3-27-09
An Art from the Past
Art, Steppenwolf Theatre
Chris Jones, Tribune—“Art, once again, is. This time, Reza’s little soupcon is up at the Steppenwolf Theatre, under the direction of Rick Snyder, starring a rotating cast of mostly Steppenwolf ensemble members (one, Francis Guinan, will even be playing different roles at different times) and looking very much like a pristine relic of a former era. Despite the sudden datedness of a play probing “the urge to buy as a poetic impulse” (oy), there is some light escapist pleasure in its nostalgic reappearance.”
Barbara Vitello, Daily Herald—“Wheaton resident and Steppenwolf ensemble member Rick Snyder—a steadfastly unfussy director—does a fine job of establishing the characters’ uneasy amiability and their deep-seated vulnerabilities… Frankly, over the course of 80 minutes, this trio of self-involved, self-important aesthetes and their petty bourgeois squabbles grow tiresome. And Reza’s play has an air of pretension that might put some audiences off. That said, Steppenwolf’s production is eminently watchable, thanks in large part to its razor-sharp cast and a director who knows his way around prickly relationships.”
Kerry Reid, Reader—“Yasmina Reza’s 1998 Tony-winning comedy, about three men whose friendship is sorely tested when one buys an expensive contemporary painting, feels even more self-conscious now than when I first saw it—does anyone use ‘deconstruction’ as a punch line anymore? But Rick Snyder’s staging is enjoyable as a master class in acting. The cast will be changing over the course of the four-month run, but don’t miss the current one.”
Zac Thompson, Time Out—“Snyder’s staging for Steppenwolf boasts a handsome set by Antje Ellermann and performances from two of the most likable, dependable actors in Chicago: Guinan as overbearing Marc and Freeman as eager-to-please Yvan (Procaccino capably rounds out the cast as Serge, evangelist of the modern). Like Reza’s script, Snyder’s production is lively, stylish and, in the end, irrelevant.”
Dennis Polkow, New City—“Aside from the comic dialogue that is delivered with fervor here by three Steppenwolf ensemble members K. Todd Freeman and Francis Guinan, along with and John Procaccino, directed by ensemble member Rick Snyder—who have known and worked with each other often enough that playing friends is hardly a stretch, the way that the characters’ lives each unfold through their art attitudes is fascinating but also, their view of strictness and freedom, so paramount as to how we view art or life itself.”
Catey Sullivan, Windy City—“On the surface, Reza’s play sounds as facile as a cut-rate sitcom. But directed by Rick Snyder and featuring a trio of understated powerhouses, Art is anything but. For one thing, the script crackles with intelligence from opening to closing monologue—both Marc’s, and both delivered with a thousand points of sharp subtlety by Francis Guinan. The material in between is both exploration and revelation: That white canvas contains a world entire unto itself, and watching Marc, Serge (John Procaccino) and Ivan (the incomparable K. Todd Freeman) try to find their way in it is endlessly engaging.”
Lawrence Bommer, Free Press—“The intellectual trappings of Art are less engaging than the acting possibilities unleashed. Happily, the play doesn’t make you choose sides; it’s easy to rise above them all. But to three wickedly apt actors, each associated with a characteristic painting and armchair, the character contrast is catnip. Steppenwolf’s revival may be too manic to convince us these guys are deep friends, but it boasts three wily actors who set each other off in every way.”
Bartleby, the Scrivener, Mary-Arrchie Theatre Co.
Nina Metz, Tribune—“The problems of the show lie not in R.L. Lane’s adaptation nor director Richard Cotovsky’s droll staging, but in the story’s trajectory. It’s one thing to read about a man paralyzed by depression—quite another to watch it. Dragged out. Scene by scene… Kevin V. Smith gives him the right placid exterior—‘I would prefer not to,’ he says when urged to work, prompting Turkey’s hilarious outrage from the sidelines: ‘Good lord, preferences? Have we come to this?’—but Bartleby is a blank, and you’re left feeling as though a major chunk of the story is missing entirely.”
Laura Molzahn, Reader—“[Adapter R.L.] Lane mostly respects Melville’s restraint, but he does add a few dramatic touches, including a fleshed-out, more emotional ending. In fact, in Richard Cotovsky’s staging, Bartleby’s final, wordless interaction with his employer, Standard, almost makes the preceding 80 minutes worthwhile. Almost. This production—particularly Todd Lahrman’s performance as Standard—doesn’t quite hit the depths or comic heights needed to bring Bartleby to life onstage.
John Beer, Time Out—“As in much of the production, the latter scene’s pacing seems slightly off-kilter. Pivotal scenes, such as when Bartleby first unveils his epochal refusal, move at a clip that blunts their impact; less crucial moments drag, partly due to the design’s awkwardly long entrance-and-exit scheme. Each scrivener is strikingly portrayed: the irascible Nippers (Carlo Lorenzo Garcia), the boyish Ginger Nut (Shirley Cean Rogiers), the alcoholically effusive Turkey (a beautiful turn by Kraft). While Smith plays Bartleby with an eerie stillness, like a scrivening Buster Keaton, Lahrman as Standard, the narrator and sole character granted a full range of emotion, drifts in and out of focus.”
Playing with Fire, Bohemian Theatre Ensemble
Albert Williams, Reader—“In [Barbara] Field’s adaptation—which is far more faithful to its source than the Universal and Hammer film versions—the tortured, violent relationship between Victor Frankenstein and his creature becomes a compelling metaphor for humanity’s attempt to make sense of a god who created and then seemingly abandoned us. Director Peter Marston Sullivan’s superb ensemble stirs wonder and dread through the power of language. And Cox, with his growly voice, gruesome visage, and childlike, searching gaze, evokes terror and sympathy in equal measure as the outcast who wants only love.”
Megan Powell, Time Out—“What got them here unfolds in a series of crisply acted, just long-enough flashbacks; Clayton Stamper as the young Victor and Laura Rook as his betrothed, Elizabeth, give especially notable turns. Despite the high stakes, the creator-creature showdown would benefit from some of the nicely calibrated subtlety of the scenes from the characters’ past. Still, Sullivan’s staging on the whole captivatingly plumbs down to the story’s emotional and intellectual core. The show’s heart belongs to Cox’s monster: Though the character’s cobbled together from cadavers, the actor locates what’s exquisite in the grimy, gravel-voiced, timeless creation.”
Lisa Buscani, New City—“Katy Petersen’s lighting design and Lewis Miller’s sound design effectively complement the piece’s tension and foreboding. Kevin Cox and Adam Kander shine as The Creature’s present and past, investing the ‘monster’ with equal amount of threat and noble vulnerability; both actors make a physically demanding role look easy. Zachary captures a tortured man finally discovering the evil in his own actions.”
The Shape of a Girl, Pegasus Players
Chris Jones, Tribune—“Alice Wedoff, the young Chicagoan performing in The Shape of a Girl at the Pegasus Players, is an actress to watch. No question. Not only is she strong, brassy, gutsy and honest, but she manages to hold down the huge Pegasus Players stage all by herself. But the challenge that Wedoff and her director, Ilesa Duncan, have yet to solve is how to take a play about a girl in emotional crisis and show us the girl as clearly as the crisis.”
Hedy Weiss, Sun-Times—“Blonde, energetic and quicksilver, Wedoff (directed by Ilesa Duncan) holds the stage with absolute ferocity and confidence as she clambers around Richard and Jacqueline Penrod’s magnificently muscular (and strangely haunted) set—a wharf that suggests both isolation and the most terrible danger.”
Tony Adler, Reader—“[Y]et all this wrongness ends up working. The overwhelming weight of the set emphasizes Braidie’s vulnerability as she leads us to the core tribal codes by which adolescent girls live—and, in Virk’s case, die. Alice Wedoff’s peformance as Braidie is the final bit of right wrongness. Coming across as one-note much of the time, it nevertheless manages to accrue a painful truthfulness before it’s done.”
Christopher Piatt, Time Out—“Cleanly and professionally penned, it reverberates with an eat-your-vegetables mission that seeks to educate with its brutal subject matter but offers no innovative point of view. Some teens may like it; some concerned parents, more still. But the attention span required of the audience isn’t matched by the material’s ingenuity. In glass-half-full news, Shape has something no other play in the city currently offers: Alice Wedoff. With director Duncan as her slow-dance partner, this tough and tender actor (recently the quivering ingenue in TUTA’s Romeo and Juliet) hooks MacLeod’s natural rhythms and cadences and bends them any way that feels right. Even without the help of lights, she’s a performer who can change colors in front of you.”
Lisa Buscani, New City—“Braidie (Alice Wedoff) watches as her peer group’s scapegoat is physically and psychologically abused. She struggles between doing the right thing and certain ostracism. Wedoff’s appealing naturalism brings a light touch to a relentlessly heavy script; she maintains the piece’s energy level until its long-in-coming resolution. Wedoff stumbles only as Braidie in flashback; her portrayal of the character’s younger self seems self-conscious. Richard and Jacqueline Penrod’s under-the-boardwalk set is as desolate as the subject matter.”
Jonathan Abarbanel, Windy City—“That’s a great deal of sobering material to pack into a 75-minute play, yet MacLeod’s dialogue never smacks of having been written by an adult. Her ear for, and sense of, adolescent personality are utterly brilliant and darkly captivating. The wonder is that it also manages to be entertaining, especially in the convincing interpretation cooked up by Duncan and Wedoff. The richly detailed setting by Richard and Jacqueline Penrod provides a sandy waterfront patch beneath a hulking, rotting pier. It’s warm yet grotty and perhaps emblematic of the social rot the play reveals, but it nearly overwhelms. One wonders why Duncan felt the need for such nearly-life-sized massiveness.”
Quote of the Fortnight:
“Maybe it’s just the born-and-bred New Yorker in me. But as I watched the Court Theatre production of Wait Until Dark, Frederick Knott’s popular psychological thriller from the ’60s, I had to suppress the impulse to shout out a couple of basic rules about survival in that city.”—Hedy Weiss reviewing Court Theatre’s production of Wait Until Dark in the Sun-Times.”