David Collard on Exorcism by Eugene O’Neill
April 25, 2012 by admin
Filed under Articles, Books, Theater, What's New
There’s a moment to savour in the 1930 Marx Brothers comedy Animal Crackers when Groucho flings woo at two wealthy women while wishing he could tell us what he really thinks of them. ‘Pardon me while I have a strange interlude,’ he says, stepping out of the scene to deliver a solemn monologue in a [...]
An Iliad at Court Theatre
A DRAMATIC PRESENTATION of Homer’s Iliad easily could be something to avoid or ignore. But director Charles Newell and actor Timothy Edward Kane bring a version of the story that brings the characters and the story to life in a powerful and current telling of the story. Timothy Edward Kane seems to be portraying Homer [...]
Word play | The University of Chicago Magazine
Bernard Sahlins, AB’43, lets the actors and the poets bring his spare performances to life. “So, it turns out,” says Bernard Sahlins, AB’43, “that 90 percent of the effect of a play is in the acting and the words. Not the setting, not the staging: the word and the actor.” Sitting in his living room [...]
Homerathon 2011
The University of Chicago’s Classical Entertainment Society and Court Theatre are hosting the first-ever 24-hour live reading of Homer’s Iliad in “The Homerathon.” The Homerathon will begin on Sunday, November 20 at 10 pm and run for 24 hours until Monday, November 21 at 10 pm. All 24 books of the Iliad will be read [...]
Sophocles: Seven Sicknesses
Based on Sophocles’ seven surviving texts: Oedipus, In Trachis, In Colonus, Philoktetes, Ajax, Elektra and Antigone Adapted & Directed by Sean Graney WHEN: September 6-October 23, 2011 A FOUR HOUR EVENT! SEVEN GREEK TRAGEDIES IN ONE NIGHT? No, thank you, Greek plays are boring. Why would any one want to watch some one screw his [...]
Chay Yew talks about his plans for making Victory Gardens grow
For most of its 37 years of existence, Chicago’s Victory Gardens Theater has been synonymous with, and run by, Dennis Zacek and his wife, Marcelle McVay. Beginning this fall, a new artistic director takes over at Victory Gardens, 46-year-old playwright and director Chay Yew. On the face of it, the Singapore-born Yew has a tricky [...]
The Shakespeare Project of Chicago presents The Tempest
“We are such stuff as dreams are made on, rounded with a little sleep.” The crowning jewel in the group of romances composed at the twilight of Shakespeare’s career, The Tempest presents some of his most personal reflections on the cycle of life. A banished Duke and his daughter have been exiled to a remote, [...]
Jane Austen Handbook: A new edition of ‘The Jane Austen Handbook’ – chicagotribune.com
March 22, 2011 by admin
Filed under Books, Jane Austen, Theater
No doubt many of those attending the current production of Jane Austen‘s Sense & Sensibility at Northlight Theatre in Skokie are devoted fans of Austen’s genteel novels. They likely already know the story of the Dashwood sisters’ adventures in romance, and have trouble understanding the language and behavior that unfurl onstage. But just as surely, [...]
Around town: The Iliad
This thoughtful staging of The Iliad at A Red Orchid Theatre should help you forget any notions of treacly children’s theater productions. In town through Sunday, December 19. “We’re really shying away from ‘cute,’” says director Steve Wilson. “There’s nothing cute about this story.” Continue TimeOut Chicago article. Read reviews: Hedy Weiss’ Sun-Times review, Chris [...]
‘Scorched’ by Silk Road Theatre: Siblings trip to Middle East has all the force of Greek tragedy
To feel the slow-burning heat of the latest drama at the Silk Road Theatre Project requires some patience. This Sophoclean story — and I use that term in the very fullest sense of its tragic meaning — builds very slowly as its central characters, a pair of ill-fated modern-day twins with Middle Eastern origins, try [...]
