylor Mallory) delivered fresh arrangements well suited for tap dancers, from Muddy Waters, father of Chicago blues, to Chicagoan Billy Corgin’s Smashing Pumpkins (Today); from CTA (Saturday In the Park) to Wilco (I’m Trying to Break Your Heart). The dance troupe trotted out classic tap routines for some sets, and performed improvisations at other points, delivering percussive footwork retorts to drum and sax solo lines.

One highlight of the performance was versatile singer Taylor Mallory, a music stylist and personable impresario, who was just at home singing a Styx medley, as he was rapping Wanna Be Cool by Donny Trumpet and Chance the Rapper. Rap really pairs well with tap, it turns out. Mallory delivered a rather inspired mash-up of Curtis Mayfield’s Move On Up and Kanye West’s Touch the Sky. (Chicago native Mayfield was a denizen of Cabrini- Green.) And singer JC Brooks was an infectious presence on the stage, especially in a preview of “Get Into the Groove,” from an upcoming Chicago Tap Theatre review based on Madonna songs.

The event also spotlighted the versatility of City’s Winery’s venue, a cozy room seating 300 for great food, fine wine, and vintage acts that fit the space The Zombies  play next week; Joan Armatrading plays there June 9-14 City Winery also curates rising talent, an invaluable service to audiences and the local music scene.

Before Sunday’s show, it had been awhile since I thought about tap dancers – like back to Savion Glover, who singlehandedly resuscitated the form on Broadway in Jelly’s Last Stand (1992) and Bring in Da Noise (1996). Tap dancing hadn’t gone away, really – it had gone a little underground. But in 2002 the Chicago Tap Theatre was formed to nurture and develop it.

Mark Yonally, artistic director and the driving force behind Chicago Tap Theatre, set out with the dance group’s music director Kurt Schweitz to choreograph new pieces set to music from, or inspired by, the city of Chicago, and the musicians associated with this city. The concept was to resurrect the idea of a jazz dance club, and to prove that all music is tap music. Well, mission accomplished. www.chicagocitywinery.com

A stunning production of a striking play at First Floor Theater, Dontrell Who Kissed the Sea, has the hallmarks of a hit in the making for Chicago. This coming-of-age play by Nathan Alan Davis tells the story of a dreamer, the eighteen-year-old Dontrell, in the summer just before college.
Dontrell Jones the Third (Jalen Gilbert), we learn, is a highly successful student, advanced placement whiz, and accomplished athlete, who has earned his way into Johns Hopkins University. But with all his intellectual accomplishments, Dontrell also remains tapped into the robust imaginary world he has inhabited since childhood.
We meet Dontrell as he lies in bed, dictating a “ships log” into a pocket recorder – a la Star Trek – aimed at “future generations.” He is planning a quest, based on a vivid dream he has had of an ancestor, whom he believes leapt to his death in the Atlantic from a slave ship during the “Middle Passage.”
Contemplating this visions of this heroic journey to encounter his ancestor on the floor of the sea, Dontrell is disturbed as his annoying younger sister, Danielle (Destiny Strothers) calls him to dinner. He must come down on the double, or the two will have to deal with Mom – a force to be reckoned with (as is Shariba Rivers in the role of Mom).
Next scene finds Dontrell diving into the deep end of the pool to teach himself to swim. He nearly drowns and is pulled out, unconscious, by life guard Erika (Kayla Raelle Holder). Dontrell immediately asks his savior to further his quest, and to be his swim coach.

This pair also play archetypes: Dontrell, as innocent youth; and Erika, his mentor (and perhaps, a magical water nymph?). A sleepover at Erika’s soon leads to romance, and revealing stories.
Having mastered swimming, Dontrell decides to tackle diving to reach that ancestor. Erika in tow, Dontrell heads home, and soon enough Mom and Dad (Brian Nelson Jr. is powerful) learn of his plans. Fireworks ensue. Cousin Shea (Brianna Buckley) and best friend Robby (Jerome Beck) ably deliver key roles in this drama. Playwright Davis has thoughtfully given each character at least one show-stopping moment of delivery, offering powerful dramatic moments.
The production of Dontrell, Who Kiss the Sea has received a visionary expression in its direction by Chika Ike, with scenic design by Eleanor Khan and lighting design by Rachel Levy. This dynamic production is furthered by an original sound score (Sarah D. Espinoza) artfully choreographed scenes (Breon Arzell and Gaby Lobotka), and seven players in a movie-star-caliber cast (casting is by Catherine Miller).
The play also glides along on the magical side, with the troupe enveloping the audience in evocative chant and dance rituals, all readily resonate, especially if you have seen Black Panther (though the timing was purely coincidental).
The play has been produced previously in Indianapolis, Washington, Los Angeles and other cities, and was selected to be part of the National Rolling Premiers of the New Play Network. (That program fosters premiers of new plays in multple cities within a 12-month period.) 

Davis also tapped into a trending African-American magic realism, the creative zeitgeist seen in Colson White’s novel Underground Railroad and the current cultural movie phenomenon, Black Panther. Davis, with an MFA from Indiana University, a graduate of Juilliard's Playwrights Program and a lecturer at Princeton, along with the magic, has also brought a kind of classicism and erudition to this script. Hopefully this show will be picked up for a larger venue following its current run. But don't take a chance on missing it. 

Dontrell Who Kissed the Sea comes highly recommended. It runs at The Den Theatre through March 31. 

Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, said Tolstoy. And Lifeline Theatre artfully explores that famous maxim in Anna Karenina, its colorful and artful adaptation of Tolstoy’s novel. 

The story of Anna Karenina follows a 19th century woman’s fall from grace. Dutiful but unfulfilled in her marriage to Karenin, an unimaginative Russian government bureaucrat, Anna compensates by doting on her six-year-old son – until an affair up-ends everything, leading to tragedy.

I have to admit that the idea of Anna Karenina being adapted for Lifeline Theater’s stage was a little off-putting. After all, Leo Tolstoy’s poignant examination of a woman’s inner struggle is regarded as a pinnacle in writing, called "flawless" by both Dosteyevsky and Nabokov, and “the best ever written” by Faulkner. It’s so good it has inspired nine operas, four ballets, and 18 different movies. 

What does Lifeline Theatre bring to the party after all that? Something good, it turns out – with a creative approach that captures key aspects of the novel – while delivering more than a Cliff’s Notes summary. Anna Karenina - both the play and the novel - is largely melodrama, ending in tragedy. Tolstoy's skillfully drawn characters provide the emotional touch points that remain fresh today, and can work on stage.

Challenging, though, is the Tolstoy’s sweeping scope and settings - estates, boulevards, palaces and mansions in St. Petersburg and Moscow, and the trains and farms between them - which may explain why it has been adapted just twice before for stage. It’s hard to bring all that to the boards.

But cramming a lot of life into a little stage is where Lifeline Theatre excels. Ensemble members Jessica Wright Buha (playwright and adaptor) and Amanda Link (director) have done a colorful, even exciting job. Crowding the two-story stage in a series of vignettes of key scenes from the novel are eleven performers, along with puppets designed by Stephanie Diaz (these play the role of infants and children). 

Players shift from principal characters to ensemble roles, performing sometimes in stylized movements and sounds that create what is in some respects is more performance piece than dramatization of Anna Karenina. Excellent lighting (Diane D. Fairchild), and original music and sound design (Eric Backus), build key scenes from the novel. Perhaps as a result, individual performances are subordinated to the overall creative presentation. Actors are on stage in short shots, not aimed at building character, so much as advancing the storyline. 

Buha summarizes Tolstoy effectively by focusing on four parallel relationships: Anna and her husband Karenin; Stiva and his wife Dolly; Vronsky and his two paramours; Kitty and her husband Levin - allowing us to compare and contrast the best and worst of these pairings. 

The action opens with Countess Anna (Ilse Zacharias ably carries this demanding role) heading to visit her brother, Prince Stiva Oblonsky  (Dan Cobbler brings great energy), who has had an extramarital affair. He and his wife Dolly agree to Anna's counsel to stay and pick up the pieces. But Dolly (Aneisa Hicks in one of the stronger performances) voices her predicament: "How can I stay?," she asks Anna. "But if I leave, where will I go?" It's an apt summary of a woman's plight at the time, and foreshadow's Anna's own situation.  

In the novel intellectually curious and quite lovely, Anna catches the eye of Count Vronsky, a widely admired young officer for whom women swoon. Truly smitten, Vronsky sets his sites on seducing Anna, abandoning 18 year old Kitty, the debutant to whom he was nearly engaged. 

Eventually Anna falls for Vronsky, becomes pregnant, and her options narrow - dictated by convention. Her husband Karenin is willing to turn a blind eye to the affair to maintain the marriage; or Anna can seek a divorce, but will likely lose custody of her son.

Eric Gerard as Vronsky puts forth a believable animal magnetism, but seemed more of a caricature at first. In later scenes he is compelling in his desperation to move Anna to divorce, and commit fully to life with him. Kudos also to Gay Glenn, who brings the gravitas to play Vronsky's mother, Countess Vronskaya; Lindsey Dorcus as Anna's enabler (and Vronsky's cousin) Betsy; and Jason Pereira as Kapitonich, a composite character. 

Anna’s husband, Karenin (Michael Reyes is suitably doltish), is willing even to endure an open marriage and adopt her child with Vronsky, if Anna can maintain some semblance of discretion. Another character, family friend Levin (Dan Granata acts well but did not project from the stage), struggles to get married, and suffers endless angst after Kitty, spurned by Vronsky, agrees to marry, reversing an earlier refusal. Brandi Lee's Kitty moves adeptly from disappointed ingenue, to practical mother and wife, coaching her diffident husband to overcome his self doubt. 

The production runs two and a half hours with an intermission, and is surprisingly  fast paced and engaging. Anna Karenina runs through April 8 at Lifeline Theatre, 

The Burn, a lively tale of a high school drama class putting on Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, is spectacularly good. The script by Philip Dawkins was commissioned for the Steppenwolf’s Theatre’s Young Adult Theater Program. But this in no way diminishes it as a creative work – it is far, far more than an educational theater program.

Dawkins brings us four students and a teacher, introducing at first just the social surface, gradually individualizing them, and masterfully drilling down into the characters to reveal what makes each of them tick.

The Burn operates on several levels at once. It provides a portrait of the battleground educators face in classes of students with limited attention spans – a contemporary Blackboard Jungle. These young people display the confidence spawned by that thin yet wide breadth of knowledge so readily garnered online.

The Burn also addresses the perpetual condition of student social strata, amped up these days through social media platforms that can at times feed an unfortunate frenzy of bullying.

And finally, its story parallels the drama of the Miller’s masterwork, The Crucible, a dissection of the violence unleashed when a 17^th Century Puritanical community’s dark forces are unconstrained. Miller’s dramatization of  the actual 1692 Salem witch trials in the Massachusetts Bay Colony is now an essential per of our cultural literacy. (Steppenwolf produced The Crucible earlier this season - read our review by John Accrocco.) But the play can be impenetrable. This new take by Dawkins illuminates Miller’s story, and will undoubtedly be produced widely at schools.

In The Burn, Tara, the social standard setter and bully (Birgundi Baker) hangs out with a dumbed-down girls’ basketball team member Andi (Nina Ganet) and with Shauna (Dyllan Rodrigues-Miller), who straddles the respectable world of accomplished student, while also following Tara as a member of her “mean girls” clique. Transfer student Mercedes (Phoebe González) is never admitted to the group, and in fact is harassed in person and on line. Mercedes carries a lot of baggage from a violent event that caused her to change schools, finding comfort by becoming a born-again Christian in the process.

We first meet the students as their good-natured teacher, Erik (Erik Hellman, who also starred in The Crucible) struggles to engage the class in diagramming a sentence. He finally gets their attention by using a more personal sentence about Tara, and thereby hints at the increasingly personal encounters that are to follow. 

A high school, or any theater production, for that matter, is also an intensely powerful emotional experience for the players involved. As The Burn progresses, the students rehearse and play their roles, and must learn to perform as a unit. This shifts the emotional dynamics, and the dynamic of the group begins to shift. Tension mounts as Tara’s hold on the group is threatened, and Erik confronts her bullying behavior.

Dawkins is an accomplished playwright, as well as teaching the art at Northwestern, Loyola and Victory Gardens – and demonstrates the high level of craft he has attained from that background. Like Snap Chat, Messenger and Twitter, the play’s delivery runs at an almost breakneck pace – and in that sense is very fitting for its target audience. But the older crowd should not miss it. I laughed and cried and wanted to stand up and cheer when it was done. So yes, it’s highly recommended! Catch it at Steppenwolf Theatre through March 10.