In the Next Room (or the vibrator play) - Highly Recommended

Sarah Ruhl's 2009 Tony-nominated play receives a top-shelf treatment by the actors and staff of the Victory Gardens Theatre. Directed by VG veteran Sandy Shinner, the play weaves together a broad range of issues and story lines without ever appearing too heavy or contrived. The humor is spontaneous and evocative, and the writing overall is elegant - taut, poetic, and incisive.

The cast of seven is well up to the challenge, even in preview. While some of the characters are broadly drawn, and the delivery is often intentionally "stuffy Victorian," we have no doubt that these are real people, and each of them faces real personal challenges.

Those challenges include infant mortality, infidelity, emotional isolation, racism and the strictures society places on strong women and homosexuality. To tackle any one of these effectively in a single play would be a treat; In the Next Room gives us enough of a taste of each that we know we have shared a new intimacy with those who face those struggles.

And yet the play never really loses its "light," produced by Mr. Edison's harnessing of electricity in both optical and mechanical ways. Ms. Ruhl offers up delightful one-liners ("Would you rather a Negro Protestant or an Irish Catholic?"), the nearly-mandatory excoriation of critics, and an interesting interpretation of the relationship between love and poetry. Clearly, she is having a great deal of fun with this play - fun she effectively invites us to share with her.

As for the vibrators? Oh, they are present, and while the application of those tools is discreet, the "paroxysms" of the patients to whom they are applied are compelling and superbly timed. The material is never prurient, but it is intimate - which is really what this play is all about.

Can intimacy become mechanical? Can the mechanical spark genuine intimacy? Are we "meat and bones," or do our souls live a couple of inches outside our eyes? Come enjoy the delicate handling that In the Other Room provides to these issues, and prepare to be tickled - and touched - by this wonderful production.

Strangers and Romance - Highly Recommended

These two one-act plays by Barbara Lhota are produced at the Trap Door Theatre, which is in itself an intriguing place to encounter. Set at the back of a narrow alley - after which one crosses a hallway joining two restaurants and enters through a door that looks like it belongs to a storage room - it is the first theater I've encountered where the "directions" page on its website offers extra assistance if you get lost. But it's well worth the trek!

The stage itself is spartan - don't be fooled by the promotional shots of the production, this is theater on a shoestring. And, with that in mind, I lowered my expectations a bit as to the quality of the productions, which proved reasonable for the first play, "Strangers" - but not for the second, "Romance." It is in fact on the strength of "Romance" that I give the evening a "Highly Recommended."

I would still recommend "Strangers," but it is the weaker of the two productions, and they are best presented in the order that I presume director Doug Long chose. In it, Maddie (Misti Patrella) and Madison (Tony Ketcham, in a strong performance) encounter each other through a clever device that Ms. Lhota uses to great advantage, establishing an accelerating pace to angst and discovery that builds nicely to a fine crescendo. The reveals are well-timed, and what (falsely) appears to be a forced performance in the opening scene serves the plot well. The given locale of Boston is purely incidental, and rightly fades from our attention before very long, as the accents of the actors are decidedly mid-Western.

It took a while for the audience to warm up to the humor (in a reasonably full house), which I take to be more of a commentary on the strength of the performances than of the material. The material that we are presented with is difficult, and the use of humor is correct, and eventually allows us to go deeper. The closing is, in my opinion, a little too tidy for the challenges facing the characters, but not so egregiously so that it becomes unbelievable.

With "Romance," we are presented with what seems to be greater maturity all around: in the writing, the acting, and the depth of knowledge with which the playwright faced the issues. Also incidentally set in Boston,  it is Timothy Amos (in the role of Mick) who "gets" the accent and keeps his character well-grounded in the roots of his geography; the only failing of Stacie Barra (as Miriam) is that she does not match his talent there.

The weakest part of the play is in the transition from distance to intimacy, and I suspect that is mainly due to the constraints of time. The performances are impressive, again in particular by Mr. Amos. Ultimately, the resolution is less easy and more believable, with more loose ends - and more possibilities. Ms. Lhota is able to display her talents at humor here as well, conveyed effectively by the cast and appreciated by the audience.

The underlying question in each play - that of managing loss in an intimate relationship - is nicely explored in very different ways by each character. The contrived settings - just before closing at a T stop and in the basement chapel in a church - are easily forgiven and add sufficient color to help paint the pictures that the men and women grapple with.

So, take the time to travel down a narrow alley through a back door into some of the more hidden, but far from uncommon, corners of relationships. It will be an evening well worth the price of admission.

Pornography - Recommended

This was not the play I expected, and I'm still not sure how I feel about that. One thing I can say for certain is that I wish I had seen it with friends so we could debrief afterwards. For that reason it lingers in "Recommended" land, but clearly tottering between "Highly Recommended" and "Somewhat Recommended."

Pornography by Simon Stephen is mounted with great skill by the Steep Theatre Company. Declared to be about the 2005 bombings in London, it seems to have little to do with either that terrifying day or pornography. Or does it? (As a disclaimer, my daughter was in London that day, and not far from the King's Cross bombing when it happened. So I have more than a little attachment to the topic).

Presented as six vignettes - four monologues and two dialogues - all that the characters share is the common time frame of the bombing, and the fact that all of them are touched by it in some way, if in some cases only indirectly. One of the terrorists is one of the characters, but if you did not know he was the terrorist, he would not be the most disturbing character you encounter.

The program notes give the logistics of, and asks a half-dozen pointed questions about, the bombing - none of which are directly addressed by the play. Which is all pretty much an unrealized teaser: we are promised a look into the dark underside of humanity, an exploration of what forces are at play to create events such as these, and instead, we are given six carefully drawn vignettes of 8(+1) characters who happen to be touched by three common events: the selection of London as the site for the 2012 Olympics, the Live 8 concert, and the terrorist bombings.

The staging and acting are excellent. The use of television screens to punctuate the vignettes is well-executed, and the images that flash through the major transitions are intriguing. One of the most successful technical aspects was the lighting of the six spare mini-stages: it is fluid and dynamic, and becomes a vital part of the grammar of each presentation.

Each of the characters is elegantly drawn and superbly realized. There is no doubt in my mind that - with the possible exception of the terrorist - these are very real people who happened to step into the play and expose themselves to us in a very intimate manner. The one exception is the terrorist, who seemed far too distant from the mission he was on, in a manner that I expect was an attempt to humanize him but for me simply made him less believable. Mind you, I wasn't expecting frothing fundamentalism, but the absence of any political dialogue seemed, well, wrong.

So where is the pornography? Is it a wry reflection on what the playwright thinks is necessary to draw people to a play? Who among the characters was obscene? With the possible exception of the first character, each seemed engaged in something that society would frown upon, even if it was merely the vulgar language of an 83-year-old woman.

There are many other questions to be mined from this play, but as I said before, they are best addressed with friends who attend the show. Left to an internal monologue, it's not clear if they are the desperate search for quality in a muddied script, or the enticements of a genuinely rich undertaking.

So see the play, and let me know what you think!

The Double - Highly Recommended

The opening volley in Babes with Blades' 2011-2012 season, The Double, should firmly establish in anyone's mind that this troupe is one of the more talented community ensembles that Chicago has to offer.

Even though seen in preview, the script was tight, the acting was first-class, and the "violence" was predictably top-shelf. There were, of course, the usual number of minor preview glitches, but these did nothing to detract from the show and, in fact, demonstrated the strength of the production in the way they were quickly left behind.

The script, the company's first foray into comedy, was crafted by Barbara Lhota, and reflects an endearment for the company, the period (1930s), and the genre. The comedy is broad but not slapstick, and clearly the actors are enjoying themselves as the plot unfolds and the mayhem begins.

Particularly strong in their parts were Lisa Herceg as Rosalind Rollins and Gillian Humiston as Minnie Sparks, but it should be said that there isn't a wooden nickel in the batch. And the direction by Leigh Barrett is crisp and clear - with so many story lines and actors to manage, she made the unfolding seem effortless.

Of course, what would a BwB production be without great stage violence, realized by Libby Beyreis? The Double builds nicely to a crescendo of swashbuckling derring-do that is simultaneously thrilling and comical. Given the imaginative multiplication of combatants and the swishing of blades across the entire stage, it was a treat to observe such skill and choreography from the front row.

What could be improved? Minor points, mostly: a few linguistic anachronisms creep in (being "freaked out" or "disrespected"), and there were a few times when the audience wasn't certain whether the time to applaud had come. Also, the first 15 minutes or so seemed a little muddier in exposition than they ideally might have been, but it wasn't long after that the roles and characters were sufficiently clear.

The long and the short of it, bub, is to find your way to this production at the Lincoln Square Theatre before it closes in late September!

A Beautiful Spell - Recommended

It had to happen. I managed to see two plays - penned by different playwrights, performed by different actors and produced in different venues - that bear such a strong resemblance to each other that comparisons are, for me, nearly impossible to avoid. Therefore, I'll postpone the comparison until the end of this entry.

A Beautiful Spell, from the pen of Greg Kalleres and presented at the Royal George Theatre, starts with the disquieting premise that one can awaken in the middle of the night with a terror sufficient to turn your world upside down. In this case, the terror is Franny's, who has the shattering experience of discovering she no longer loves her husband of nine years, Jim.

It's a rather intellectual premise that quickly gains solid footing under the talented performances of Maggie Corbett and Eric Burgher. The writing is both believable and fluid, making the several round trips necessary between angst and humor that are necessary for a story of this sort. The staging is in the round, so that the audience is close to this intimate struggle in every sense. And the set - the couple's bedroom - is for the most part very well executed, although the use of plastic for the windows was a distraction that could have been avoided without (it would seem) much additional expense.

The story itself seemed a little long, since the revelations that come don't deepen our understanding of the characters significantly, and so some of the middle section started to get repetitive. This was offset, though, by Mr. Kalleres' comedic talents and the vigor of the performances.

The question in stories like this is how they will be resolved, and I will not give away the ending. However, the penultimate moment is quite stirring, and the closing in good counterpoint to it.

So, why only "Recommended?" Here's where the comparison starts to rear its head, but I will nonetheless attempt to remain objective.

Basically, the story lacked an "edge." It raised the question of Tevye and Golde - if being married for all these years isn't love, what is? - in a way that was, for me, just a shade too intellectual. The presumed insecurities which kept the banter going made it seem too often more like curiosity than soul searching. The premise opened a door to darker passages, but no one ever really stepped through them.

The other play? "50 Words," which was presented at Profiles Theatre with almost identical staging, premise and setting (two parents of a young boy who discover their marital problems, set in the kitchen rather than the bedroom). That was a darker, edgier, bawdier, and far more difficult play. Were it in production, I would have no problem recommending which to choose. But, if you're looking for a less troubling, well-acted and written exchange between a young couple discovering that marriage ain't all it's cracked up to be, your time and money would be well spent at "A Beautiful Spell."

The Front Page - Highly Recommended

I am now officially a fan of the TimeLine Theatre. Their staging of Ben Hecht's and Charles MacArthur's "The Front Page" was gritty, intelligent, funny, challenging, and clever. The acting was top-shelf, the set (in the round) was stunning and engaging, and - in short - this production represents the best of what theater has to offer - not just local theater, but Theater.

As if that weren't enough, the wealth of educational materials - both in the lobby and online - draws one even further into the story and its historical roots. Again, kudos to TimeLine!

"A Front Page" is a challenging play to mount: I know a little bit about this, as I had the good fortune to be a "fly on the wall" on an excellent college production a half-dozen years ago. The pacing is frenetic; dialogue is constantly overlapping; and the topics - the ethics of news and politics, capital punishment, racism, misogyny - are serious. Many subsequent reworkings of the play (such as the Howard Hawks film "His Girl Friday") discard the darker side to emphasize the comedic strengths of the work, but this production is ample proof that such guttings do a great disservice to the playwrights.

For those unaware of the basics, it is the eve of Earl Williams' execution for murdering a "colored" policeman, and all the action takes place in the press room, where reporters from eight different Chicago newspapers first fend off boredom and then attempt to cope with the chaos that ensues when plans for the execution go awry. The other line of tension comes from the imminent departure of star reporter Hildy Johnson, who is about to be married and is leaving to take an advertising job in New York.

All the corruption for which Chicago is rightly or wrongly famous is exposed in this bit of historical fiction, which is broadly based on real newspapers, characters and events, but is clearly more fiction than fact.

The choice of presenting this in the round is inspired; having seen it in this form, I can't imagine a traditional approach working anywhere near as well. The acting is flawless, and the technical challenges of entries, exits, phones ringing and gallows falling are overcome in what seems to be an effortless manner. The pathos of Molly, Earl and even to some extent Mrs. Schlosser are well-defined.

I would say more about the play, but I fear it would amount to simple gushing. This is a production that has it all: run quickly to the TimeLine and see this before its last show on June 17!

Middletown - Somewhat Recommended

Full disclosure: following seeing Middletown, a recent play by Will Eno staged at the Steppenwolf, I sat in on a brief discussion session led by the Assistant Dramaturg. In trying to isolate the impact of that provocative discussion, I believe my opinion of the play was briefly raised and then, post-discussion, lowered.

Middletown is two-act play with a unique middle that is, in many ways and in all its parts, too clever for its own britches. A cerebral pastiche of wry, intellectual humor adorns the first act, treating the audience to many good laughs and plenty of assaults on the fourth wall. Even the typical "here are the exits" monologue is clever, funny, and oddly out of place.

Throughout the first act, a darkness is hinted at - in particular, the darkness of isolation and loneliness - amidst the rollicking humor. At its most extreme, a violent encounter between the Cop and the Mechanic seems poised to open up a truly dark, festering world beneath, but that promise (like many others) is never fully realized. Rather, it is more like (as one of my intrepid colleagues suggested) a Seinfeld episode where nothing ever happens, but without the attachment to the characters that that show engendered.

The second act steps off the light-hearted cliff and takes us down into a world that is still unpredictable, where the characters largely don't matter, but where the humor is less frequent and the isolation more profound. Even there, though, there is not enough darkness to engage us: just enough to leave us tasting loneliness, seeing it all around us, without enough hope to lift us up or enough terror to get us to rebel.

It is, ultimately, a profoundly lonely play without any discernible hope or purpose.

Technically, the set is sparse and clever, matching the text of the play. The direction is a conundrum to me: the first act seemed much "flatter" to me than the second, but I remain uncertain as to whether that was the staging, the acting, the material or just an off night. I doubt the last two, as the audience seemed to react well to the humor, but again - it's a mystery.

So why do I recommend this play at all?

The writing in the first act is genuinely superior, and executed (by and large) quite well. The pseudo-opening and pseudo-intermission are quite clever, and therefore at least half the play is intriguing, entertaining, and plays with conventions in a manner that is often surprising. And, as a result of the dramaturg's knowledge and enthusiasm, I see that there are more tropes and depth to the play that are worthy of discovery and discussion.

Armed with a half-priced ticket, I'd say it's well worth the investment of time and money. But be prepared for the drain on your emotions.