Do you guys remember Hope? It may be an Elder Millennial thing. In 2008, after enduring years of The Absolute Lowest Point Of Modern America After Which It Can’t Possibly Get Any Worse, we put our faith in a man who would lead us out of the desert and it became a movement and it felt good. Who could have possibly known America’s reactionary elements would not only fail to shrivel away in the face of the blinding light of love after a single election cycle, but would only grow stronger? Probably lots of smart people but no one wanted to listen at the time. Aurin Squire’s Obama-Ology takes us back to the rising tides of this time centering on Warren, (David Guiden) a passionate, idealistic young African American fresh out of an elite university who wants to be part of the historical moment of Obama’s presidential campaign so he relocates to poor and working class East Cleveland. He is met with immediate skepticism by experienced African American organizer Barbara (Tuesdai B. Pe

  It’s a damnable cliche to say upon the production of some classic, canonical work that it’s as relevant today as it was when first produced but it also tends to be true. Arthur Miller may have told the tale of the Salem Witch Trials with an intent to comment on 1950s anti-Communist hysteria but it works just as well as a rebuke of the fires of fanaticism currently burning in Florida and elsewhere, and will work just as well for whatever will be ailing us in twenty years time. (Probably some intersection of oppression of and/or by robots) Great plays don’t change and neither do we. In the small Invictus space, director Charles Askenaizer gives us a superb rendition of Miller’s masterpiece. None of the cast ever leaves the stage (when not in action, they sit in pews as if in congregation and sometimes point mutually accusing fingers) The show treats us to some damn near perfect performances from actors who literally might have been born to play their roles. None more so than Mark Pra

   I worked as a stocker in a grocery store for about a month, years ago. It felt like a decade. There's nothing particularly new that is said about the misery of low wage work in America to be found in Ken Green's In The Back/On The Floor directed by Rachel Van and produced by Stage Left but it nonetheless needs to be said and the production says it well.    Our ensemble of protagonists works for Home Base, a thinly veiled, unspeakably cheery Wal-Mart stand in. And why shouldn't they be cheery? They make billions in profit while paying their workers nine dollars an hour, assuring them that they are "family" while reminding them at every turn how disposable they are. As a lucky audience we get to watch indignity upon indignity be heaped on these retail floor warriors, they're sent home just before the 40 hour mark, denying them benefits, they're promised a "prize" if they meet their unloading goals twenty times in a row ("Tacos or something&

  So I was supposed to review Chicago Shakespeare Theater's Comedy of Errors  much earlier in its run but Covid in the cast led my ticked to be rescheduled for final weekend. Therefore I don't think anyone is counting on the awesome power of my words and the magnificent reach of my audience to sell a lot of tickets but here I am fulfilling my obligations anyway. If you happen to not know what you're doing the night of April 22nd or the afternoon of April 23rd you should be aware of your option to see this show which is not to say that I necessarily would. The title is a bit misleading. Yes it's Shakespeare's early farce about two sets of identical twins separated at birth and lots of slammed doors, but it's mostly sharing the stage with a frame story set during the Blitz period of World War II. With London under attack the showbiz community is making a film adaptation of the play to raise a nation's spirits. "It's that damned Hitler! It's all hi

 You know the story, at least I hope you do. A kingdom based on glory and chivalry brought down by passion and betrayal, whether you know it or not, either is an excellent reason to see Idle Muse Theater's production of The Last Queen of Camelot adapted and directed by Evan Jackson. Retelling the Arthurian legend largely from a female perspective, the play unfolds through the eyes of Queen Guinivere, (Caty Gordon-Hall) torn between desire and duty, and King Arthur's scheming sister, Morgan, (Elizabeth MacDougald) a complex but deadly villain. Jack Sharkey, Laura Jones Macknin and Brendan Hutt all deliver standout supporting performances as the similarly conflicted Sir Lancelot, the calculating Merlin and the jovial Sir Dagonet respectively. Jackson has an excellent ear for elevated high fantasy dialogue and a great eye for visual spectacle along with costumer Amanda Freja Johanson, scenic designer Stina Taylor and the rest of his crew. This telling of the tale synthesizes many

Hello readers, To reintroduce this blog, I was once a freelance theatre reviewer back in the storied late Oughts/early Tens. Then the online media infrastructure of the time collapsed (I think it's been reborn and re-collapsed I'm going to say seven or eight times since then, but I don't keep very close track) But in my deep desire to tell the truth to the people, but honestly mostly my desire to score free theatre tickets, I relaunched my reviewing career in 2019 so that worked out...for a while. Did we win the war? On Covid? Drugs? The Japanese? The British? I don't know, but it's 2023 and I'm back on the beat, and I will probably be reviewing like one show a month for the benefit of the twos and threes of people who might read them!