Theatre By Numbers

Because Chicago audiences are unlikely to have seen Chicago Immersive Theater’s brand of collaborative problem solving theater, I want to be careful not to divulge too much about their “Grace and the Hanukkah Miracle” premiere. Creators Jacqueline Stone, Anderson Lawfer, Nicole Bloomsmith and Becca Braun have conceived a sweet, site-specific adventure that’s perfect if you have a multitude of young and old charges, spanning the faith spectrum. Director Jacqueline Stone and the creative team have ensured there is something to keep minds and hands occupied around every corner. 

In this immersive experience, audiences are greeted by Irving Walker (Anderson Lawfer) and Sir Cyrus (Julian Stroop), two time-travelers spanning the centuries with one mission: find a priceless menorah treasured by Irving’s wife Grace (Nicole Bloomsmith), lost for generations. Clues to its whereabouts have been hidden in the past, so we must visit as many previous December eighths as possible, looking for locked safes and the clues that will open them. So they don’t end up creating a paradox, Walker is sending the audience in his place with Cyrus to explore his wife’s past and locate the menorah. There may be hints with their daughter Sarah (Laura Nelson) and her wife Ruth (Becca Braun), or with Grace’s 1950s vaudevillian Grandfather Eli (Dan Cobbler), or her Holocaust era great-grandparents Mildred (also Bloomsmith) and Jonathan (Andrew Bailes).

Think of it like a series of escape rooms, or a very gentle LARP that even the youngest members of a cozy audience could grasp and participate in. It’s the sort of environment built to encourage collaboration, speaking up, and obeying the “yes, and” principal of improvisation when a time-jumping anomaly asks for your help. To move on in each pocket of time, you have to remember numbers, phrases, and hebrew symbols symbols, and use them to decode your next steps. You might also be invited to share something small, like a joke or a dance, with your group. Any audience member who is well versed in story structure can see what will happen before it does, but performers cue an atmosphere of patience and generosity; the puzzle isn’t solved until the smallest of us understands it. 

Aside from our central conflict against time, each character pairing we see is a solid example of loving marriage or working partnership. Anderson Lawfer as Irving Walker and Julian Stroop as Sir Cyrus are unflappable time professionals and devoted friends, with Stroop’s mad-scientist musings forwarding the whole experiment. Dan Cobbler turns to us as Eli Applebaum, a new comedian on the vaudeville circuit who just needs some new material to set him apart. Other wholesome pairings include Becca Braun as the Rabbi Ruth with Laura Nelson as Sarah,  a patient school teacher and wife to Ruth. There is nothing as sweet as the pairing of Andrew Bailes as Jonathan and Nicole Bloomsmith as Mildred, a couple escaping the holocaust, but who can still surprise each other with little gifts and love notes. 

For every jaded attendee, like myself, whose sense of wonderment has been whittled down to a nub, and is just content to have a pleasant afternoon, there are attendees for whom this experience will feel essential and aesthetic informing. This show is absolutely for them. 

DICE RATING: d10 — “Worth Going To“

TEN WORD SUMMARY: Get lost in the past to find a Hanukkah treasure. 

Show: “Grace and the Hanukkah Miracle”

Company: Chicago Immersive Theatre

Venue: Grace Lutheran Church (1430 South Blvd Evanston, IL)

We’re encroaching on feel-good theater season; when the days get shorter, temperatures drop, and theater companies swap their usual biting fare for something a little more marshmallowy. Firebrand Theatre’s production of Ted Swindley’s “Always … Patsy Cline” has the feel of a wild-card entry in that arena, but it’s friendly, approachable, ageless, and packed to the brim with sugar. What this musical lacks in nutritional value, it easily makes up for with an intimate and twangy quartet, and a pair of tenacious singers who make themselves at home with anyone close to their thrust stage.  

“Always … Patsy Cline” is based on a real life letter correspondence kept up for years between  Louise Seger, a Texas divorcee, and Patsy Cline (each is played on alternating days by Harmony France and Christina Hall). Louise is the biggest Patsy Cline fan you will ever meet; she gets her first earful while watching Cline’s 1957 national television debut, and develops an obsession strong enough to annoy her boss, kids and the local radio host. When the singer appears in the flesh at a nearby honky tonk, Louise gets up the courage to introduce herself, and it’s the start of a much needed friendship for both. 

This production is so endearing, tear-jerking, and assertively friendly, it makes me wish director Brigitte Ditmars had invested a percentage of that energy to tackle the pitfalls that distract from it. The script holds Patsy Cline herself in such saintly reverence, she can feel sketched thinner than a placard on a museum wall. This can can come across as slowness or trepidation sometimes, as we wait for more meaty substance like Louise’s stories, or Patsy’s songs. It’s a sweet narrative shared between two hard-workin’, God-fearin’ white women, and while it’s very impressive they can swap roles at the drop of a hat, it still feels very safe. There’s room for more risk-taking, or a better projected reason why this show is important for Chicago audiences today.

Don’t worry — while the script may be a bit dusty, these performers do their real-life counterparts justice and then some. With twenty-seven songs on her docket, Harmony France was an astounding, high-belting Patsy Cline for the evening. There’s a deep thread of loneliness in her performance, highlighting that Cline had to fend for her pittance while her male counterparts got easy support. As Louise Seger, Christina Hall spends her evening flirting, dancing, and buttering up the audience. If you’re in her sight line, you are fair game for getting entangled in the proceedings of her story. This is her honky tonk; we all just live in it.  

Kudos especially to musical director Andra Velis Simon, for assembling her backing quartet with mostly female musicians and musicians of color. It’s a nice touch, given that the script expects an all-male band and has gone to the trouble of giving them all red-neck nicknames. So, if you need holiday fare, but you’re done with Dickens, and your nuts have been cracked, there’s always Patsy Cline.

DICE RATING: d12 — Heckuva Good Show

TEN WORD SUMMARY: This country-fried duo radiates warmth at a leisurely pace.

Show: “Always … Patsy Cline”

Company: Firebrand Theatre

Venue: The Den Theatre (1331 N Milwaukee Ave)

“Beast Women” is a long-running revue in Chicago, dedicated to the showcasing of women performers, whose talents range from burlesque to stand-up comedy to hula hooping. Curated by Jill Erickson and Michelle Power, this weekly fall revue is playing every Saturday through December 14th, and is well worth the time for fans of the unusual and the awesome.

Power serves as a wonderfully game emcee for the evening’s events; “Beast Women” rotates performers from week to week, so each attendee is likely to get a different performance depending on the Saturday they chose to attend. I can say that my experience with this past Saturday was full of amazing feats, from aerial work to impressive comedic burlesque pieces. The late night programming vibe at the Prop is rowdy and game for anything, with Power doing an excellent job pumping up the audience by leading us in a call and response: “Are you ready?” she asked. “Hell, yeah!” we shouted loudly back at her. The energy between performer and audience was made profoundly clear, and the anything goes nature at play led to an entertaining evening of amazing feats.

Erickson and Power have brought together a good group of performers. Of particular note was Fancy Fontina, a burlesque performer who entered the theatre space in a Vegas showgirl-type costume, only with multiple cheese graters hanging from her garter belts. As the dance progressed, each cheese grater was used to grate a hunk of cheese on Fancy herself, to the delight and shrieks from the audience. “Beast Women” clearly provides entertainment one will not see anywhere else in Chicago, and this is underlined by Fontina’s fellow performers, with Piper executing a flawless belly dancer routine, Roberta Miles deadpanning a rip-roaring story about a dude who will not leave her alone, and The McCrystalizor hooping to a mix of understated music and Charlie Chaplin’s moving monologue about humanity from “The Great Dictator.”

All in all, if you are looking for a wonderful night of talent you will not see curated anywhere else, check out the fall series of “Beast Women” performances. 

DICE RATING: d12 — “Heckuva Good Show”

TEN WORD SUMMARY: These Beast Woman provide thrills and entertainment in amazing revue.

Show: “Beast Women”

Venue: Prop Thtr (3502 N Elston Ave)

Sometimes a musical gives you a terrific slice of local talent, with inspired staging, and unfailing enthusiasm to smooth over any rough bits. That’s Pride Films and Plays’ production of “A Man of No Importance” in a nutshell: an industrial boiler of a show, delivering warmth and humor enough to combat the wildest Chicago polar vortex. The production is set to extend for one more week until Sunday, November 17th. 

Director Donterrio Johnson and music director Robert Ollis have amassed a sprawling cast, and highlighted their vocal and instrumental idiosyncrasies to lovely effect. The stage never feels crowded, the pace is never slow; and in an intimate venue, with performers within a hair’s breadth of the audience, you rarely see the seams of this musical. Not every song is a barn-burner, and not every stage conceit rings true, but there’s enough charm in this staging to wipe the slate.  

Alfie (Ryan Lanning) is a repressed bus conductor, feeling increasingly out of place in early sixties Dublin. He can anchor a mildly talented/ultra-enthusiastic theater troupe, deflect his sister Lily’s (Kimberly Lawson, u/s) concerns, assure Father Kenny (Ian Rigg) his production of “Salome” won’t cause the church controversy, even cast his leading lady, Adele (Ciera Dawn), sight unseen. No sweat. But Alfie is terrified by his own desires in a way he can’t share with anyone. His fondness for affable bus driver Robbie (Nick Arceo), coupled with a crippling obsession with Oscar Wilde, could be the perfect storm to permit Alfie the boldness to love who he really wants. 

“A Man of No Importance” is not without some pitfalls from the 2002 Lynn Ahrens, Stephen Flaherty, and Terrence McNally libretto. We’re treated to a few unsatisfying musical tangents and moments of small town bigotry that grind proceedings to a halt. There’s also something off about an apparition of Oscar Wilde (Kevin O’Connell) who should be a more haunting presence, but blends in too well with actual bodies onstage to evoke the right sense of foreboding/inviting. Script issues aside, the principal and supporting cast are a diverse, joyful and well oiled machine. As Lily Bryne,  understudy Kimberly Lawson lets loose with pithy zingers, painting Alfie’s sister as a proud curmudgeon that doesn’t soften so much as find a new direction for her ire. As bus driver Robbie Faye, Nick Arceo is open and freewheeling, but with a modicum of slippery added in for anyone asking the wrong questions about his personal life.

If it’s brilliance you want, look no further than Ciera Dawn as Adele Rice, another adept secret-keeper so steeped in anger and forboding for the future, that you feel her surprise at meeting people that embrace her wholeheartedly. Ryan Lanning’s Alfie Byrne is compelling beyond anything. It’s the smile with pain at the corners, the posture that hides him in an oncoming rush of wool coats, or the look of absolute panic when he’s sure you can see right through him. I feel the same knee-jerk protectiveness about Lannings’ Alfie that I usually reserve for adorable Pixar creatures; if anyone hurts him in the slightest, I will cry a bathtub of tears. The concept that “A Man of No Importance” traffics in is simple; queerness cannot be a tragedy or a tool of exclusion. In the right community, queerness makes you even more necessary. 

DICE RATING: d12 –– “Heckuva Good Show“

TEN WORD SUMMARY: It’s never too late for a charming Irish sexual awakening.

Show: “A Man of No Importance”

Company: Pride Films & Plays

Venue: Pride Arts Center (4139 N Broadway)

“P.Y.G or The Mis-Edumacation of Dorian Belle” has a lot to say about appropriation and authenticity, alongside covering a metric ton of other subjects and theatrical styles. Beyond acting as a reality show satire, an adaptation of Shaw’s “Pygmalion,” and a dramatic exercise in dunking on Justin Bieber, the play explores much about the way we interact across races and cultures. Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm’s script, combined with Lili-Anne Brown’s direction makes for a winning combination in a story that stops being nice and, slightly dulling to its impact in the end, starts getting real

Alexand Da Great (Tevion Devin Lanier) and Blacky Blackerson (Eric Gerard) are two Chicago — actually, Black is from Naperville, Xand reminds him — rappers on the cusp of major fame. They agree to star in a reality show with, as well as live with Canadian pop star Dorian Belle (Garrett Young), in an effort to gain more exposure with a larger (read: white) audience, and to make “white people bread.” Dorian wants to make music with them, having recently fallen in love with hip hop. But in order for this white artist to make authentic music, Xand and Black must school him in the ways of their art form. What starts as a series of lessons in history, and putting rocks in Dorian’s mouth to give him a growlier sound, quickly morphs into an unwanted transformation, where Xand and Black must examine whether or not they are losing their own authenticity and sense of self during the project. 

Chisholm’s script covers a lot of ground, but does so with a ton of invention and humor. Characters not only hold Real World-style confessionals, they also speak their deepest thoughts off the cuff directly to the audience, and at one point, literally mark their territory. Xand and Black question what it means to hold the spotlight as black men, something Dorian cannot possibly understand. Digs are made at polished music, such as “Hamilton” and boy band-style pop, with real world violence and injustice creeping in at the corners of every dialogue the men share. The inventiveness compliments Chisholm’s theatricality, which embraces the over-the-top nature of reality TV performances, while allowing character foibles to outstrip even the curated presentations they make of themselves. The scene work borders on the absurd at times, and if the playwright cannot sustain such an energetic dramatic build all the way through the play’s conclusion, that may partly be the point. The questions Alexand Da Great, Blacky Blackerson, and Dorian Belle tackle are not easily answered, so providing any clear answer at all to their conflict might tarnish the progress they have made together.

Brown continues to be one of the most dynamic directors in Chicago. She encourages actors to make physical choices, and it pays off well in “P.Y.G.,” with Gerard darting from place to place with smoothness and presence, and Young putting on a hip hop artist air that is at once awkward and endearing. Stuck between the two is Lanier, whose quiet, no-nonsense demeanor marks him the most practical and clear-eyed of the trio. The friction between the men is never less than surprising, and sparks of joy are given their full moment, so that tension bubbling under the surface never drowns out the characters’ sincere appreciation for one another.

Interstitial, absurd commercials for products such as “De-Woke Spray” and “Soundtrax” (a product that allows white people to coolly enter a room to music made and performed by black artists) abound throughout the production. They are cleverly constructed, as they were clearly shot with Jackalope members and friends, and filmed throughout or near familiar Chicago haunts. This homemade, kitschy feel makes the content of the commercials land even harder, as the separate standards held for white people and people of color mount over and over in a ridiculous world that is, sadly, an all-too-recognizable one.

Ultimately, it is hard to encapsulate how good this production is, how big it goes; it hits hard and fast, contains all manner of delightful performances, and speaks to now in a way that can be rare for new plays. Check it out if you’re a fan of electric, thoughtful theatre.

DICE RATING: d20 — “One Of The Best”

TEN WORD SUMMARY: Rap, reality, and absurdity combine in this electric comedy-drama.

Show: “P.Y.G. or The Mis-Edumacation of Dorian Belle”

Company: Jackalope Theatre Company

Venue: The Broadway Armory (5917 N Broadway)

Before the action gets going in Strawdog’s “The Effect,” a projection at the back of the stage helpfully informs the audience that an experiment is about to begin. Said experiment refers to the onstage drug trial being monitored and endured by the production’s characters, but it could just as well refer to the performance of the play itself, which like any experiment, is testing out a hypothesis on a gathered group of test subjects, aka, the audience. As questions about identity and perception swirl around the performers, the viewers are invited to draw conclusions based on the scenes playing out in front of them. Of course, like all people, test subjects have biases, and it’s to this production’s credit that I found myself considering a wild variety of positions about the uses and misuses of medication without experiencing judgment or ridicule.

Directed by Elly Green with a game cast, “The Effects” follows Connie (Daniela Pereira) and Tristan (Sam Hubbard), two young adults who have entered into a weeks-long drug trial to test out a new antidepressant on healthy subjects. Dr. Lorna James (Justine C. Turner), hired by old flame and pharmaceutical conference hot-shot Toby (Cary Shoda), is carefully watching their progress while fighting demons of her own. Tristan is already flirtatious and impulsive, and the doses he’s given heighten his feelings and choices; he quickly becomes infatuated with Connie, the only woman on the trial. She is more hesitant than Tristan, less sure of the reality they both admit to experiencing. Are the drugs responsible for their increasing dopamine levels, and thus responsible for their attraction? If there is an external cause for their romance, does that invalidate their feelings? Are we really ourselves if we are using a substance in order to modify our moods and behavior

Playwright Lucy Prebble’s script could move into some dangerous territory by posing these questions. As long as there have been antidepressant medications available, there has been a backlash to said meds. Many, many people and professionals swear by the positive effect and efficacy of such drugs. Some claim there is no way to anticipate their long-term effects on users. Others claim exercise and exposure to nature will transform one’s mental health completely, without the addition of chemicals. Still others would claim that there is disquiet to be found in taking pills to become a different, potentially better version of yourself. I am not nearly qualified to comment on all these stances, though each is given a certain amount of discussion in “The Effect,” at once astute and perhaps a little mistrusting of its audience’s intelligence, when long-winded discussions of science get in the way of the flesh and blood relationships onstage. I know I came into the play biased — as everyone is, Toby helpfully points out — by my own use of Ritalin over the course of my chilhood into my twenties. You change when you are on medication; the first difference my mother noticed was that my handwriting transformed from overly large yet somehow cramped scrawl into neat, pretty cursive. But I would never say medication turned me into a fraud; it helped me become the writer I am today. However, by giving voice to worries in her script, Prebble is able to plum deep anxieties we all have about the nature of free will and choice, and she does so with humanity and surprise, particularly in regard to Lorna’s journey from antidepressant doubter to potential believer.

Pereira and Hubbard develop a rough and complex chemistry as their relationship develops. Hubbard does not shy away from Tristan’s pushiness and sleaziness in his opening flirtations. Pereira embraces Connie’s reservations without judgment, and allows a fuller expression of passion to build over time, so when the two test subjects finally collide, director Green’s stage pictures feel monumental, sharp, and enthralling. Turner has a subtler dynamic to craft with Shoda, and if it takes most of the production’s run-time for them to reach a satisfying emotional resonance, that’s more to blame more on the script’s pacing than on Green’s work with the performers.

Yeaji Kim’s scenic design and projections feel clean and clinical, while Claire Chrzan and John Kelly’s intermittently flashing white and red lights take you from a hospital room to someplace warmer and more intimate with ease. Leah Hummel’s costumes feel just right, particularly during the transformation from street clothes to drab patient wear.

“The Effect” could well be called an experiment on audience bias. It challenges those watching, and if the production does not come to any firm conclusions, that is as it should be. When posing questions about what we all do to make our lives livable, the answer lies ultimately in each of us.

DICE RATING: d12 — “Heckuva Good Show”

TEN WORD SUMMARY: Experiment in how romance forms, with alarming questions at play.

Show: “The Effect”

Company: Strawdog Theatre Company

Venue: Strawdog Theatre Company (1802 W Berenice Ave)