Articles by Lawrence B. Johnson
Chicago Symphony unveils Fritz Reiner bust; honor overdue, says advocate Riccardo Muti
Report: The burning gaze of Fritz Reiner, who presided as sixth music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 1953-62, is back in full daunting view at Symphony Center, where on June 14 the CSO unveiled a new bust of the conductor that will greet visitors henceforth in the center’s outer lobby.
Pianist’s CSO debut in Beethoven concerto spins spotlight in a mainly Mozart program
Review: For anyone who heard 34-year-old German pianist Martin Helmchen’s scintillating Chicago Symphony Orchestra debut June 9, the only question is surely this: When will the masterly pianist, a formidable presence in Europe since he won the Clara Haskil International Competition 15 years ago, return to Chicago not only to perform with the orchestra again but to play a recital in the Symphony Center Presents series?
With the Bard’s world as stage, Lyric’s Ryan singers, Civic Orchestra share a night of opera
Review: So much talent bound up in such great and joyous commitment. That was the resonant vibe at a Shakespeare-themed concert collaboration between the young professional singers from the Ryan Opera Center training program at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the pre-professional training ensemble run by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
‘Death of a Streetcar Named Virginia Woolf’: Angst, slow pizza and fast laughs at Writers
Review: Never mind the arcane title of the play, “Death of a Streetcar Named Virginia Woolf,” which, yes, seems familiar in a vaguely disconcerting way. You know you’re face to face with existential authenticity the moment Blanche Dubois’ voice drops an octave, plunging as if into a steamy bath of lurid sensuality. From there, it becomes a challenge for every viewer, a game of dicey drama and riotous laughter in the black box at the new Writers Theatre. ★★★★★
‘The Realization of Emily Linder’ at Redtwist: Mom’s ready for death, but not without toes
Review: Life, suggests Richard Strand’s play “The Realization of Emil Linder,” is like a stack of DVDs. What’s in it for you depends on how you look at it. That warm and fuzzy proposition, couched within dark comedy, makes for an amusing if fairly bizarre night out at Redtwist Theatre. ★★★
‘Jerusalem’ at Profiles: Retreating from life’s troubles in a camper, striking a careless pose
Review: He’s Peter Pan to a collection of lost boys in the Neverland of an English woods, the Wizard of Oz beguiling these Munchkins with an endless supply of drugs and booze and empty intimations that this is as good as a happy home gets. Meet Johnny “Rooster” Byron, detached soul and intractable, irreducible anti-hero of Jez Butterworth’s play “Jerusalem.” His wholly credible embodiment by Darrell W. Cox at Profiles Theatre stands among the high points of the Chicago season. ★★★★
Old friend of the CSO, Charles Dutoit returns, this time amid shades of Stravinsky and Falla
Interview: Conductor Charles Dutoit’s relationship with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is old and close. But even more deeply rooted in the Swiss-born maestro’s artistic persona is the music, by Manuel de Falla and Igor Stravinsky, that he leads on consecutive May weekends back at the helm of the CSO. In a chat with Chicago On the Aisle, Dutoit recalls vividly the special circumstances of his early experiences involving both composers.
‘Mary Page Marlowe’ at Steppenwolf: In Letts’ new play, woman adrift searches for an anchor
Review: It was a happy announcement for a theater company, but happier still for any theater buff within driving distance of Chicago: Steppenwolf’s decision to extend the run of Tracy Letts’ psychologically incisive and finely crafted new play “Mary Page Marlowe.” This brilliant existential portrait of a woman out of touch with herself, lost to the world, and seemingly condemned to her lot from birth, bears a qualitative stamp worthy of “August: Osage County,” which brought Letts the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. ★★★★★
Role Playing: Danny McCarthy, pushing broom in ‘The Flick,’ finds vital pulse in long silences
Interview: Danny McCarthy calls it a sweeping-dance, the closely choreographed stretches of, well, sweeping that often – and silently – occupy the two men at the center of Annie Baker’s play “The Flick,” winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, at Steppenwolf Theatre. “Actually, you try to stay mentally active while you’re out there,” says McCarthy, who plays Sam, a quiet man in his mid-thirties who works on the cleanup crew at a small movie house, clearing away the night’s detritus, and grapples with the haunting malaise in his life.
‘The King and I’ at Lyric Opera: Royal treat, princely delight, courtly jewel, etc., etc., etc.
Review: Even amid the multi-year run of successes the Lyric Opera of Chicago has enjoyed in its annual spring offerings of great American musicals, the current production of Rogers and Hammerstein’s “The King and I” is exceptional, a theatrical experience as visually and musically resplendent as it is emotionally true. ★★★★★
Pianist Yefim Bronfman delivers a grand tour of fire and poetry in Prokofiev ‘war sonatas’
Review: Pianist Yefim Bronfman brought his traveling cycle of Prokofiev’s three so-called “war sonatas” to Orchestra Hall on May 1, and a mesmerizing, virtuosic portrait of the composer in wartime it was. The sonatas represent not so much a sequence of tone paintings of a shattered world as they do states of mind of a keenly attuned composer – one who had, with profound yearning, returned to the bosom of his mother country in the early 1930s after years of wandering in the West.
Bella Voce choristers, and an organ virtuoso, illuminate path back through choral history
Review: Chicago’s intimate chamber choir Bella Voce closed its 2015-16 season April 24 with an intriguing performance of Anglican choral works encompassing six centuries. One needed only to note the enthusiasm of the capacity audience gathered in Evanston’s St. Luke’s Episcopal Church to understand why Bella Voce has established itself as one of the pleasures of Chicago’s burgeoning choral music scene.
In concert, Muti and a well-rounded Falstaff bathe Verdi’s bittersweet opera in telling light
Review: Amid all its other virtues, and those are manifold, there is a refreshing, illuminating transparency and uncluttered purity in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra concert presentation of Verdi’s opera “Falstaff.” Its co-stars are baritone Ambroglio Maestri in the title role, at the head of a splendid cast, and CSO music director Riccardo Muti on the podium.
In ‘Bullets Over Broadway,’ that rat-a-tat-tat could be tommy gun or sound of tap shoes
Interview: Cheech is just a garden variety thug, a gangster, a hit man – who proves to be the creative genius behind a hapless playwright in the musical “Bullets Over Broadway.” And Jeffrey Brooks, who plays this heavy with the fine dramatic touch, says Cheech is also “the most real character of them all, the one with the most heart.”
‘Arcadia’ at Writers: Stoppard’s fine-spun play proves ideal opener for Glencoe’s new house
Review: If a play, off the shelf as it were, could be tailor-made for the unveiling of a distinctive new theater, Tom Stoppard’s “Arcadia,” an intellectual romp with a touch of tragedy, is the perfect inaugural raiment for Writers’ splendid new home in Glencoe. ★★★★★
CSO Chorus joins city salute to Shakespeare with tragedy, comedy from Berlioz and Verdi
Preview: The Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus help to observe the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death in April with performances of two major works under the baton of CSO music director Riccard Muti – Berlioz’s dramatic symphony “Roméo et Juliette” and a concert version of Verdi’s last opera, “Falstaff.” The demands the two works place on the chorus, says director Duain Wolfe, could hardly be more different.
‘The Matchmaker’ at Goodman: A (very) funny thing happens when sly widow decides to wed
Review: It’s Dolly’s world, the charming milieu and crazy circumstances of Thornton Wilder’s perdurable farce “The Matchmaker.” All the other characters on stage just live in it. So say hello to a delightful Dolly whose world is well worth a visit in the Goodman Theatre production starring — with a capital S — Kristine Nielsen. ★★★★
‘Othello’ at Chicago Shakespeare: Evil cedes center stage to a figure tragic and splendid
Review: What is so striking about the current, altogether marvelous production of “Othello” at Chicago Shakespeare Theater is that the beleaguered Moor is no mere catalyst in the very events of which he is the object, but rather presents himself as a man – a great military general — worthy of his reputation. In the person of James Vincent Meredith’s Othello, and in the care of British director Jonathan Munby, Shakespeare’s play for once does not seem to be first and foremost about Iago. ★★★★★
‘Long Day’s Journey Into Night’ at Court: Dissembling, denial and a family on the edge
Review: The Court Theatre’s production of Eugene O’Neill’s brutal masterpiece “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” is the blazing star of Chicago’s stage season. Here, with a magnificent cast directed by David Auburn, is a close-up photograph of the human condition at its most vulnerable, unretouched and utterly devastating. ★★★★★
Role Playing: Mierka Girten, actor with MS, knows wound behind her character’s scars
Interview: In the most intimate and empathic way, Mierka Girten connects with Trinket Dugan, the character she plays with disarming honesty in Tennessee Williams’ “The Mutilated” at A Red Orchid Theatre. Actor and character share deep, physical, albeit invisible, wounds.The big difference is that while Trinket conceals her mastectomy – her mutilation — in sorrow and shame, Girten talks openly about the multiple sclerosis she has struggled with since her days as a drama student at DePaul University.
‘2666’ at Goodman: Epic saga of lust, murder and other scholarly pursuits in old Mexico
Review: After five and a half hours spent watching the dramatic evolution of “2666,” the adaptation by Robert Falls and Seth Bockley of Roberto Bolaño’s sprawling novel at the Goodman Theatre, I could think only of that sublimely ironic lyric made famous by Peggy Lee: Is that all there is?This ambitious enterprise affords a goodly share of rewards along its meandering narrative as a sort of whodunit for intellectuals. But in the end, in its totality, “2666” as theater is a shaggy-dog story of St. Bernard proportions. ★★★
Salonen, embracing history and the present, leads CSO anniversary concert to celebrate
Review: Conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen’s recent concerts with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra came as a multifaceted, indeed exhilarating reminder of the CSO’s grand legacy and at the same time pointed up the orchestra’s undiminished prowess as well as its still-rising arc of achievement.
Baritone Hvorostovsky, in poignant recital, rewards ardent fans with profound singing
Review: The excitement surrounding Dmitri Hvorostovsky’s solo recital presented by the Lyric Opera of Chicago, on Feb. 26, was palpable even blocks away from the opera house, in an enormous din of anticipatory chatter in the parking garage elevator – much of it in Russian as that sizable Chicago community turned out in droves. The celebrated Siberian baritone did not disappoint.
‘Romeo and Juliet’ at Lyric Opera: Raising tragedy quotient in fusion of music, theater
Review: For the authentic meaning of music-drama, as an ideal melding of theater with the emotional accentuation of words buoyed by music, look no further than the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s riveting and vocally splendid production of Gounod’s “Romeo and Juliet.” ★★★★
Manfred Honeck steps in with CSO, tweaks program, delivers exhilarating ‘Pathétique’
Review: On Feb. 27, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra will observe the 120th anniversary of its founding with a celebratory concert under its present music director, Manfred Honeck. As patrons of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra have just witnessed, Honeck surely will give Pittsburgh reason for celebrations to come.
The Hypocrites wins $200k MacArthur Award for creativity and effectiveness
News Release: CHICAGO (February 18, 2016) – The Hypocrites today was awarded the prestigious MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions. The Award recognizes exceptional nonprofit organizations who have demonstrated creativity and impact, and invests in their long-term sustainability with sizable one-time grants. The Hypocrites will use the $200,000 that accompanies the Award to build a working capital reserve for the company and as seed capital for a variety of diversity initiatives.
American Theater Company names Will Davis as its new artistic director
This Just In: The following is a news release written by an arts organization, submitted to Chicago On the Aisle.
AMERICAN THEATER COMPANY NAMES WILL DAVIS ITS NEW ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
February 18, 2016 (CHICAGO, IL)—Following a six-month national …
Silk Road Rising probes life in Muslim society from the Far East to Middle East to America
Preview: Preview: The spirit of Chicago’s Silk Road Rising theater lies in its name, says artistic director Jamil Khoury. It’s about the global span of connectedness along the ancient corridor linking Middle Eastern desert peoples to the Far East, and the modern extension to life in America, Silk Road Rising opens its winter season Feb. 20 with the premiere of Ronnie Malley’s “Ziryab: The Songbird of Andalusia,” about a famed 9th-century musician.
‘Mothers and Sons’ at Northlight: Gay peace achieved, bitter mom presses her private war
Review: There is a quality, an esprit, about Terrence McNally’s “Mothers and Sons” that transcends mere affirmation of what one might characterize as gay normalcy. The play, now in a tightly knit and persuasive production directed by Steve Scott at Northlight Theatre, has a spiritually cleansing essence – and a resolute narrative that is nothing short of celebratory. ★★★
What good is sitting alone in your room? Willkommen to a beautiful, bleak ‘Cabaret’
Review: If there are two words not commonly associated with touring Broadway shows, they are daring and courageous. Both apply in stunning fashion to “Cabaret,” a not-to-be-missed experience presented by Broadway in Chicago at PrivateBank Theatre. ★★★★★
