The Hypocrites latest production, Camille/La Traviata, has everything we’ve come to expect from a Sean Graney production. There’s a strong, sometimes overt concept. There’s a highly stylized approach to the acting. There’s a rapid pace that keeps the scenes moving at an almost breakneck pace. When these elements align themselves properly, Graney’s work can be extremely effective. In the case of Camille/La Traviata, however, the whole is somehow less than the sum of its parts.

Graney has merged Alexander Dumas’ La Dame aux Camelias and the libretto of the well-known opera La Traviata for this latest venture. And this story of a woman who’s letting herself die rather than give up the pleasures of the flesh, only to abruptly give them up for a naïve young man who truly cares for her, provides plenty of emotional fodder. Interestingly, the acting tends to improve as the play goes on. John Byrnes, who seems to do his best work under Graney’s direction, finds an urgency early that he never releases as Camille’s suitor Armand. But Amanda Putman, as Camille, somehow lacks the charisma to make everyone’s infatuation quite believable, although her final death scene with Byrnes is quite effective.

Still, Graney’s concept overwhelms everything else. Singer Erin Myers fills the slow moving transitions with reworked excerpts of La Traviata. This conceit seems redundant, though, as the songs rarely advance the action and the storyline is so straightforward it doesn’t require that much scrutiny. In the end, this production is too out-of-balance and too heavily weighted towards the director without equal support from the actors and other designs to succeed.

Camille/La Traviata—The Hypocrites

Chris Jones, Tribune—“All in all, this is an uncommonly grand and elegant production, with Graney himself contributing a terrific set design ablaze with surreal romanticism and matched by gorgeous ahistorical costumes from Alison Siple that perfectly capture the tension between operatic parody and sexual tribute. And thanks to splendid directorial pacing and inspired visual pictures, a focused and very capable young company of 24 moves rapidly from one orgiastic moment to the next…But the Achilles’ heel of Camille/La Traviata is visible in a lack of attention paid to the intimate acting…Amidst all the cleverness and self-referential comment, they seem too busy to make the potent human connection that’s also lacking elsewhere in a show that too often loses sight of the need for actors to credibly connect with one another.”

Hedy Weiss, Sun-Times—“Graney’s version, created in collaboration with composer Kevin O’Donnell, is an attempt to conflate many of the conventions, the grand passions and sophisticated design approach of tragic opera with the more human-scale expression of straight drama. Add a little Brechtian stylization by way of Peter Sellars, and some vivid visual tricks in the fanciful manner of Baz Luhrmann, and you’ve got a show that visibly bleeds red when love is in the air, and fades to white as its heroine expires from consumption.”

Barbara Vitello, Daily Herald—“Combining Piave’s lyrics and Verdi’s music with heartbeats and synthesizers; incorporating video alternating supertitles with pumping blood and graphic sexual images and a fanciful if slightly macabre set resembling the interior of the human heart, adds up to aurally and visually compelling theatre. But Graney, juxtaposing raucous scenes with intimate moments, seems to have abandoned subtlety in Camille/La Traviata.”

Justin Hayford, Reader—“Still, artists hoping to bring Camille to life onstage today must find an honest relationship to the material and construct a world where extremes of passion spill as naturally as they do in myths and fairy tales. In Graney’s previous productions he’s shown a knack for creating such worlds, cobbling together garish elements to form beguiling, volatile blends. But in this adaptation he’s created a conceptual jumble.”

Jennifer Vanasco, Free Press—“Love—and love’s loss—are at the center of this gorgeous, intense adaptation of Camille, written and directed by Sean Graney. Graney’s original intention was to have the actors speak the La Traviata libretto while Giuiseppe Verdi’s heartrending music played underneath. But Graney found the exposition in the libretto too thin—so he turned also to Alexander Dumas’ book La Dame aux Camelias and combined the two. The result is a work that is piercing and beautiful.”

Great Men of Science Nos 21 & 22—Lookingglass

Michael Phillips, Tribune—“With its comically grand title, busy multimedia scenic design and committed group of actors hollering their lungs out—really hollering, all evening—the Lookingglass production of Great Men of Science is everything except funny. Until David Pasquesi shows up as the vomitous scientist Lazarro Spallanzani, in fact, it’s one of the longest three weeks you can spend in a theatre…Berger’s historical goof feels like a 45-minute one-act that won’t shut up. It’s written in a florid, excessive historical-travesty style that might work in a reckless, urgent production. This is not that production.”

Hedy Weiss, Sun-Times—“(H)is blend of low comedy and high intellect, loony bombast and rare eloquence result in a wildly uneven evening in the theatre—one that careens from challenging to annoying, and funny to tedious, all in great roller-coaster-like loops of inspiration and indulgence. Yet there is a fierce braininess and poetry at play in Berger’s work, along with a wonderfully goofy sense of the human condition that gives a kind of vulgar reality to all his ideas—almost as if Samuel Beckett had been asked to pen a couple of extended pieces for Saturday Night Live.”

Jack Helbig, Daily Herald—“Berger does one thing more. Stealing a page from British playwright Tom Stoppard, he brilliantly structures each play to reflect the minds of their subjects…In bringing these interlocking one-act plays to life, actor and writer-turned-director Tracy Letts proves his mastery of the material and the magic of the stage. He has filled the evening with actors who perfectly embody the characters they play…I should just end this by saying this show is one of the most innovative and intelligent currently running in Chicago. If you like your theatre a little daring and somewhat challenging but still very entertaining, check this.”

Kelly Kleiman, Reader—“Between its shallow examination of the debate between faith and reason and its enthusiasm for bathroom humor, the new show at Lookingglass practically defines the word 'sophomoric.’ Though there are a few good moments in Glen Berger’s Great Men of Science Nos 21 & 22, he apes the company’s signature work by adapting scholarly texts, but doesn’t supply any of the intellectual rigor found in such pieces as The Notebook of Leonardo da Vinci and Metamorphoses.”

Nina Metz, New City—“Essentially two separate plays, each half of Glen Berger’s Great Men of Science, Nos. 21 & 22 centers on an 18th Century scientist living in Paris—I can only recommend the second act of this Lookingglass production…Director Tracy Letts makes up for the gaffes of the first act by staging something much quieter here…You just have to ask yourself: Is it worth it to spend your time and money on a production that is only half good?”

Jonathan Abarbanel, Windy City—“Trouble is, director Tracy Letts seems to have comic instincts only for irony which certainly is thick in this play. Blessed with two talented comic actors Letts has them shout a great deal but rarely allows them to do funny things or say things funny. (David) Pasquesi rises to the occasion anyhow, using his few quieter moments to breathe subtle humor and sadness into his old man. Pasquesi has an excellent foil in Lauren Katz as his justifiably-irascible housekeeper.”

Guys and Dolls—Court Theatre

Michael Phillips, Tribune—“For every conceptual roll of the dice that comes up craps in Court Theatre’s Guys and Dolls, and there are a few, another gamble pays off. This eccentric revival of the 1950 masterwork, staged by Court artistic director Charles Newell, is after a hushed, nocturnal mood and more genuine emotional realism (as well as less flash and fewer bodies) than the usual production. Sometimes the smaller scale works. Other times, you wonder why Miss Adelaide is doing 'A Bushel and a Peck’ solo, without a chorus girl in sight.”

Hedy Weiss, Sun-Times—“The results of Newell’s experiment may be 'interesting’—a word you might not expect to apply to a discussion of a sharp, exuberant tale of compulsive gamblers, feisty chorus girls and Salvation Army workers whose paths cross on the razzle-dazzle streets of midtown Manhattan. But despite the efforts of some fine actors and musicians, this production also turns out to be a textbook case of how the imposition of an intellectual concept can be counterproductive.”

Nina Metz, New City—“John Culbert and Jack Magaw’s minimalist set design is one of the best things going in this Court Theatre production…Stylistically, director Charles Newell has taken an equally pared-down approach. Gone are the chorus girls, gone are the primary-colored costumes, gone are the big dance numbers. This is Guys and Dolls, sans all the usual bells and whistles. Sometimes the effect is striking, where even the smallest details are suddenly thrown into high relief. The five-piece onstage band, for example, gives the show a jazzy, clubby vibe. But overall the production lacks a solid perch; it feels unfinished and unsure.”

Web Behrens, Free Press—“One of the best surprises in Newell’s production is how adroitly the show unfolds on one handsome, minimalist set by John Culbert. With no big set pieces to move, the scenes just zip along one after another, facilitated by Newell’s smooth-as-silk blocking and Michelle Habeck’s deft lighting.”

Paramount Girl—Live Bait Theatre

Chris Jones, Tribune—“The actress Alexandra Blatt, who looks every inch the Hollywood ingenue, deals with that thorny issue by underplaying [Dolores] Hart and emphasizing the quiet intelligence that many said made her stand apart from other actresses. It’s not a flashy performance or a risky one, but it’s largely right...But even so, Beau O’Reilly’s strikingly careful production suffers badly from a lack of zip.”

Mary Houlihan, Sun-Times—“In her new play Paramount Girl, Sue Cargill unearths the story of Dolores Hart and imagines the series of events that led up to her life-changing decision. It’s an intriguing story, one that is only partially grasped by Cargill’s script, a drama with frequent shots of comedy. Since the outcome is already known, the success of the play depends on the audience getting under Hart’s skin to really understand and feel her passion for this commitment. Slowly, the play accomplishes this.”

Kim Wilson, Reader—“We see nary a spark until the very end, when Mark Vallarta takes the stage in a Pacino-esque rendering of growling, cynical producer-director Hal Wallis. Unfortunately, this confrontation drags on painfully—the clearest example of director Beau O’Reilly’s unwillingness to edit interminable dialogues about the emptiness of movie star life. Cargill’s play may accurately represent [Dolores] Hart’s path to the nunnery, but without compelling bumps and twists in the road, it’s not great drama.”

Nina Metz, New City—“It’s a ripe little story, but in Sue Cargill’s new play, Paramount Girl, it is confusingly told. Questions about [Dolores] Hart’s state of mind are either left unexplored or, on the flip side, spelled out much too plainly. Director Beau O’Reilly has the right idea at time there’s a kicky flavor hovering at the edges—but the production itself is awkwardly staged. It needs to be tighter and faster.”

Lawrence Bommer, Free Press—“But, as if to make up for this torrent of Tinsel Town revelations, the static second act goes really wrong: In an interminable and undramatic debate between Hart and Hal Willis, her mentor and mogul, the question of Hollywood versus holiness is thrashed out to the last tedious particular. Regrettably, director Beau O’Reilly can’t build this meandering and stultifying scene…into anything like life.”

Mary Shen Barnidge, Windy City—“Mark Vallarta’s characterization for Wallis, however, presents us with a personality complex enough to encompass the changes required by the text as he spars with Alexandra Blatt, who looks amazingly like Hart. Their arguments are what render satisfactory our final picture of a talent utilized securely and contentedly in the service of its owner’s convictions.”

Critic’s Quote:
“I’m not telling you anything you don’t know. You’re smart, cultured, witty, good-looking as they come, impervious to flattery, and you’ve seen a few plays.”—Michael Phillips reviewing Northlight’s Blue/Orange in the Tribune.