In the spirit of constructive feedback, my friend Joel suggested I add a blog section listing any upcoming performances I’m attending, so folks like you, my dear, devoted readers, could decide whether you would want to attend the same shows or performances, as well. That’s probably not going to happen any time soon, since my preciously scarce blog real estate is already quite packed with Twitter feeds, blog rolls, and a listing of shows I had recently attended (which provides a general indication of what potentially would be content for upcoming postings). However, I do listen to my friends suggestions, even if they’re delivered a little curmudgeonly (and I say that lovingly, Joel!), so here then are some of the performances I’m planning to go to this month. February in all its cold, snowy glory is always seen as the “dead zone” of the Chicago winter season, but if you judge by the number of intriguing, lively, potentially can’t-miss shows, it’s probably more equivalent to July in Maui, arts-wise.
If there’s only one play you’re going to see this quarter, then I enthusiastically, loudly, fiercely encourage you to go to Tarell Alvin McCraney’s brilliant, exhilarating, unforgettable The Brother/Sister Plays at Steppenwolf’s Upstairs Theater. Actually make that two plays, since The Brother Plays (Brothers Size and Marcus; Or the Secret of Sweet) play in repertory on consecutive nights with The Sister Play (In the Red or Brown Water). I’ve been to one breathtaking night already and I’m scheduled to go to another one tonight, so expect a blog post on these plays later this week. I seriously doubt the chops and the commitment of any self-described theater lover who misses these wondrous nights, especially since they’re running till mid-May.
The Goodman is indisputably the lair of ill-mannered theatergoers that deserve to be tasered into silence and immobility, as this post from Rob Kozlowski’s blog hilariously, but also truthfully depicts. But I think I can brave the wild so to speak to see the Philip Seymour Hoffman-directed world premiere of Brett C. Leonard’s The Long Red Road about an alcoholic’s wrestling with his dark, tortuous past, set on a South Dakota Indian reservation. I’m not really sure what to expect, but I’ve always respected Hoffmann’s choice of material as actor and director, on stage and screen, so I’ve purchased my ticket for this already. Plus, the hotter-than-a-Bhut-Jolokia-pepper British actor Tom Hardy (who was in Band of Brothers and RocknRolla) is playing the lead, so if the play turns out to be less than engaging, there’s still plenty of eye candy to go around.
Speaking of eye candy, the brilliant, intense, one-can’t-ever-have-enough-seconds-of actor Stephen Louis Grush isn’t appearing in his storefront theater company Thirteen Pocket’s newest production, Adore, part of the Steppenwolf Visiting Company Initiative mini-Festival this month at the Steppenwolf Garage (the other two theater companies who are participating are Dog&Pony and The Pavement Group). He is writer and director of the piece though, which is based on a true story which grabbed headlines in the early 2000s in which a man in rural Germany posts an online ad looking for another male to eat (yeah, eat, as in Hannibal Lecter cannibalistic feasting), and actually found someone who agreed to it. It’s also supposedly being staged as a live play and as a film, which I think may just make Adore potentially one of the most talked about plays this month.
I’m also planning to make another trek this month to that black box theater on the 4th floor of a warehouse building by the Irving Park and Ravenswood railroad tracks, for The Right Brain Project’s production of local playwright Randall Colburn’s play Pretty Penny which is about phone sex operators, staged without sets and props. Interesting. Hopefully, there will be clothes!
Since I’m an equal opportunity arts consumer, I traipse around from warehouses and railroad tracks to well…the MCA, where I’ll be seeing British contemporary dance sensation Akram Khan’s work bahok (or Bengali for “carrier”), a collaboration with the National Ballet of China, exploring themes of multi-cultural and multi-national identity. It’s a topic I’m very passionate about and I’m very interested to see how Khan, whose mega-talent has attracted such diverse artistic collaborators as Juliette Binoche, Anish Kapoor, and Kylie Minogue (whose “iconic gay goddess” status allows me to forgive her from stealing the walking hotness of Olivier Martinez away from us gay boys) tackles its complexity and potency.
Speaking of mega-talent, or mega-ballsiness or mega-ambition or mega-insanity, or maybe all of it, there’s the Building Stage’s six-hour, non-singing theatrical adaptation of Richard Wagner’s The Ring Cycle. Looks like co-directors and co-adaptors Blake Montgomery and Joannie Schultz are giving Wagner purists a kick in the groin with this admittedly imaginative, mind-blowingly courageous adaptation, and I can’t wait to join them! Maybe I’ll see some of you there as well. (Joel, I’m looking at you!)
Tags: Akram Khan Company, Goodman Theatre, MCA Chicago, Steppenwolf Theatre, The Building Stage, The Right Brain Project, Thirteen Pocket
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