Theatre with a side of life
Reviewed by Kevin Porter Steppenwolf Theatre Company presents DANCE NATION. Dreams. Hopes. Desires. Needs. Is there ever a time where these concerns are of greater import than age 13? The required casting of actors all across the age spectrum in Dance Nation made me think Clare Barron believes these concerns are just as towering, dramatic, and exciting at each point of ...
Steppenwolf Theatre presents TRUE WEST. Austin (played by Jon Michael Hill) is working on a screenplay while housesitting for his mom. When his brother Lee (played by Namir Smallwood) shows up unexpectedly, the pair are forced to grapple with aspirations and competition. Austin is married and an established writer. Lee is a fast-talking drifter with big ...
Steppenwolf Theatre Company presents the Chicago premiere of THE CHILDREN. Playwright Lucy Kirkwood layers the intrigue in her play about the fallout from a disaster. The cautionary tale describes home life post nuclear explosion. Survivors are living in designated safe zones. Water, food, and electricity are valuable rations. Her doomsday scenario is palpable. Kirkwood drops us into a ...
Steppenwolf Theatre presents the Chicago premiere of A DOLL’S HOUSE, PART 2. ‘What happened next?’ is a question pondered at the end of many stories. The ambitious Lucas Hnath decides to answer that question in his sequel to Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. Ibsen ended his play with Nora, a nineteenth century wife and mother, walking ...
Steppenwolf Theatre presents the World Premiere of LA RUTA. Mexican women are being hunted in their own home country. Over the last few decades, it’s been reported 1,400 have been killed and thousands more are still missing. Women disappear. If they reappear, they have been raped, mutilated, dismembered, killed. Thousands remain missing. These ‘lost’ women are ...
Steppenwolf Theatre presents FAMILIAR. Playwright Danai Gurira introduces us to a somewhat typical Minnesota family. The Zimbabwean-American parents (played by Ora Jones and Cedric Young) bicker over TV. Their free-spirited daughter (played by Celeste M. Cooper) ruminates over the family not reading her blog. Their eldest daughter (played by Lanise Antoine Shelley) has become a fervent ...
Steppenwolf Presents the World Premiere Production of "The Doppelgänger (an international farce)". Fans of the TV comedy "The Office" get their Dwight Shrute fix in Steppenwolf's latest show. Rainn Wilson plays a wealthy British businessman, an American doofus and then the doofus pretending to be the Brit business guy. The Doppelgänger sounds like an ideal sitcom plot ...
Steppenwolf Theatre for Young Adults presents THE CRUCIBLE. Playwright Arthur Miller's ode to the 1692 Salem witch trials has eery hints to contemporary issues. Although Miller debuted his play in 1953, loud whispers to 2017 madness are present. The story boils down to using religion to justify killing non-christians. In this case, it's a group of ...
Steppenwolf Theatre presents the Chicago premiere of THE REMBRANDT. A Rembrandt painting is the focal point of Playwright Jessica Dickey's tale. It's the portrait of Aristotle with his hand on a bust of Homer's head. Dickey attempts to connect life to art and art to life over centuries. She draws parallels between the admirers of the ...