It Can't Happen Here

The book club's selection was Sinclair Lewis's It Can't Happen Here. Everyone agreed it took some time (maybe page 80) to get into, but then it was worth the read. And man, did the book spawn some side bar conversations. Current politics. The sad state of current politics. Could it happen here?

Book Club: It Can't Happen Here

It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis

Everyone agreed that this took some time to get into (the first 100 pages were a little tough) but it ended up being a great read and inspired a really lively, wide-ranging discussion.

Othello: Don't Turn Out the Lights

We saw a very respectable production of Othello at the Chicago Shakes. It was also national "Turn Out the Lights" night, so when they got to the line "Put out the light, and then put out the light," well...

And oh, yes, Carolina put out the lights on L'ville, and UCLA put out the lights on Xavier.

St. Patrick with Ms. MNM

Faithful readers will know it's our custom to refer to persons as Mr. X and Ms. Y, but you do have to know we spent a fabulous St. Paddy's with Mary Nell Murphy, her Viking husband, and friends. Lots of people read Seamus Heaney, but I preferred to introduce the crew to Jonathan Richman's classic "Just Because I'm Irish, He Thinks I Should Know Every Irish Bar in Manhattan."

The Attempters at the House

From Hedy Weiss's review from the Sun-Times.

"The Attempters is a high school musical (as opposed to High School Musical) as only Chicago's House Theatre might imagine it. That means it contains goofily high-flying brainiac language, a star in the form of a fervent dilettante determined to seal his immortality at age 17, a rail-thin "silent type" rock 'n' roller from Downstate as his nemesis, an oddly remote therapist for a dad, a straight-talking stepmom with bad kitchen karma and a hyperactive groupie and serious drama girl for love interest."


We went with a group, and afterwards went out to Coalfire for some New Haven style pizza. Yum.

Ms. S in Vancouver; Duke v. Carolina

Ms. S went to Vancouver for a work conference (where her room had a pretty good view) and I stayed home and watched Duke v. Carolina.

A talk by R. Myerson (aka Mr. Nobel Prize 2007)

The title of the talk:
Force and Restraint in a Dangerous World: A Game Theorists Perspective

For me, this was a reprise of Roger's Humanities Festival talk (and yes, faithful readers of Burn My Clothes, Ma! will remember that my teacher and mentor Patty Nelson Limerick gave a talk that day following Roger) but the difference is...and it kind of glows...he's got a Nobel Prize now.

Dinner with U of C friends

We went to a lovely dinner with friends from the U of Chicago who live relatively close to us. It was a great group, and we discovered that Ms. G (our host) has a checklist of visiting every state in the Union. You have to stay overnight to make it count...

Denver and Boulder

I was in Denver for work, a great lecture by Mac Gibson from the Oriental Institute on 3,500 years of Mesopotamian history, and five years of total destruction of sites during the war. Depressing. Ms. S came along and we had a lovely stay at the Brown Palace. Then it was up to Boulder to see Mom. Ms. S did some work to get her set up for a test drive in power wheelchair. I went on to LA for work, where I got in a Matthew Broderick sighting.

Fragments and Susan Marshall

This actually turned out to be a great day of theatre, but the matinée production of Samuel Beckett's Fragments at Chicago Shakes was the highlight. Stunning. Stunning. Stunning.














From Chris Jones's review in the Tribune:

"Brook's collection of five short, rarely seen Beckett playlets, mostly penned in the 1950s, lasts an hour. In keeping with the 82-year-old Brook's longtime minimalist aesthetic, which grows ever more minimal, there is, well, a minimum of scenery and other accouterments beyond the voice and body of the actor. Jos Houben, Kathryn Hunter and Marcello Magni, three veterans of the justly renowned Theatre de Complicite, are traversing two oceans and three continents performing and re-performing, and thus perfecting, the same few minutes of acting in "Rough for Theatre I," "Rockaby," "Act Without Words II," "Neither," and "Come and Go." And given that Beckett was notorious for choreographing on the page every beat on the stage, this isn't exactly keep-it-fresh improv. It's a progressive journey into the depths of Beckett's creative soul. Whatever else you may think about this show, I guarantee you'll sense the unusual depth of the subterranean voyage."

In the evening we saw Susan Marshall & Company at The Dance Center with a performance of the Bessie Award-winning Cloudless. From Columbia's blub: "Structured as a collection of poetic short stories, Cloudless consists of 18 brief dances that gather emotional force as the evening progresses. Distilled to the edge of abstraction, the choreography ranges from explosive marriages of physical theatre and formality to intimate dances that use minimal elements to maximum effect."

Titus at Court

I'm a big fan of Charlie Newell, but this production of Titus Andronicus didn't quite cut it for me.


















The conceit was a play-within-a-play, set in the semipresent at “a meeting of an elite brotherhood.” Still, it's always a pleasure seeing Timothy Edward Kane and Kevin Gudahl on stage.

Good Boys and True: Duke at UNC

Good Boys and True at Steppenwolf. The play got a little cliched in second act, but there were some stunning performances.

Oh yeah, and those other Good Boys and True? Duke over Carolina at UNC. Rockin'!

Book Club: Go Tell It On the Mountain

Ms. B-H, who has a masters in music, chose Go Tell It On the Mountain as the selection.

NYC

A work trip to NYC, but there was some frivolity. Saw Ms. T, my niece, for a lovely dinner at Resette, and saw Tom Stoppard's Rock and Roll.

Rock and Roll: It's August 1968, and Russian tanks are rolling in to Prague... Jan, the Czech student, lives for rock music, Max, the English professor, lives for Communism, and Esme, the flower child, is high. By 1990, the tanks are rolling out, the Stones are rolling in and idealism has hit the wall. Stoppard's sweeping and passionate play spans two countries, three generations and 22 turbulent years, at the end of which, love remains — and so does rock 'n' roll. A great cast, but Rufus Sewell was really, really terrific.

St. Joan at Chicago Shakespeare

Shaw's St. Joan by the the Shaw Festival of Canada.

I liked this review from Variety:

"Tara Rosling plays the 17-year-old Joan, and though she's assisted by Kevin Lamotte's expressive lighting, she really does put forth her own glow. She's a true believer among a lot of logical thinkers, and Rosling really gets the fundamental contradiction about Joan that drives the entire play: She's inspiring, and also a little -- OK, more than a little -- insufferable. It's very easy to grasp how the rest of the characters, so passionately reasonable and reasonably passionate, could follow her to the barricades and then root for her burning. Despite her skill, this really doesn't come off as a huge star turn for Rosling. The ensemble shines.
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