Tag: theater

After I Returned

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!

Steppenwolf: Describe the Night

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.

The Ripple, The Wave…

Flexible theatre memberships always look appealing because you think you will just choose the day which works best for you when it is closer to the show. And then, since a show is not on your calendar, you forget that you must choose.

This happened to me with my Whenever Goodman membership: the play “the ripple, the wave which carries me home” looked very interesting, but I thought, “I will look at it next week, this week is too busy,” until all of a sudden, I received an email saying that the show must close the upcoming Sunday.

Fortunately for me, I opened this email before Sunday, and luckily, Igor and I found one show time that worked for both of us.

We were almost late for the show because we went out for dinner and got very engaged in our conversation, so when we rushed into the Owen theater five minutes before the show started, and ended up sitting close to the extended family of the actress who played a leading role!

It is surprising how many people are unaware of the history of pool segregation and how many horrible things were happening fairly recently. Even the author of the play admits in the interview that she was not aware of many of them before she started working on this play. For me, the show’s most shocking moment was when the main heroine’s mother talks about three boys, two black and one white, who were killed (she does not give details of what happened, except “out of four only one returned”), and she says about their funerals:” They should have been buried together, but no cemetery would do this.”

I am glad we got a chance to go. This is one of the plays which is almost too close to reality, and although there are a lot of funny moments, it is very tragic, and very close to ho

Steppenwolf: The Last Out

Last out: Elegy of a Green Beret was only performed twice – on Friday and Saturday. I immediately got two tickets for Friday when I saw an email about it. I received at least two content advisory emails, but I was still completely unprepared for what I saw.

Two days later, I do not know how to write about it. It was an extremely emotional experience. All of the cast members were veterans, and I think that at least a third of the audience were veterans, and many people in the audience cried. I felt like this was not a show for me, and at the same time, I felt that I needed to know and at least try to understand how people feel. And then again, it seemed impossible…

How Come…

…that there is such an amazing theater right in front of my house, and it took me so long to go there! Yes, it was not operating during the pandemic, but now it does! And it’s a treasure!.

Theatre Above the Law

Doing Things With ODS

I ended up doing things with the youth from the shelter for two days in a row. Yesterday, we went to Christkindlemarket together, and today we went to the Steppenwolf Theater to see the world premiere of the play The Bald Sisters.

Yesterday was great! It was probably the same thing as with skating, which is that people didn’t quite figure yet that Christmas is already here. There were almost no lines for food and drinks, and you could get close to all the booths and see everything very clearly.

It was 55F outside, and it could not be a better time to wonder around. We drank hot chocolate, and gazed at all pretty ornaments,

Continue reading “Doing Things With ODS” →

The Locust At the GIft Theater

On Friday, I went to see a show in The Gift Theater. It was the first time I went there after the pandemic. I love this theater, I used to go to all of their performances and to “meet the cast” events, and I donated to them, and then it all stopped during the pandemic, plus I moved, and they moved 🙂
I finally made it to their new show because first, this show runs relatively close to where I live, and second – I wanted to take out my old friend, who is very much into the theater.
Both of us were impressed! The play is a thriller, and that’s not what I usually like. An FBI agent comes to her hometown to help the local police capture a serial killer, and she returns to her home and relives her past. But it is not about the plot but how the artists represent their characters, human feelings, and relationaships. The acting was superb! It is sad that so far, due to the COVID precautions, the actors do not come to meet the audience after the show. But OMG, what a pleasure!

“Swing State” At Goodman

I didn’t look at any theater tickets before all my travels were over, and then I realized that many shows were already sold out! That happened with the Swing State at Goodman. My neighbor told me that she was going to see it last Saturday and said: great, I will use my “whenever Goodman” tickets. And then I saw that all the remaining Friday and Saturday shows were sold out! I found two single (not-together) tickets for Tuesday, so Igor and I could go.  

The show was brilliant, and I was glad I managed to get “the last two tickets.” It was especially good that both of them were very close because the show is set in one room of Peg’s (the main character) house. There are only four characters, so all the scenes are very intimate, and it is great when you can see all the facial expressions and be pretty much “inside the act.”

I was annoyed that people often laughed during the show because the story was tragic, and everything that could sound funny was tragic. Igor said it was a “couping laugh” since many audience members could feel uncomfortable. 

And one thing that touched me personally was that Peg is doing prairie restoration and is shown collecting and sorting the seeds. The way she talks about the prairie is so “mine” that it makes her a real person.

Photos from the Goodman Theater website

To Kill a Mockingbird

I went to see this play at Netherlanders Theater on Wednesday. I do not know why I didn’t check details in advance – probably because I was sure that there can’t be anything unexpected – but I didn’t realize that this is a play, not a musical. Until some time into the show 🙂

It was a splendid production, and very true to the book, except for adding some references to today’s situation (like “seventeen shots”).

The theater was packed (and they do not check the vaccination cards anymore, although masks are fortunately still required)? and the audience was completely taken by the performance.

At some point, however, I got a feeling that not everybody in the audience was familiar with the book (although it seems impossible); or maybe they forgot since school. It’s just that the reaction to some scenes (like announcing the verdict) seemed to be a little bit like they didn’t expect it.

On my way home, on the Red Line, I heard people talking about the play – some of the passengers saw playbills in other passengers’ hands, and that started the conversation. When this happens, it always feels very good, like we are indeed one city. One Chicago.

“Seagull” at Steppenwolf

Last Wednesday, I went to see the “Seagull” in the Steppenwolf theater. I had four tickets left on my Black card, and I decided to use them all for this show. I figured that Igor and mom would go, and I will figure out whom else to invite. My neighbor was interested (she even thought about getting tickets herself), and I gladly invited her.

It was not only an all-new “Seagull” but also the first show on the Steppenwolf’s New Stage, and the new stage was fantastic! And actually, everything about this show was great: the translation was nearly perfect, nothing was cut from the play, and the actors seemed to be born to play these roles!


I was also glad that mom liked it. She could not remember the play itself (although it’s a Russian classic taught at school), and she could not understand what was going on on stage, but still, she was captivated by the action.