Guy Van Swearingen and Kristin Fitzgerald in Redmoon's The Sea Horse

You could say that there are three levels of theatrical manipulation (at least when it comes to emotion). At the top lie the shows that manipulate you without you realizing it. You’re so caught up in the story and the characters that you never consciously acknowledge your emotional investment. Next are the productions that manipulate you, but you don’t mind. They’re well made and/or well-performed and, though not as subtle as the best theatre, you’re willing to go along on the journey they offer. Below that are the shows that fail to manipulate at all, either leaving their audience cold or, worse, aggravated at the production’s clumsy attempts to pull the heartstrings.

In The Sea Horse, at A Red Orchid, has a script that could fall into either of the latter two categories. It’s clear that Gertie and Harry belong together, and it never crossed my mind that Harry, in asserting that he’s ready to settle down and truly commit to Gertie, has any agenda other than the one he states. We’re left to wonder only if Gertie will be able to overcome the demons of her past and accept his overtures.

Fortunately, director Dado’s production has two exceptional performances at its center in Kirsten Fitzgerald and Guy Van Swearingen. Fitzgerald embodies Gertie, offering a tough-as-nails outside to a world that has done nothing but hurt her, while still hinting at the inner turmoil that Harry’s unexpected offer has churned. Van Swearingen finds a perfect balance between Harry’s surprising charm and his honest, open need to have a real relationship with Gertie. In less capable hands, this script could easily have slipped over into maudlin, but Fitzgerald and Van Swearingen have such natural chemistry and a sense of mutual history that the audience can’t help but cheer Harry’s efforts on.

These lovely performances are supported by a couple of top-notch designs in Grant Sabin’s impressively realistic set and Amanda Clegg Lyon’s subtle lights. Lyon, in particular deserves kudos for a seamless design in a small space with few instruments. Dado has wisely kept out of her actor’s way while giving them an exceptional environment and the result lifts an average script to surprising heights.

The Sea Horse—A Red Orchid Theatre

Chris Jones, Tribune—“So head not to A Red Orchid Theater for a searing experience in dramatic literature. It awaits not. But you might want to head there for some terrific acting. Built like an O’Neill heroine, certain of gait and purpose and yet capable of sudden vulnerability, Kirsten Fitzgerald is a terrific actor. Her performance as Gertrude doesn’t have the benefit of O’Neill’s lyricism, for sure, but it’s still an empathetic performance of great substance and insight. Guy Van Swearingen is deftly cast as the low-status Harry. Van Swearingen has come up with a shifty leer and a sly, irritating grin that makes you want to kick his character back out to sea, which helps liven things up.”

Hedy Weiss, Sun-Times—“It may not be a great play, but Edward J. Moore’s The Sea Horse is one of those acting vehicles that gives a pair of bravura performers the opportunity to ring every bell, blow every whistle and generate the mightiest of emotional storms in the process. And in the hurricane of a production that opened earlier this week at A Red Orchid Theatre, that is precisely what the phenomenal Kirsten Fitzgerald and Guy Van Swearingen are doing.”

Mary Shen Barnidge, Reader—“Sailors call the proprietress of the Sea Horse tavern ‘Two-Ton Gertie,’ but Harry Bales has decided he wants to make Gertrude Blum his wife. The classroom-exercise quality of Edward J. Moore’s 1974 courtship comedy grows more apparent with every passing decade, but director Dado’s dream-team casting of veterans Kirsten Fitzgerald and Guy Van Swearingen as the bearish lovers makes for glorious physical action devoid of adolescent self-consciousness. In the quiet moments before Cupid lands these derelict vessels safely in port, we can admire the richly detailed clutter of Grant Sabin’s salty barroom set.”

Dear World—Circle Theatre

Chris Jones, Tribune—“Despite a tiny theater, Circle has in the past produced some stellar, revisionist versions of Broadway musicals—Knuth is a skilled conceptualist. But even though this current affair comes with the kind of visual invention for which this director-designer is well known, it’s mainly a clunker… You could better stand the styling if the fundamentals were more sound. But they’re not. Performers tend to wander off-key. Dancing looks uneasy. Vocal and acting styles are all over the map. And in a theater of small size, this outsize performance style translates mainly as mugging.”

Hedy Weiss, Sun-Times—“[Anita] Hoffman plays the Countess Aurelia, the madwoman of Chaillot. The Countess is the engine of the show and sings the lion’s share of its songs, and Hoffman’s voice, at its best, has some of the rich, husky undertones of Patti LuPone’s. [Sara] Minton and [Mary] Redmon add their eccentric personalities and voices along the way. As for the rest of the large cast, it is, at best, on a high school level, with more painfully off-key singing than I have heard in a long time. And though Knuth’s unfolding set cleverly solves the problem of Circle’s cramped stage space, the two pianos placed behind those sets were muffled and tinny-sounding throughout.”

Louis Weisberg, Free Press—“But this is a work populated by caricatures, not characters. It’s fueled by ideas rather than feelings. Musicals, even more than other plays, need an emotional hook to transcend the added layer of disbelief. Dear World offers no bait. It doesn’t help that the cast members assembled by director Bob Knuth lack the acting chops to bring their roles to life as well as the stage craftsmanship to twist the bizarre into something entertaining. Nor does it help that everything is staged big, but the production and the performances are still small. In the end, however, it is the heavy-handed message of Dear World that dooms it. This play is all bromide and no fizz.”

Jeff Rossen, Gay Chicago—“In a vastly uneven production, director Robert Knuth has his hands full keeping the large cast consistent, and the performances range from purely delightful—Redmon is deliciously ditzy and consistently charming; [Rus] Rainear creates a wonderfully odd man of mystery; [Sara] Minton and [Eric] Lindahl have a great charm to them—to disappointing—Hoffman sings the demanding role well but lacks any eccentricities so desperately required in her character—to outright dreadful...Kevin Bellie’s choreography features his trademark demanding steps and inventiveness, but many in the cast aren’t up to the challenge, and there are times when one has to scratch one’s head in bewilderment over his creations.”

Grace and Glorie—Raven Theatre

Nina Metz, Tribune—“You know they’re going to win each other over, and you know Gloria is going to reveal a secret from her past that haunts her like a shadow. Grace, of course, will help her try to put it all in perspective. The Raven production is certainly a solid effort despite these schematic parameters, but the play itself is unrelentingly formulaic and manipulative. I’m afraid there is no grace or glory in that.”

Kim Wilson, Reader—“Esther McCormick gives the mischievous Grace an easy laugh, abundant common sense, and simple faith, exuding both lightness of spirit and the weightiness of Grace’s impending death. Her subtlety in the role amplifies the artifice in Millicent Hurley Spencer’s jagged, uneven turn as Harvard-educated Glorie. Despite the performer’s liability, strong voice, and commanding presence, when the stakes are the highest, Hurley Spencer stumbles over the emotional truth, flipping Glorie’s pain on and off like a light switch. And if we’re to believe she’s a powerhouse New Yorker, her wardrobe definitely needs upscaling.”

Venus Zarris, Gay Chicago—“Millicent Hurley-Spencer starts off slightly maudlin and takes a little time to create a Glorie we can connect with but adds more dimension to the character with each passing scene. Esther McCormick is engaging from the moment the lights come up, infusing her dying character with more life than can be found in most maternity ward nurseries. To be fair, Grace is written to steal your heart from the very first scene, and McCormick does just that, delivering a delightful performance that is as impressive to watch as it is amusing.”

Tartuffe—Remy Bumppo Theatre Co.

Nina Metz, Tribune—“Those who count themselves among the moral majority will not be amused by Sandys’ characterization of Tartuffe, a con man who looks and sounds an awful lot like conservative politician Ralph Reed. It’s a touch ham-fisted and the rhyming couplets get to be a bit much, but that’s Moliere. Regardless, Bohnen is a skilled and cunning director, and the self-selecting audience that will attend this production—OK, let’s just say it: liberals—will not be disappointed by this vivisection of the right.”

Hedy Weiss, Sun-Times—“[Translator Ranjit] Bolt’s take on Tartuffe—created for a 2002 production at London’s National Theatre, and now the basis for director James Bohnen’s rapid-fire, zestfully confident and smartly re-envisioned production for his Remy Bumppo Theatre Company—injects this most appropriately topical of Moliere’s satirical comedies with added zing. Yet all this banter and rhyme, despite its ebullient delivery, can sometimes grow more tiring than laugh-inducing.”

Brian Nemtusak, Reader—“The Remy Bumppo Theatre Company presents Moliere’s comedy about a religious hypocrite. This marks the U.S. premiere of British playwright Ranjit Bolt’s contemporized 2002 adaptation. Bolt’s translation is a sturdy, snappy, savvy one. Director James Bohnen maintains the brisk pace and slippery lightness needed to prevent the play from decaying into a mordant rant. And the cast strikes a wonderful balance between the artifice of the rhyming couplets and convincing contemporary deliveries.”

Fabrizio O. Almeida, New City—“Translation is the lynchpin of any English-language production of Moličre, and Bolt’s octosyllabic, rhyming-couplet modern-sounding text is impressive… Tartuffe is deliciously unctuous and seems to channel Jimmy Swaggart in his Christ-like poses, Orgon is a self-centered man-child and Dorine is a heavily accented Latina maid straight out of a Spanish telenovela. It’s mirthful and mad. It’s Moličre. It’s a must-see.”

Jenn Q. Goddu, Free Press—“Although the first act’s comedy can feel forced under James Bohnen’s direction—Stephanie Diaz’s maid and Michael Patrick Sullivan’s Damis in particular seem to be playing it over the top—the farce settles into its own in the second act. That’s just in time for Bolt’s fleet octosyllabic rhyming couplet adaptation to hit its pinnacle as the script’s pointed wit aims directly at the White House.”

Mary Shen Barnidge, Windy City—“Moličre’s characters discuss Tartuffe’s monstrousness for several scenes before we actually see him, so it’s something of a shock when he finally enters and we hear issuing forth from actor Nick Sandys, not his customary British inflections, but a back-country southern drawl like the purr of a cat stalking a goldfish. Since Bohnen surrounds him with emoters, the portrait of villainy that emerges is not that of a stereotypical amen-snorter, but a weasely menace far more suited to our time. There’s no mistaking this Remy Bumppo production for a dry academic exercise, however.”

Quote of the Fortnight:

“I Have Before Me a Remarkable Document Given to Me by a Young Lady from Rwanda has the earmarks of an Important Play and the makings of a Crowd-Pleaser. It deals with a Significant Event, the consideration of which leads to Personal Insight. It advocates Compassion and Understanding. It affirms the Healing Power of Art. It is Earnest and Well-Intentioned… But Sonja Lin-den’s play about a genocide survivor coming to terms with her grief and guilt with help from a caring mentor, falls short because it does not possess the strength of its convictions.”—Barbara Vitello’s review of Victory Garden’s production of I Have Before Me a Remarkable Document Given to Me by a Young Lady from Rwanda in the Daily Herald.