The big Chicago theater news today (every theater blog and theater website has an article on it) of course is the much-awaited announcement of Steppenwolf’s 2008-2009 season. How much can I hyperventilate before reaching another plane of consciousness (or maybe just woozily fall flat on my face)? The season opener is Frank Galati’s new adaptation of Haruki Murukami’s Kafka on the Seashore which is one hell of a phenomenal book. I love, love Murukami’s works (and I’m in good company, I guess, because people as diverse as Wong Kar Wai and Adam Rapp have hailed his works as inspiration for their own) and, regardless of the tepid reception it received among the critical community and the Steppenwolf audience alike, I was very much enthralled by Galati’s adaptation of After the Quake, Murukami’s very soulful collection of short stories, which was part of Steppenwolf’s 2005-2006 season. Kafka on the Seashore is much stronger material, and I think a more mellow, mature one, with still the unique brand of Japanese magical realism and very inward-focused writing that Murukami is known for, but it’s also full of melancholy reflection – the novel reads very adult and worldly. I am very excited to see what Galati does with the book and which themes he keeps, removes or tones down (there is a whole incest angle that is one of the creepier things about the book), so if there is one must-see show of the season I think this is it. I am neutral, rather than excited with the rest of the shows (although I am intrigued by how Tina Landau and Steppenwolf will tackle Shakespeare, represented in the season by The Tempest), and I am absolutely perplexed why Yasmin Reza’s Art is included. I agree with From the Ledge friend and Francis’s own personal paragon for theatre criticism, Time Out Chicago’s theater critic, Kris Vire, when he writes in the TOC blog that the selection of this particular work is quite baffling especially given a 2007-2008 season that saw three world premieres and August: Osage County’s Broadway triumph. You’d think a play that is as bland and undistinguished as the artwork that is central to its dramatic narrative, and which has been, and is continuing to be done, by many community theaters and high school drama departments, will be rather incongruous in the season of a theater that is on a roll with staging challenging, intriguing, provocative, take-no-prisoners works that has widespread critical and audience acclaim. I saw the Broadway staging of Art a decade ago with Alan Alda and Alfred Molina and I really thought it was kind of much ado about nothing back then. Well, maybe the magic of Steppenwolf can do wonders with this piece. (I’m sure my friend Jonathan is polishing the poison apple given my skewering of one of his favorites). And watch out for Conor McPherson’s Dublin Carol, which is not part of the subscription season, starring CSI’s William Petersen, and directed by the woman-who-can-do-no-wrong, magnificent Amy Morton.
Other Chicago theaters have started to announce their upcoming seasons, which continues to solidify Chicago’s reputation for being the center of theater in North America (take that New York City!). The centerpiece of the Goodman season is the Eugene O’Neil festival with Brian Dennehy performing in Desire Under the Elms. Hmmm, yeah, I need a Eugene O’Neil festival as much as I needed cement blocks inside my To Boot leather shoes. The Goodman is also staging Tom Stoppard’s Rock n’Roll, which I saw earlier this year in New York and was vastly disappointed in (read my blog post about it here), directed by the Court Theatre’s Charlie Newell. Speaking of the Court, Chris Jones has the scoop on its season, which still has two unannounced plays. Here I am hyperventilating again with the Court’s planned production, co-presented with MCA Chicago, of Ibsen’s The Wild Duck, in a new translation by Richard Nelson. After that wild, memorable re-conception of Titus Andronicus I saw in January, I’ll give up sex and chocolates for a month just to see what ideas are percolating in Newell’s head as he tackles Ibsen. But I think the boldest, most audacious, most ball-busting season announced so far has got to be the American Theater Company’s under the baton of new Artistic Director, PJ Papparelli. With works such as the supposedly-Broadway bound musical from Urinetown creators Greg Kotis and Mark Hollman, Yeast Nation: the Triumph of Life, about, well,pre-historic yeasts (!) living under a tyrannical regime (!!), with an 80s-meets-disco musical score (!!!), the newest work from the writers of The Laramie Project about the Guyana cult tragedy, and a world premiere from The Cook’s Eduardo Machado, I might just be spending many a weekend night at Byron and Lincoln this fall and next winter.
Oh, and the House Theater also announced their season, with the centerpiece being an original work developed by Artistic Director Nathan Allen with the students of Hope College in Michigan called Rose and the Rime. I guess it’s going to be yet another seminal work about adolescence from the House. And it’s getting a one-night only staging at the Kennedy Center iin Washington DC in April as part of the American College Theatre Festival (that’s Chris Jones hyperventilating, not me). I think I’ll get myself some Ibsen instead.
This is the last sports-related blog posting title for a while…I promise, Doug K!
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