I seem to be on the mailing list of all arts organizations in Chicago, so I get a lot of invitations to benefits and special events, subscription offers, ticket discount codes, donation and gift-giving requests, solicitations to be on a kidney donor list, etc. etc. Both my mailbox at home and my email inbox are filled to the brim with mailings from a variety of arts groups, which is terrific since I get to see what are coming up in the very dynamic, very busy Chicago cultural calendar. I was particularly thrilled to get the attractive glossy brochures for the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre’s World Stage Series, beginning November 21 and Chicago Opera Theater’s 2008 spring season, beginning April 30, 2008. These two companies have delivered knock-out, brilliant, world-class productions in the past so that I was reaching for the phone and my credit card even as I was thumbing through the marketing materials.
Although Chicago is an important and very active theatre town, I think there is still some level of insularity in the theatre community, amongst both artists and audiences alike, who sometimes forget that there is a big, wide world out there, outside of the United States, where theatre and performance is being re-thought and re-discovered in a million different ways. One can say a lot of things about the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, and certainly there was a lot of cacophony last year when it’s skeletons in the closet tumbled out (well, specifically on how much it paid, or not paid, it’s Equity actors given it’s stratospheric ticket prices and the corporate C-suite executive-level salary of it’s Executive Director), but one thing that it should get credit for is it’s tirelessness in bringing the best of international theatre to Chicago. Last year, Chicago Shakes brought over Cheek by Jowl, the internationally acclaimed UK-based theatre company, highly-regarded for its stripped-down, re-invented versions of the classical repertory, and it’s magnificent all-male production of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night”, spoken in Russian, and containing samba numbers(!), which was one of my most glorious evenings spent at the theatre. This year’s offerings are phenomenal: James Thierree’s circus extravaganza “Au Revoir, Parapluie”, which has already been ecstatically received in Europe, and which Chicagoans will see before New Yorkers do (it’s part of the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival); the Shaw Festival of Canada’s production of “Saint Joan”, which brings Ben Carlson back to Chicago where he was a fantastic Hamlet at Chicago Shakespeare two years ago; and the one that makes my heart flutter, my stomach rise, my chest heave, and my groin tingle (well, as much as your groin can tingle when talking about theatre!), Peter Brook’s production of Samuel Beckett’s one-act plays starring members of the Theatre de la Complicite ensemble, called “Fragments”. Reading the description of “Fragments” and thinking about this unbelievable confluence of theatrical giants, I started to salivate like a Sumo wrestler, who had just ended a hunger strike, at a Las Vegas buffet!
I am also very much an admirer of the Chicago Opera Theater (COT), who produces opera for us gals and guys who don’t need Boniva. Their production of “The Marriage of Figaro” a couple of seasons ago, set in Miami Beach, with text messaging standing in for the letter-writing in the original story, and where the Count spent the entire first act displaying a muscular hairy chest and wearing leopard-print swimming trunks, was original, hip and hoppin’, highly enjoyable, and a fabulous introduction to anyone who ever thought opera was stuffy, pretentious, outdated “stuff” for the blue-plate-special crowd. Last year’s astounding “Nixon in China”, proved that the COT is not only dazzlingly of-the-moment, but could also give the Lyric Opera tough competition for memorable, timeless productions. The 2008 season begins with Mozart’s “Don Giovanni”, and then continues on with Handel’s “Orlando” and the Midwest premiere of ”Nixon” composer John Adam’s new work “A Flowering Tree”, which is supposedly a combination of “The Magic Flute” and an Indian folk story. This is especially notable because Adams will be conducting the first two performances of the opera. Speaking of John Adams, his “Doctor Atomic” about the creators of the atomic bomb, and directed by stage L’enfant terrible Peter Sellars begins performances at the Lyric Opera on December 14, and has already perked the interest of all kinds of folks, opera and non-opera aficionados alike (including my bot-programming, Suduku-puzzle-Halloween-costume-wearing buddy, Erik!).
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