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."

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."

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

Bookclub: McTeague

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

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."

Home at Court

Chris Jones, Tribune: "Cephus Miles (in many ways a cipher, but one that bleeds and cries) finds himself buffeted — mostly by social forces he can't control, from rural Crossroads, N.C., to a Vietnam-era prison to the mean streets of 1970s New York — you also see an encapsulation of most of the nation's fault lines during a tumultuous American century. You also see a full-throated celebration of the American farmer, tied, albeit extricably, to the land."

Romeo and Juliet at Chicago Shakes

Chris Jones, Tribune: "At the end of “Romeo and Juliet,” as the two most famous lovers in dramatic literature lie bloodied on Navy Pier, a strange notion pops into your head. It's probably just as well they're both dead, you think. It would never have lasted anyway. Heck, we never even see it get started. That is all one strange takeaway from a performance of the greatest love story ever told, but then Gale Edwards' Chicago Shakespeare Theater production is about the most cynical “Romeo and Juliet” you're ever likely to see. Love conquers nothing here. Love is nowhere near the theater."

Billy Elliot

Went with a crew of people to see this at Broadway in Chicago. Always love ballet on stage, but wasn't wild about this. The flying harness was fun.

Peter Pan at Lookingglass

Kind of lost the dramatic thread of the story, but yea, fight choreography by Matt Hawkins, and yea, Molly Brennan rollicking all over the place.

Yasuko Yokoshi

Tyler Tyler deconstructs The Tale of the Heike, an episodic recounting of the battles between two 12th-century Japanese clans, using speech, movement, and music to deliver shards of elliptically structured stories. The pace can be glacial, but the six performers--three American, three Japanese--switch costumes and performance styles with head-spinning speed, mixing and matching places and eras.

Detroit

Chris Jones, Tribune: "It’s high time indeed for a major new play about the soul-destroying layoffs, the collapse in real estate values and the general economic malaise that has gripped much of this land, up-ended our social hierarchies and, for many, turned the middle-class suburban dream into a greasy fireman’s pole with snapping turtles at its base. Lisa D’Amour’s “Detroit” — the aptness of the setting is obvious from the one-word title — is such a play. Steppenwolf, long the one theater in America that has paid attention to the lives of the Midwestern middle class, is on point in offering a world premiere that certainly won’t increase your sense of personal comfort."

Chorus Line

Wow! A great production, very fresh, very...Chicago! Waaaay the heck out at the Marriott, but fun.

Sankai Juku

Mr. P was out of town for this one, but Ms. S went with Ms. V.

The internationally acclaimed Sankai Juku makes its Chicago debut on the Harris Theater stage with Amagatsu's signature work, Hibiki: Resonance from From Away. Performed in a dreamlike landscape of sand and water, the dancers, with shaved heads and bodies smeared with white powder, weave elemental movements into a delicate slow motion dance, uniting the audience in a truly hypnotic dance experience

Joffrey All Stars

Balanchine’s Stravinsky Violin Concerto
Jerome Robbins’ The Concert
Christopher Wheeldon’s After the Rain

Suicide Incorporated

Michael Patrick Thornton and cast were terrific in this. Tiny, tiny theatre. Intense.