11-9-07
Trap Door, National Pastime, Raven and Writers
Emma, Trap Door Productions
Tony Adler, Reader—“This play about anarchist Emma Goldman by leftist historian Howard Zinn is 99.9 percent pure didacticism—little more than a mechanism for quoting from her speeches and providing information about her struggles on behalf of the American masses. This isn’t a problem: Goldman’s blunt, smart, caustic rhetoric is exhilarating. The problems are Zinn’s clumsy 0.1 percent attempt to humanize his script by treating Goldman’s radical love life as soap opera and Beata Pilch’s plaintive-unto-whiny Emma.”
Monica Weston, New City—“The 23 scenes that compose the play attempt to cover an ambitious number of years in Emma’s life, so that had the acting dragged even for a moment, the show could have lost cohesion altogether. It didn’t. Trap Door counteracts the play’s broad chronological scope and sometimes leaden messages of capitalist evil and police brutality with beautifully choreographed, fast-paced scenes, ingenious use of props and space, well-chosen music by the Sex Pistols, Gil Scott-Heron and Jewel, and a DIY black-box ethos that informs the message and elevates it, even frees it, from the script. Vibrant, even electrifying acting across the board, with a particularly dazzling Beata Pilch as Emma.”
Novid Parsi, Time Out—“As Emma speaks on overthrowing capitalism and sexism yet is herself hung up on a womanizer, the play bounces between the personal and the political Emma, but is so rigidly schematic that we come to understand neither. Trap Door’s approach—which can confuse style for substance, making a false distinction between physical and psychological theater—doesn’t allow the depth that Emma’s (or any) life needs. It’s a sense of life that a company capable of variation and nuance might’ve brought to Zinn’s biographical sketch.”
Venus Zarris, Gay Chicago—“Step outside of the political comfort zone of complacency and the entertainment comfort zone of escapism and enter the aesthetically vital zone of confrontational creativity and contemporary consequence. Trap Door’s beguiling production of Emma proves that historical eye and ear candy can be emotionally delicious as well as fundamentally nutritious. This is one of those “here’s something you’ve been missing” experiences that will inspire you to look at the topic and your world with a greater degree of scrutiny and passion. Do not miss this critically compelling theatrical triumph.”
Jonathan Abarbanel, Windy City—“Emma is directed by Kate Hendrickson and W. Shane Oman, who keep the pacing and action lively but make some curious choices. For instance, the actors mime all props while live sound effects are created on a side platform. There’s nothing wrong with this radio-like stylistic convention, but I don’t see how it enlarges or clarifies the play. The co-directors also make a couple of out-and-out blunders, none greater than the show’s second scene, purporting to show a teenage Emma with her family in Rochester, N.Y. Most of the play is performed, essentially, in a realistic style, except this one scene that is a snarling, screaming volcanic eruption that nearly sabotages Emma before it’s off the ground. The scene should be restaged immediately.”
The Magician, National Pastime Theatre
Tony Adler, Reader—“Laurence Bryan’s new stage version starts off looking redundant—a rough attempt to copy the original as live action—but turns out to be a Halloween show. Bryan takes Bergman’s tale of an itinerant 19th-century mesmerist-cum-huckster and marries it to that type of horror story, like Dark Water, where a child-ghost tries to get her message across to the living. It’s not a happy union. The film has its confusions, but Bryan’s twists throw things off entirely, without providing the compensation of a good scare.”
Brian Nemtusak, Time Out—“There’s nothing too bad about the cast’s performances, or its use of the space. Twirling, movable flats set various scenes, and the nooks and crannies of the former speakeasy are artfully employed—though as silent lead Vogler, [Michael] Gillett could be more entrancing, which sets the tone for the rest: competent enough yet uninvolving, cautious and disconnected. And the magic-to-phantasmagoria stuff should come off more precisely. But the general stiffness and narrative inertia are Bergman’s fault first, and Bryan ‘s fault second. If thought-provoking, this is still film-school grad-student abstraction, and whatever might make it work as theater hasn’t yet been applied to the script.”
The Night of the Iguana, Raven Theatre
Mary Houlihan, Sun-Times—“[JoAnn] Montemurro, more of an earth-mother type, doesn’t quite capture the lusty sensuality that fuels the bawdy Maxine. A full-throttle performance by [Paul] Dunckel, who bounces around the stage in a blazing fury, overpowers the reality of Shannon’s desperate situation. And, as Hannah, [Kristin Williams] Smith is perhaps simply too young for the role; her portrayal lacks the wisdom and delicacy of a middle-aged spinster’s hidden sensuality. In the end, the frenzied, frantic feel of this Iguana lacks any consideration of the subtle underpinnings of Williams’ compelling drama.”
Lawrence Bommer, Reader—“Tennessee Williams’s last great play completes the litany of loneliness and longing he began almost 20 years before with The Glass Menagerie. Beautifully set on the veranda of a seedy Mexican hotel (set design by Leif Olsen and the director), Michael Menendian’s staging is painstakingly detailed and emotionally fine-tuned. The love scenes aren’t as sensual as they could be, but overall this valedictory requires a feel for Williams’s entire oeuvre, and Menendian has that critical assurance.”
Dennis Polkow, New City—“Founder and director Michael Menendiam has pulled out all the stops to make this a very special production from strong casting—such as founding member JoAnn Montemurro’s memorable Maxine—to a tropical set and sound effects that make you almost feel the heat along with the intensity of the entangled web of relationships. You can’t help but notice how much even the usually insignificant characters such as the two houseboys are always doing something interesting onstage, which adds great credibility to the proceedings.”
Brian Nemtusak, Time Out—“Raven’s respectable production captures the mania of Williams’ about-to-unravel narrative, as well as the trembling humanity and cosmic wonder at its heart, but the leads seem miscast or misguided, preventing this from ever lifting off… Among Williams’ most self-indulgent yet lacerating self-portraits, it requires a performance both ludicrous and monolithic, but Paul Dunckel mostly just seems harried. As New England spinster and unlikely soul mate Hannah Jelkes, Kristen Williams Smith doesn’t convey the calm power that’s needed, and her dialect seems more society than Nantucket. JoAnn Montemurro, for her part, should be seductive and slatternly as sexpot Maxine Faulk. The supporting cast, however, is excellent, and director Menendian and Leif Olsen’s set is a sensual triumph.”
Venus Zarris, Gay Chicago—“Raven Theatre opens its 25th season with the Tennessee Williams Tony Award-winning classic, The Night of the Iguana. Set in a tropical hotel in 1940s Mexico, this busy play full of unusual characters is a complicated undertaking. Despite the beautiful set and a delightful peripheral cast, the complexities of the lead characters prove to be more than the actors and director Michael Menendian can successfully realize.”
Mary Shen Barnidge, Windy City—“The company assembled for this Raven Theatre production embraces its well-worn archetypes with intelligence, compassion and never a hint of condescension, bringing them to life with all the Chekhovian affection bestowed on them by their author’s hindsight. Lending vibrancy to what could easily emerge as ennui-soaked nostalgia is Paul Dunckel’s vigorous performance as the fevered Shannon, whose thrashing and bellowing foreshadows tension suggestive of verbal chiaroscuro during his confrontations with the icily composed Hannah, played with understated presence by Kristen Williams Smith.”
The Savannah Disputation, Writers Theatre Chicago
Chris Jones, Tribune—“In essence, the director Michael Halberstam has stacked his premiere production with a quartet of very capable Chicago actors, all of whom approach their characters with great depth and sincerity. But the weight of the performances is completely at odds with the flippancy of the script. If you’re looking for something of intellectual or social substance, the play keeps floating back to the situational comedic surface. If you’re looking for some sort of silly southern satire, these just aren’t the actors. They’re too good. They’ve created four real, raw people. But they’re not all that funny.”
Tony Adler, Reader—“This new comedy by Evan Smith concerns two southern Catholic spinster sisters whose tight little world is disrupted by a fundamentalist dead set on converting them. There’s lots of interesting talk about intolerance, hypocrisy, blinkered thinking, mortality, and faith. The best part, though, is the way Smith’s script transcends all that and ends up being about two spinster sisters whose lives are disrupted. Michael Halberstam’s production is too sweet, but Robert Scogin counteracts that nicely as a priest with unexpected depths.”
Dennis Polkow, New City—“Anyone who has ever opened a door to religious solicitors that need to have their own faith confirmed by others’ acceptance of it will find this world-premiere play by Evan Smith salve for the soul. Unlike other currently running shows in which religion is used merely as set-dressing, the religious dialogue here and the issues underlying it are the real deal in that this is not merely a playwright’s abstract vision of such encounters, but rather, the genuine kind of isolated and divisive monologues that pop up at real family reunions that include Protestant fundamentalists and Roman Catholics.”
Christopher Piatt, Time Out—“But the playwright, along with canny director Halberstam, knows what we’re anticipating, and defies it at nearly every turn, squaring off devotees of opposing ideals with sly exactitude. It’s never clear what Smith the writer believes about the universe, but with the credence he gives his characters—even the girl whose fundamentalism makes Catholicism seem like Scientology—it appears that Smith has spent enough time around men and women of faith not to blow them off. It would be an uncommonly mature perspective for a tragedy; in a soufflé comedy, it’s almost unheard of.”
Scott C. Morgan, Windy City—“It’s this plot setup that allows playwright Evan Smith to tackle contentious religious differences among people who profess to be Christian. It’s commendable that Smith succeeds most of the time in making what is ultimately a debate on dogma and belief into a comic drama. Sure, there are times when the show slips into pure religious-political debate, particularly when the topic of evolution is brought up. But for the most part, Smith makes the characters genuine instead of becoming representational mouthpieces spouting warring ideology.”