Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at Steppenwolf

Wow. Thinking, really, really we can't, can't see this show again.

And then Steppenwolf blew it out of the water. Letts and Morton were extraordinary, and a really nice, surprising interpretation of Honey by Carrie Coon.















From Chris Jones's review in the Tribune:

"In most productions of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" Edward Albee's infamous 1962 drama of mutual marital self-loathing in a college town, the character of Martha comes off as an inveterate, addicted game player. She's usually a natural-born boxer who, on this famous booze-soaked night, heads once again with relish into the ring with her marital sparring partner and fails only to anticipate the atypical scale of the impending mutual destruction.

"But in Pam MacKinnon's unusual but wholly fascinating new production for the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, the illustrious Chicago company's first-ever foray into Albee and a much-anticipated pairing of Tracy Letts and Amy Morton, that's not the way it plays out at all. Morton's Martha — far more naturalistic, far more normative, for more quickly vulnerable than usual — is a demonstrably reluctant manipulator. She plays "Get the Guests" and brings up that famous imagined baby, mostly, it feels, because it's the only way of keeping the lid on the house neurotic, to whom she happens to be married. And who is half-cocked and might go off at any moment."

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Eight Blackbird at MCA

More my cup of tea than Ms. S's, but nice to see more performance at the MCA.














"The Grammy-winning eighth blackbird returns to MCA Stage with the fascinating and provocative series PowerFUL/LESS. These two concerts are inspired by Stravinsky's quote, "Music is essentially powerless to express anything at all." PowerFUL, confronts the audience with a program of passionate and politically charged works featuring Mr. Tambourine Man by John Corigliano with soprano Katie Calcamuggio, Coming Together by Frederic Rzewski, and John Luther Adams' The Light Within."


Friday, January 14, 2011

Betontanc and Umka.lv at MCA

This was a wonderful surprise.

Betontanc, a Slovinian dance company and and Umka.lv a Latvian puppet theater company follows the "seemingly insignificant and faceless person named Little Branko travels through the 20th century with a marvelous voice that rivets the world’s leaders."

http://mcachicago.org/performances/past/all/2011/620

Sunday, January 09, 2011

Bookclub: McTeague

Ms. B-H's choice and Ms. B was the host. A weird book, but glad to have it on our list.

Friday, January 07, 2011

Emerson String Quartet

Nice program with fragments of two unfinished works by Haydn and Mendelssohn: the Quartet in D minor, Op. 103, and, respectively, the “Andante and Scherzo,” Op. 81.











From the Sun-Times review:

"With Hyde Park looking like a snow globe on Friday night, Mandel Hall warmly showcased the 30-plus year old ensemble in top form. The program was compelling and ranged seamlessly from the sweetly propulsive music of Mendelssohn to the bleakly lunar soundscapes of Alban Berg. Yet it was a distinct Emerson specialty — Debussy’s magnificent G Minor Quartet (1893) — that left everyone hypnotized. Here was a dynamic performance where a perfectly good encore — in Friday’s case, the scherzo from Mendelssohn’s Op. 44, No. 3 — almost spoiled the palate."