Theater Criticism
NSangou Njikam’s Syncing Ink at The Flea
Time Out New York
October 8, 2017
Directed by the Flea’s Niegel Smith at the company’s brand-new Sam Cohn Theater space, Syncing Ink seamlessly incorporates music and dance into a cohesive structure that feels all its own. Hip-hop here is spiritual, elemental and integral to the play’s world: It’s in the language, the physicality, the architecture.
The New Colony’s ReWILDing Genius at Steppenwolf
Time Out Chicago
March 14, 2014
Say what you will about my generation's political discourse—the Occupiers, the hacktivists, the article-sharers, the public-shamers—but for many of us, our eyes are open, even if they're most often directed at a screen.
Philip Dawkins’ Miss Marx, or, the Involuntary Side-Effect of Living at Straw Dog
Time Out Chicago
February 27, 2014
Where most would go for grit or melodrama, Dawkins creates an enchantingly elevated world with a heart-tugging nostalgic sheen, punctuated by a streak of Marx Brothers humor.
Tristan Tzara’s The Gas Heart at The Nine
Time Out Chicago
November 13, 2013
The Nine is an independently-produced nine-play cycle, a mix of world premieres and established works, all experimental and all free. For Part Four, the ensemble dusts off Tristan Tzara’s 1921 The Gas Heart, a significant work of Dada theatre.
Cyrano de Bergerac at Chicago Shakespeare Theater
Time Out Chicago
October 2, 2013
Chicago Shakespeare Theater reunites Harry Groener and Penny Metropulos, the actor-director team behind its acclaimed 2011 production of The Madness of George III, to bring us Cyrano de Bergerac, Edmond Rostand's play about an extraordinary poet cursed with a remarkably large nose and an impossible love.
Bron Bratten’s Sweet Child of Mine at Neo-Futurists
Time Out Chicago
September 10, 2013
It can be hard to explain, let alone justify, the life of an artist to your parents. Bron Batten, Melbourne-based experimental theater artist and co-creative producer of the Last Tuesday Society, decided to try something different: include them in it.
Sheila Callaghan’s Lascivious Something at Signal Ensemble Theatre
Time Out Chicago
May 5, 2013
Its beauty contrasts perfectly with the nasty sexual power plays that gnaw at its foundation throughout. Similar surface-reality contrasts occur in the play’s use of time, including an intriguingly disorienting use of instant-replay that reveals subtext and takes it to its unbridled cathartic conclusion before pulling it back within modern boundaries of politeness.
Naomi Wallace’s Slaughter City at Prop Theatre
Time Out Chicago
June 13, 2013
Welcome to Slaughter City: land of callous, manipulative bosses, dehumanizing work and powerless unions. Naomi Wallace’s mammoth, poetic work takes on the perpetual struggle of capitalism. Cod, Roach, Maggot and Brandon work the meat in a slaughterhouse, terrorized by their boss Mr. Baquin and fed-up Supervisor Tuck. Conflicts of class, race and sex have come to a head and the system is on the brink of collapse. The entrance of the mysterious old-school capitalist Sausage Man (Linsey Falls) pushes things over the edge.
Miodrag Stanisavljevic’s The Silent Language at TUTA
Time Out Chicago
April 21, 2013
The rich lighting design and bright, organic music make the environment feel expansive and vivid, while the strong physicality and commitment of the performers to each role makes every encounter a delight.At times gleeful, at others mesmerizing, The Silent Language will remind you of when you were young enough for fairytales, when wonder and danger could be found in a backyard, and maybe you could even hear the blades of grass.