I am not a theater critic but I have been devoted to covering theater since my early 1980s reports on the explosion of Chicago storefront theaters for National Public Radio. On The Mara Tapp Show in the 1990s, I was honored to host weekly conversations about and offer scenes from some of Chicago’s best shows, and delighted when those interviews filled houses for our local theaters.
In 2015, at the request of friends, I started a series of emails with recommendations for shows I thought worthy of patrons. Some years later, actors, directors and publicity people in Chicago’s theater world prevailed on me to share these raves, a request I accepted, especially in light of the increasing tensions in the theater world and need to keep Chicago theaters healthy. Read more…
Find out what the critics think at the Review Round-up on the website of TheatreInChicago.com.
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Raves
At the Wake of a Dead Drag Queen
The Story Theater at Raven Theatre through May 25
Highly Recommended
From the moment you are handed a fan instead of a program, you know you are in for an evening that will be hot and heavy – and I mean that in every sense of those words. Fortunately, it also turns out to be a lot of fun. The best funerals, wakes and memorials are ones that embody the deceased while giving the living a place to mourn and celebrate them. Terry Guest’s At the Wake of a Dead Drag Queen does just that with sass and style.
This is an homage to Guest’s Uncle Anthony, who died of AIDS at 35, and Guest makes liberal use of the facts of his uncle’s life. Guest wrote his piece about a Black drag queen in the rural South during Donald Trump’s first term as president. Its 2019 premiere was a hit. Now that Guest is 35, the age at which his uncle died, and the rights and safety of Blacks and LBGTQ+ people are again in danger, it seemed the piece needed to be done again.
As Courtney Berringers, Guest is a splendid drag queen, bejeweled, well-wigged and wrapped in skintight shimmery gowns as he lip syncs and struts his way through songs including the iconic showstopper “I’m Every Woman.” Offstage he is more raw and real, revealing a tender side in affairs of the heart and family history. Equally impressive is Paul Michael Thomson, reprising his role as Vicky Versailles, the drag queen of Courtney’s dreams – mostly. Thomson is a co-star of equal talent who never steals the spotlight. Under the fine direction of Mikael Burke, who’s done excellent work on other Chicago stages including the premiere of this show, these two play with and off each other with relish.
In this time of so many troubles, it seems right to be reminded that AIDS is still with us, along with a growing list of other illnesses and evils. It also seems necessary that we face this continuing killer and our times with heart, strength and humor. From the minute Courtney Berringer steps onstage to welcome us to her wake, we can tell it will be a deliciously wild ride filled with flash and the pain that comes with hearing the truth and we will be uplifted along the way.
Wonderful Writer Preview
Ocean Vuong: The Emperor of Gladness. A conversation on loss, hope, and second chances
Chicago Humanities Spring 2025 Festival, Athenaeum Center for Thought & Culture, May 22, 7 PM
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous left me breathless when I encountered it shortly after its 2019 release, not only for its beauty but because it was a startling fresh voice. I listened to its author, Vietnamese-American Poet Ocean Vuong, read, which endowed it with even more meaning and sadness than is sometimes the case with authors or audiobooks. I like hearing and telling stories, one of the reasons I became an audiobook addict, and this one stood out even among those narrated by the best actors and readers.
Vuong’s first novel, a poem/letter to his mother, is ripe with glorious imagery, pain and insight so it was not just his reading that lifted this book to my shelf of favorites. I was aware from the first page that there was something arrestingly different about his talent. That perspective comes from having read thousands of novels and poems, interviewed hundreds of authors and spent some time as a reader and Poetry Co-editor for the nearly 80-year-old Chicago Review.
I still rave about On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous to friends and acquaintances because it is still very much with me. If you’ve not read it, do!
My continuing passion about the book why I can’t wait to hear Vuong talk about his new novel, The Emperor of Gladness, at Chicago Humanities Spring 2025 Festival. There are still some tickets left and you can find them, and a list of other programs, at Events – Chicago Humanities Festival.
Raves
Hymn
Chicago Shakespeare Theater through May 25
Highly Recommended
Sometimes intimacy offers insights that get lost in a larger play, and so it is with the show now at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, a paean to Black men and their relationships.
Discovering unknown siblings born out of wedlock is not a new story – just look to Steppenwolf’s recent Fool for Love, the searing and tragic rural white take on this matter – but there are many intelligent nuances in Hymn that lift it to a different level. Here two brothers in their 50s discover their biological connection at their father’s funeral. They then try figure out what that means, and how to cope with these new family dynamics that connect their previously unfamiliar relatives. Such a surprise can offer people a chance to remake themselves but it also introduces them to the ugly reality of an unsavory and upsetting side of a parent they thought they knew.
Playwright Lolita Chakrabarti relocated Hymn to the South side of Chicago after its successful London world premiere, and that part of our city offers a believable home for this love song to the power of brotherly bonds and Black male friendship. The characters and settings were familiar to me and will be to anyone who’s from or has visited friends on Chicago’s South Side. The friend who accompanied me found herself particularly moved as a Black woman. Yet those details, and the top-notch actors, made this specific location both unique and universal. No doubt that is thanks to Ron OJ Parson’s hallmark spot-on and sensitive directing, and the talents of his cast.
James Vincent Meredith’s applies his usual versatile skill to Gil, the older brother, nimbly navigating the changes of a man who appears successful and strong but goes through much in Hymn. Chiké Johnson is a persuasive Benny, the younger brother who seems to be the less fortunate and weaker of the two at the start of the play. Johnson expertly reveals his many sides and strengths. A scene in the gym where the duo works out together reveals the realities of each man with humor. The two are at their best when they are bonding while dancing to the songs that were part of their separate youths. In fact, music is very present in this play whether it in the ‘80s songs that are impossible not to move along to or because of a piano that has a powerful though usually silent presence.
Yvonne Miranda’s costumes define each man yet change with the times and with their wearers while advancing the story. Rasean’s Davonté Johnson’s projections put us smack dab in South-side homes, junk rooms, gyms and more.
Hymn is a tribute to Black male friendship, to brotherhood, to fathers and how we measure up and fail them that you don’t want to miss. It will make you laugh, touch you and help you understand the complexities of these lives we live.