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Showing posts from January, 2020

Bug

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I don't spend a lot of time at what I think of as Chicago's "Big theaters", your Good Men, your Stepen Wolves, I am a humble man of the streets and I mostly patronize the storefronts. (Exception: Chicago Shakespeare because of the great parties) However, a friend had a ticket to Stepenwolf's production of Tracy Letts' Bug  that she wasn't using and I decided to check it out. Letts' drama, originally written in 1996, is pretty well known, was the basis for a 2006 feature film starring famous Chicagoan Michael Shannon but this was my first time seeing it. Our heroine is the very relatable Agnes. (a lovable and charming performance by the playwright's real life wife Carrie Coon) Agnes is a down on her luck service worker living in a motel room in Oklahoma, very well rendered by scenic designer Takeshi Kata. Paradoxically, this is a pretty common situation for working class folks unable to scrape together a security deposit. Being poor is expensive. Ag