I went there with a friend on Friday night: great as always! Unfortunately, they don’t post any videos until the show is almost over, so the only thing I have now is this collage of promotional photos.
My friend said that she feels this show would be better on a bigger stage, but I love how Theo does it in an intimate setting, with the artists moving around the tables. I’ve subscribed for their next season. Unfortunately, I didn’t talk my friend into the subscription, so it looks like I will have to buy an extra ticket for each show separately 🙂
Secondly, Igor and I went to see a Thanksgiving Play at the Steppenwolf. I was almost about to give up on the Steppenwolf after several disappointments, and that outing was almost “the last chance.” I am happy to report, that I loved it!
It’s a play written by a Native writer, and it’s about “well-intended white people trying to do right things” and then things going very wrong. It is hilarious. Satirical. Laugh and cry. The characters are remarkably recognizable. Here is a review Igor sent to me after we saw the play. It tells the story of the playwriter, Larissa FastHorse, and how the production came together.
it is still not the end of the theater season. I have a couple of CSO concerts to attend, and two Goodman plays. And then I have to decide whether I am doing any theatrical subscriptions for the next season :).
Sunday: Prelude to Kiss at Above the Law theatre. I reallly-really-really liked it! I love Above the Law more than any other storefront theater for its incredible sincerity and the sense of being “in” the show (that’s what all the storefront theaters are good at, but Above the Law is exceptionally good!). The actors were so natural that you would forget to breathe because you did not want to interfere with the life happening before you. We took my mom to that show because she enjoyed it every time we took her before. She would always say that even when she didn’t understand a word, she enjoyed the acting. I didn’t have a second thought, but for some reason, this time, she got really angry that we didn’t tell her what the show was about in advance (we didn’t know). I have an idea why it was different that way, but I am not going to concentrate on that. No matter how others felt, I thought it was amazing:). A beautiful break in the middle of a very loaded weekend!
It is a very thought-provoking play, and I could not believe it was written in 1988 – it sounded so timely!
We saw Purpose At Steppenwolf with Igor a week ago. I didn’t like it that much. I was hoping I would like it a lot, but in the end, my impressions are inconclusive. The reason might sound ridiculous: I felt like “they talked too much.” But seriously, the play starts with a very long monologue of the main character, and there are multiple very long monologues closer to the end. And also, possibly because it was still a preview performance, many of them didn’t sound natural. All characters were perfectly recognizable, and I liked all the actors, but still, I didn’t get a feeling of play as one powerful piece, as I was hoping for.
Then, I went to see Peter Pan at Nederlander Theater on Thursday, and that was a pure joy! So well put together, the music, the set – everything, The flights are done so naturally, it’s so easy to believe :). Knowing a little bit about young actors and what it takes, I can only admire the work of the producers, especially having how big the roles are.
Yesterday, I went to see “Peelopiad,” a play by Margaret Atwood, at the Goodman Theater. I hadn’t been to any of Goodman’s plays for a while, and my experience with this theater during the previous two seasons was mixed. A couple of times, I felt like a total waste of time, and at some point, I regretted getting a “Whenever Goodman” subscription.
This time, however, was different. I liked each and every single thing about this play. Same as in “1776,” which I saw a couple of seasons ago on Broadway in Chicago, it’s all-female cast, and the same as with “1776,” after the first fifteen minutes of the show, you stop thinking about it. I copied all photos and videos that are available on the Goodman’s website, and I know they still do not give a full impression… All women playing male roles are incredible!
Theater Above the Law is the best of all Rogers Park small theaters. On Friday, my mom, Igor, and I went to see “Grimm,” and it was flawless! My mom, not being able to understand what’s going on, still appreciates their acting each time I take her to Above the Law. I can’t stop comparing them with the Lifeline Theater – I made the right choice when I decided to subscribe to Above the Law and to hold off with the Lifeline.
It is flattering when the theater director recognizes me even from afar, and waiving: Hi Henrietta, your family is already in!
The play was great. A very accurate take on the Grimm Brothers’ tales, without any “humanization” and “adaptation.” Horrible stories of horrible times.
On Friday, we went to the Lifeline Theater to see The Cat’s Cradle. And we didn’t like it. I thought the small storefront theater couldn’t make Kurt Vonnegut bad, but … well, I do not think it was good. I really liked Bokonon (both the actor and how he was presented in this production), and I liked Crosbies, but I didn’t like what they did with the book. For me, “Cat’s Cradle” is about the responsibility of a scientist for the consequences of their discovery, about being a human first and then a scientist. Jonah’s story starts from researching Felix Hoenneker for a reason. This part didn’t get much attention in a play. Instead, they tried to pull more of today’s content into the play, talking about wars and how they are the US Government’s fault.
Even without this latter part, the first act was sort of falling apart; it became better in the second one. I almost regret we went, but at least I didn’t buy a subscription 🙂
Igor and I continue to explore local theaters and continue to drag my mom along :). Tonight, it was Lifeline Theater with their ‘From the Mississippi Delta” production. I understood barely half of it, but the performance was brilliant!
Mom didn’t understand a word of it (or maybe just a couple of words :)), but she was also taken away by the performance. She loved the actors’ expressiveness and how they could transform themselves into another character by adding just one or two accessories to their costumes.
There was a lot going on. Chicago conference remains my major concern: it is just two weeks away, and there are so many things that still should be addressed! I am working them out one at a time, but still!
On the positive side – I am going through my to-do lists, and I am doing a lot of cultural activities! I guess it will take a while for me to compensate for the pandemic cultural desert.
Things I’ve done so far.
Last Wednesday, I went to see “Tina” – Tina Turner musical.
I chose an outfit that I didn’t put on for a while, and my coworker liked it so much that she insisted on taking a picture of me. So that’s how I was dressed on that day:
I liked it, but I was not crazy about it, in part because the music was just too loud to enjoy – the first time in my life I regretted I didn’t have earplugs.
Earlier that day, we had a book club discussion at work. Believe it or not, but that was the first time in my life I participated in the book club, and it was only because it was at my workplace. We chose the book collectively back in February: first, people were just suggesting titles, and then we had a vote on Slack. When the book (“Never let me go”) was chosen, our hR sent copies to everybody who signed up (or ebooks or audiobooks). I already had my audiobook purchased several years ago; I just never came up to reading it.
As I mentioned earlier, I had mixed feeling about that book. Although it is very well written, the whole plot seems to be very artificial. Although I understand that the idea was to highlight how humans make excuses to pronounce other non-humans when it is convenient to them, I did find the book convincing. Possibly it’s because these days, we know that cloning cells and even stand-alone organs are more achievable and less expensive than cloning humans. And I can’t relate to books that can’t make me believe that whatever is described in the book could happen. As usual, the problem might be with me rather than with the books :). In any case, it was a relief to find out during our book club discussion that some other readers shared my feelings.
On Friday, it was “Cry it out” – a play written by Molly Smith Metzler and presented by Above The Law – a small theater just across my house. I’ve been to one of their performances before and loved it, and wanted to see another show. Since it was so close, I suggested that my mom and Igor also come, and I invited my friend MaryAnn. Since the theater is so tiny and each performance is sold out, I booked our tickets back in February. I was glad that everybody, including Mary Ann, could make it! I found a play synopsis from some other theater just to give an idea of what this play is about. The “Above the Law” theater cast was amazing, as always :).
On Monday, I listened to Bach’s St. Mattew Passion, presented by Music of Baroque. I remember hearing this piece for the first time – in the spring of 1991 when I was pregnant with Vlad and Anna. I believe it was the first time it was performed in the Leningrad Philharmonic, and listening to unmistakable religious music felt very revolutionary. It made such a profound impression that I still remember what the soloists looked like.
This time, it didn’t feel revolutionary, just a beautiful music. I didn’t stay till the end because I knew I won’t get enough sleep, and I had the whole week of cultural events ahead.
On Tuesday, I went to the Member’s Event at the Field Museum for the opening of the new exhibit “First Kings of Europe”
I will blog about it separately because I want to show more pictures.
And finally, yesterday I saw “A Soldeir’s Play” at CIBC Theater. Although this performance was a part of Broadway in Chicago, it is not a musical (several musical numbers are included, but overall it’s drama based on the movie of the same name).
Chicago Tribune noted in the review that it was very symbolic that the play premiered on the night when Brandon Johnson won the mayoral elections!
I was extremely intrigued by this play’s description:
In short: Igor liked this play, and I … I am not sure. The play was very long, and about two-thirds into it, I thought that it was lost time again: I didn’t like it, and it was not “coming together” (I have a preview card, so all the shows I see in Steppenwolf are previews, you can see the theater only half-full)
Closer to the end, the artists finally started to build the dynamics, and the play became really captivating. However.. still… I can’t point at what exactly I didn’t like… Sometimes, I love historical fantasies with “what if” scenarios. This play was more phantasmagoria than fantasy, and the fact that the characters were names like historical figures, didn’t help. It’s one thing to put a known historical figure into an imaginary situation or environment and watch them act in the new circumstances. It’s different when the characters are stripped of what we all know about them and given new personalities. I mean, the characters were mostly realistic; you do not need to name them Yezhov, Babel, or Putin to be convincing.
Now, I want to read the book to see how far is it from the show.
Hettie's Reflections 