Isabel Quintero, Bakesta King, Jennifer Shin and Camille Anderson in Layla’s Dream

Lacking a true narrative through-line, Layla's Dream tells the story of a woman poet with a bit of a self-destructive streak (she nips from a flask when the stress builds) and terrible taste in men. Her spirit protectors—a multi-ethnic chorus—appear to guide her to a better path, which apparently means ditching her destructive tendencies and her destructive relationship and embracing a self-empowering view of the world that will allow her to revel in the challenges and joys of each day.

Unfortunately, what was cutting edge 30 years ago now seems derivative and a bit trite. We've been bombarded by one-woman shows that chronicle a journey to acceptance of the inner self through verse and movement, and while Shange might have blazed this stylistic trail with for colored girls..., she's following in her own footsteps without bringing anything much new, stylistically, to the table. While Layla's Dream has moments of true beauty, it also has painfully obvious ones, like the response to the epidemic of violence against women. Reiterating the every-three-minutes-someone-is-sexually-assaulted factoid, while describing a horrific societal truth, does not make for exciting theatre. It's been done. This problem rears its head throughout. Individual moments shine, but the entirety hasn't much new to say.

Director Chuck Smith's staging matches the script's strengths with some lovely stage pictures. He keeps things moving, even if he can't overcome some inherent absurdities, such as the spirit chorus' over-the-top self-seriousness. In the central role, Monifa Days does yeoman's work in keeping the verse flowing. Her nemesis and lover Yves, played with relish by Derrick Cole Wesby, also fares well. Layla's trio of friends has a harder time emerging with distinct characters, and the chorus ranges from the truly mediocre to the overwrought, although there are some great movers and voices therein. Lighting designer Justin Stone greatly assists Smith in keeping the action flowing with a variety of surprises and Richard and Jacqueline Penrod's set, while not truly surprising, nonetheless effectively evokes a poet's likely dreamscape.

In the end, though, Layla's Dream sinks under its own derivative structure. There's no denying that Shange gives us some lovely words and that her upbeat and positive message should be heard. However, it should be heard in a more interesting way, and what we have here seems a throwback to a bygone era. Yesterday's experiments are today's clichés.

Lavender Lizards & Lilac Landmines: Layla's Dream – Congo Square Theatre Co.

Michael Phillips, Tribune—"The rare and right actress can make beautiful sense out of even the most daunting stage poem written by Ntozake Shange, the author of for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf. Meet the right actress. She is Monifa Days, a founding ensemble member of Congo Square Theatre Company. Barely 30, this remarkable performer has dramatic instincts heading all the right ways, in the direction of quiet revelation and vivid introspection… Director Smith and his youthful cast work this dreamy material well. Days guides the ensemble with a generous and supple range of emotions, transforming even the most snakelike of Shange lines into something affecting and true."

Hedy Weiss, Sun-Times—"In the final analysis, the whole show seems like a pseudointellectual version of those ubiquitous self-help books that ask why good (if frequently damaged) women repeatedly fall for bad men. All this said, there are still reasons to admire this production, which marks Congo Square's arrival as a resident company at the Duncan YMCA. First, you have to admire director Chuck Smith's willingness to try his hand with a wholly different style of play than the realistic dramas he has mastered. And his collaboration with choreographer Lisa Johnson-Willingham is seamless."

Kerry Reid, Reader—"This production includes many beautiful moments, and Smith and set designers Jackie and Rick Penrod have made excellent use of the proscenium stage, framing it with tall lighted columns representing stacks of books and with filmy pieces of fabric, from which the guides emerge as Layla's dreams and memories unfold. But there's a frustrating lack of specificity to the poet's voice—both Shange's and that of her onstage surrogate."

Golf – Circle Theatre

Hedy Weiss, Sun-Times—"[Playwright Susan Hahn] has, not surprisingly, written a poet's play. Its language is spare, crystalline and stylized, carefully chiseled and suffused with compressed meaning. Its characters are distilled essences, too, almost logo-like versions of the historical figures on which they're based, but with a kind of gauzy mesh tossed over them. And while a bit of self-conscious artiness intrudes from time to time, when Hahn gets out her scissors, she knows just how to cut… And [director Ann] Filmer, who has tapped into the many subtle rhythms of Hahn's play with impressive skill, has cast the actresses to perfection."

Tony Adler, Reader—"Playwright Susan Hahn is a prominent poet and she makes a poet's mistake here, substituting metaphor for narrative. She apparently thought that stripping her characters of clear identity and intention would add to their resonance when in fact it just assures our mystification. Her unanchored equation of golf, war, business, and love doesn't help. This script cries out for proper workshopping. The only thing I'd care to salvage from Ann Filmer's production is Mierka Girten's magnificent eyes."

Lookingglass Alice – Lookingglass Theatre

Chris Jones, Tribune—"Worry not. adapter David Catlin and Chicago's Lookingglass Theatre Company have kept the dress. And it's all still the black kitten's fault. Entirely. Oh, and the White Rabbit has the usual trouble with his cue. But in the remarkably talented Lauren Hirte, the Lookingglass Alice is a bona fide, rope-loving acrobat. We're not just talking pretty spins and twirls. This strong young woman bears weight, buster, in matters physical and also likes backward words. And has no trouble whatsoever figuring them out. Talk about a role model with verve—for parents of tween daughters, especially, she'll be a godsend."

Hedy Weiss, Sun-Times—"It may be for just these reasons that the members of the Lookingglass Theatre ensemble have returned to Lewis Carroll's Victorian era classic more than once during their history. And while I missed their earliest versions, I can attest to the marvelous flights of fancy, athletic enchantment, visual pleasures—the sheer goofiness and even the subtle whiff of wistfulness—that permeate their wildly imaginative new Lookingglass Alice. Superbly adapted and directed by David Catlin, it opened over the weekend at Lookingglass' Water Tower Water Works home."

Jack Helbig, Daily Herald—"But, of course, Catlin never loses the thread of the story, or sacrifices it to pack in one more odd circus act, the way the trippy Cirque folks do. Instead, all the circus stuff furthers the story—Alice's journey through the Lookingglass world and her repeated attempts to become queen and symbolically, at least, get home. Thanks to Catlin's intelligent, sensitive production, we are with Alice every step of her journey, laughing with her at all the odd people she meets, and sharing her shock when things occasionally turn dark and troubling, as when Humpty Dumpty takes his great fall."

Rick Reed, Windy City—"There are [sic] all sorts of magic at work in David Catlin's brilliant adaptation and direction of Lookkinglass Alice, now on jaw-dropping, eye-popping, dazzling display at Lookkinglass' Water Tower Water Works home. There's the magic that comes from the mind of Lewis Carroll, one of the more fanciful, genius, and disturbing minds to emerge from the Victorian age… There's also the magic that comes from a sure finger on the pulse of childhood innocence that seems to have taken possession of director/adaptor Catlin, who has captured and brought to life the awe-inspiring internal logic of Carroll's dream world."

Pravda – TimeLine Theatre Company

Michael Phillips, Tribune—"The TimeLine staging has a lot going for it. Director Louis Contey handled TimeLine's Awake and Sing!—one of the best Chicago ensemble achievements of the past three years. His cast is peppered with sharp-witted character men and women. And as Lambert Le Roux, the carnivorous Rupert Murdoch-y wolf calling the shots in Pravda, Contey has in his corner David Parkes, a smart and forceful actor. The problem, I think, is a matter of miles per hour. This large, somewhat blobby comedy works better if played for velocity over despair, or velocity running headlong into a wall of despair at the end."

Hedy Weiss, Sun-Times—"Of course, [playwrights Howard] Brenton and [David] Hare exaggerate to make their points, without suggesting the real anguish and sense of helplessness felt by those with an abiding passion for journalism and a belief in its crucial role in democracy. But director Louis Contey has deployed his cast of 15 with great energy (if a somewhat too persistent shrillness), and a real feel for the inner sanctums of power and privilege—from dog tracks to men's clubs—and the ethical voids of those on both sides of the gate."

Justin Hayford, Reader—"Veteran British playwrights David Hare and Howard Brenton wrote this facile, seemingly endless semi-satire in 1985 as an attack on Thatcherism—but the schematic plot and neat compartmentalization of right and wrong wouldn't even have ruffled the Iron Lady's hair. The play tells the increasingly implausible story of a fictional South African Rupert Murdoch, Lambert Le Roux, locked in a battle with a spineless yet supposedly noble editor. Louis Contey's direction largely matches the script's bluntness; only Terry Hamilton as Le Roux's unctuous henchman—the only ambiguously drawn figure—is allowed enough nuance to suggest that sweeping political movements affect actual human beings."

Venus Zarris, GayChicago—"This sophisticated production is a real tribute to the clever script and the excellent reputation that TimeLine has garnered for itself. Technically, the show is superb. The sound design and original music by Andrew Hansen are fantastic. The scenic design by Brian Sidney Bembridge, who has redefined excellence with all of his remarkable work, is wonderful. Keith Parham's lighting design and Alex Meadows costume design look great. Louis Contey's tight and polished direction is not wasted on this talented cast. They entire ensemble is remarkable, with a few exceptional standouts."

Quote of the Fortnight

"Saturday I had a blinding sinus headache. Sunday I went to see Quartet at Court Theatre. Halfway through this difficult, puzzling, pompous, intensely avant-garde staging of German writer Heiner Muller's dense, serious, confusing adaptation of the French novel, ‘Dangerous Liaisons,' I realized I liked the sinus headache better."—Jack Helbig reviewing Court Theatre's production of Quartet in the Daily Herald.