Not being able to remember the show you attended—that's a sure sign that it was not a life changing event. Such was my experience after attending Northlight's Red Herring. In no way painful, Jessica Thebus' production offers a stylish serving of empty theatrical calories. Fun? Yes. Challenging? No way.

Red Herring's somewhat convoluted plot has to do with an FBI agent (Scott Jaeck) whose pursuit of a mole inside the nation's nuclear program can only be sidetracked by his affection for a rare lady detective (Tracy Michelle Arnold). The somewhat ineffective mole (Sean Cooper) reveals his betrayal to his fiancée (Lesley Bevan), the daughter of Senator McCarthy, and asks her to make the final drop for him while he's in the South Seas witnessing a test of the new H-bomb. Set during the '50s, Michael Hollinger's play gets a full noir treatment, brimming over with snappy one-liners and hard-boiled crooks and cops alike.

Fortunately, Thebus doesn't allow her production to comment on its style, instead investing fully in the script's potboiler story and eccentric characters. Almost all of the actors have the opportunity to stretch their creative wings on a variety of characters, and they rise to the occasion, crisply drawing a Russian fisherman, a cynical clerk handing out marriage certificates, a pro-Eisenhower mortician, and so forth. Technically, set designer Tom Burch and light designer Jaymi Lee Smith create an effective dock setting with enough flexibility to serve as a variety of locales. Janice Pytel's costumes accent the characters perfectly, facilitating the cast's chameleon-like transformations.

Despite a very stylish production, Red Herring probably won't stick with audiences for long after leaving the theatre. It's a very clever play in its comedy—so clever that when the script tries to get serious, the audience keeps looking for the jokes. The ending couldn't be more contrived, although the happy wrap-up seems inevitable as none of the characters are truly evil. And the frequent scene changes, while brisk and well-handled by Thebus, give the audience more than enough time to digest what little message Hollinger offers.

Red Herring offers solid entertainment, but without much substance—a classic example of stage candy.

Red Herring—Northlight Theatre

Michael Phillips, Tribune—"It's the old 'What? What? I can't hear you!' long-distance call routine… Like we said: Not a new routine. But Lesley Bevan, whose comic timing and witty period sense earn her the title Miss Comic Timing 1952, and deft, deadpan Sean Cooper deliver the half-finished sentences so adroitly, you want them to do the scene again the second it's over. The same doesn't hold true for the play. When Red Herring is over, at best you wouldn't mind seeing a 30-minute highlights reel. A genial but puttering mixture of Red Menace hysteria and hard-boiled detective fiction clichés, the play may be pure summer stock in spirit. Yet no clearer example of style hurdling substance can be found on a Chicago area stage today, thanks to director Jessica Thebus and her ensemble."

Hedy Weiss, Sun-Times—"Dead men don't fish. Granted, that line may not sound particularly funny in print. But I can guarantee that when it is uttered by a character in Michael Hollinger's Red Herring—which opened Wednesday night at Northlight Theatre in a razor-sharp, beat-the-clock production of high hilarity and at-wit's-end wit—it strikes precisely the right comic note. And as in every rapid fire moment of this smart and zany farce—unquestionably the funniest show to land on a Chicago stage in years (Spamalot included)—you will find yourself giggling uncontrollably."

Jack Helbig, Reader—"Michael Hollinger's dark-comedy thriller, set in the McCarthy era, has little to say about the political issues that underlie the story. A satire without teeth, all it essentially does is speculate about what would happen if the McCarthys' daughter fell in love with a Jewish communist spy. Still, the play can be funny, as Jessica Thebus and her able cast demonstrate in this well-crafted production. Hollinger has a flair for the sort of wisecracks that pepper film noir—or maybe the leads, Scott Jaeck and Tracy Michelle Arnold, have a flair for making wisecracks sound brilliant. And the intentionally complicated but essentially unchallenging script is a fine match for Northlight's less-than-adventurous subscriber base."

Mary Shen Barnidge, Windy City—"Under Jessica Thebus' high-stepping direction, however, the momentum never flags. Mossy knee-slappers are lobbed out as proudly as if freshly minted. The giddiness is heightened by five of the six actors playing multiple roles, but only because Linda Kimbrough, Scott Jaeck, John Lister, Lesley Bevan and Sean Cooper keep their personae both widely disparate AND immediately identifiable, while Tracy Michelle Arnold sets up straight lines with frozen-lipped aplomb. And if our attention still threatens to waver, there are Andre Pluess and Ben Sussman's cinematic sound track, and Tom Burch and Jaymi Lee Smith's neon-studded Winslow Homer billboard."

Natural Affection—The Artistic Home

Kerry Reid, Tribune—"William Inge's 1963 play about an unwed middle-age mother, her new live-in younger boyfriend and her fresh-from-reform-school teenage son sank without much of a trace after its inaugural performances. But in the hands of director John Mossman and a splendid ensemble at the tiny Artistic Home, it's a revelation. This isn't a great play, but it's one that is so far removed from Inge's usual milieu of dusty prairie towns and so startling in its prescience about the darker aspects of the impending sexual revolution that it deserves a revival as skillful and smart as this one."

Lawrence Bommer, Reader—"Mockingly set at Christmas, the play depicts infidelity as inextricably tied to relationships, and incest as the ultimate expression of love. Desperation, loneliness, addiction, and violence are the essential components of the human condition. Adulthood means admitting you'll never be the success you dreamed of. John Mossman's staging for the Artistic Home is as uncompromising as the script. Kathy Scambiatterra gives a devastating performance as the mother: her doomed fight for a decent life is as heroic as Inge allows his characters to get."

Jenn Q. Goddu, Free Press—"Part of The Artistic Home's stated mission is 'to give birth to unforgettable moments by working in an intimate space, to touch audiences who are increasingly distanced from human contact.' They accomplish this with great success in Natural Affection although William Inge's characters are people we might want more distance from. Director John Mossman keeps the tone from getting too grim as his cast takes us from laughter to pity, and through empathy and fear with honesty. Betsy Elizabeth Ann McKnight's costumes and Kurt Boetcher's intimate set allow us to travel back in time to 1962."

Tim Sauers, Gay Chicago—"There's such an overwhelming sense of futility and hopelessness that lives under the surface of Inge's writing that, when given the chance to rise to the top, shocks in its physical and emotional veracity. Director John Mossman and his well-versed cast fully understand this as they take firm control of the language, developing finely etched performances, delivering Inge's tragic messages with dramatic eloquence. This is truly an ensemble-driven piece, and the actors have formed a cohesive unit, ebbing and flowing between the comedy and pathos integrated within the writing. Particularly striking and effective are Scambiatterra and [Maria] Stephens as a pair of women attempting to find pleasure in their not-so-pleasurable state of being."

Scott C. Morgan, Windy City—"The Artistic Home is certainly daring and ambitious to dredge up Inge's Natural Affection. It easily fascinates early on with its dramatic set up and feels right at home in the theatre's cozy storefront space. But Natural Affection comes off as a disappointment. The problematic script calls for the characters to unbelievably turn their emotions on a dime. And when the cast does just that, it comes out in such a loud (and unconvincing) screech that you question why the Artistic Home even deigned to lavish any attention on this histrionic muddle. Don't fault the actors for trying. When not in emotional duress-mode, the cast is quite enjoyable."

The Subject Was Roses—Writers' Theatre

Chris Jones, Tribune—"Director [Shade] Murray has got all the necessary horses here, but the show gets only about halfway down the emotional track. It feels like the director was nervous about emotional hyperbola and thus directed his cast to underplay rather than pile on the angst. It's in a long run. In time, these actors probably will let go. The show will be all the better for it. The Subject Was Roses is no poetic masterwork. And for some people, its relentlessly internal, faux-Freudian focus won't have aged well. But buried amid the formulaic iconography are some sizable human truths that don't ever change."

Hedy Weiss, Sun-Times—"It is the simplest of stories that Frank Gilroy spun in his 1964 Pulitzer- and Tony Award-winning 'kitchen sink drama,' which opened Tuesday night in a detailed, sensitively directed production by Shade Murray that is being beautifully rendered by Craig Spidle, Penny Slusher and Steve Haggard (a slender, fresh-faced, hugely engaging young actor who looks like he just popped off a Cracker Jack box). For if the novelist Thomas Wolfe warned that 'you can't go home again,' Gilroy would remind you that the most difficult journey of all may be the one that finally takes you out of your parents' home."

Nick Green, Reader—"Shade Murray's taut staging for Writers' Theatre works as both elegant museum piece and brooding meditation on loss. Jack Magaw's lush scenic design potently evokes the time and place, and Murray and his cast reveal the demarcation between the arrogant uprightness of the early '60s and the coming countercultural revolution, which fostered a different kind of idealism."

Emily Lee, Gay Chicago—"Anchored by amazing performances from a stellar cast, Frank Gilroy's wrenching script finds a loving home in Writers' intimate, original space in the back of Books on Vernon. It is the perfect venue for Gilroy's autobiographical story; we are so close to these people we can almost reach out and pour a bowl of Trix. Not that one would choose to do so. Gilroy creates an everyday, underlying tension so disturbing it is hard to imagine doing much more than eavesdropping on his characters."

Vincent in Brixton—The Journeymen

Misha Davenport, Sun-Times—"In this Vincent in Brixton, both playwright and director have come up short. Like the tea everyone keeps making throughout the play, conflicts are never given time to steep. As soon as one bubbles up to the surface, it's dropped. Thank goodness for the strength of the acting. As played by David Blatt, Vincent is prone to sudden verbal outbursts and has a nervous laugh. It's the portrait of a sensitive and misunderstood artist before he found his purpose. Blatt is mesmerizing, and his performance is worth the price of your ticket. And he's not alone. As Ursula, Caroline Dodge Latta also shows her acting chops."

Nick Green, Reader—"Nicholas Wright's reenvisioning of Vincent van Gogh's life has broad shoulders and a bigger heart, but all subtleties get washed out in Frank Pullen's puzzling staging for the Journeymen. In the past Pullen has successfully staged shows in inhospitable environments that don't seem very intimate, but in this lofted venue he makes the odd choice of putting all the action in the middle of the stage, where his cast drowns in space. Meanwhile the set design draws attention toward the distant three walls—and to our watches, cell phones and pagers."

Lawrence Bommer, Free Press—"Despite some wandering Dutch and English accents in this five-person ensemble, Frank Pullen's staging is as magical as Wright's rich material. Looking exactly like a young self-portrait of the famous painter, David Blatt gives his bright-eyed, red-haired, unabashed Vincent a giggle that perfectly conveys his intensity, insecurity and lack of pretension. Blatt's dreamer seems a decent fellow whose great challenge is to discipline his many gifts into one. Caroline Dodge Latta's Ursula balances on a knife edge between resignation and hope. Latta's self-effacing Ursula stands for all the unknown shapers who mold geniuses like Van Gogh, then disappear into history. They deserve this play."

Quote of the Fortnight:

"'Before you can love another, you must first love yourself' might not be the most profound wisdom to emerge from a midnight romp at the theatre, but neither was 'Don't dream it—Be it' 30 years ago. So enjoy the music and leave the rest to history."—Mary Shen Barnidge reviewing Elemental Theater Company's production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch in the Reader.