Articles tagged with: Shattered Globe Theatre
‘How to Use a Knife’ at Shattered Globe: Slicing to heart of the human, or is it a beast?
Review: In a different setting, Steve, an anonymous immigrant from Rwanda working as a dishwasher in an ordinary New York eatery, knows well enough how to use a knife. But when a master chef, or what’s left of him after the ravages of alcoholism, takes charge of the kitchen, the quiet dishwasher is drawn out by the elegant appeal of culinary art. That’s the setup of Will Snider’s wry and unsettling play “How to Use a Knife,” offered in a savory preparation by Shattered Globe Theatre and director Sandy Shinner. ★★★★★
‘Five Mile Lake’ at Shattered Globe: Siblings, distant or demanding, all in the swim together
Review: Rachel Bond’s play “Five Mile Lake,” a provocative slice of life currently held up for examination by Shattered Globe Theatre, is about lives out of kilter, out of perspective, out of adjustment. Before the play even begins, Jeffrey D. Kmiec’s disorienting set tells you as much. ★★★
‘True West’ at Shattered Globe: Rival brothers, far apart in one place, at each other’s throats
Review: Austin and Lee are Jungian poster boys, brothers who seem to hold nothing in common, the one a buttoned-up intellectual writer and the other a beer-gulping ruffian and petty thief. But deep down, each pines for the life the other leads. They are the conjoined, complex antiheroes of Sam Shepard’s iconic 1980 play “True West,” and they are madly, marvelously superimposed in a startling production by Shattered Globe Theatre. ★★★★
Role Playing: Eileen Niccolai harnessed a storm of emotions to create spark in Williams’ Serafina
Interview: If you look at this wounded but willful, indeed headstrong and dauntless soul Serafina in Tennessee Williams’ tragi-comedy “The Rose Tattoo” and see nothing less than a force of nature, you’re on the same page with Eileen Niccolai, who brings the belligerent widow to hilarious life with Shattered Globe Theatre.
Shattered Globe summons blush as well as heat in Williams’ gritty comedy ‘The Rose Tattoo’
Review: When I look back on Chicago’s current theater season, certain performances will stand out as they always do for that singular blurring of actor and character that makes you feel more like you’re eavesdropping than watching a play. No doubt that special few will include Eileen Niccolai’s earthy, vulnerable, funny embodiment of Serafina Delle Rose in Tennessee Williams’ “The Rose Tattoo” with Shattered Globe Theatre. ★★★★
Theater 2014-15: Shattered Globe hoists sail with historic saga of Pacific whaling disaster
Third in a series of season previews: The 24th season at Shattered Globe Theatre opens in the spray, rage and terror of Joe Forbrich’s new play “The Whaleship Essex,” a sea thriller that dramatizes an incident in 1820 when the whaling vessel Essex was attacked and destroyed by a giant whale.
Chicago Theatre Week: Curtain rises on Act 2 with now-eager audience on edge of its seats
Preview: When the League of Chicago Theatres decided to stage its first Chicago Theatre Week last year, offering discounted tickets to some 100 productions and other perks in a sort of regional stimulus package, no one knew how it would go – whether the public would bite. What happened was more like a gobble: All 6,000 tickets in the discount pool were snapped up. Now Chicago Theatre Week is back, with the 2014 version of dramas for $15 and $30, and this time the presenters exude optimism.
Condemned to a brutal world, British prisoners act out their humanity in ‘Our Country’s Good’
Review: On the surface, a play about 18th-century British scofflaws creating a play while imprisoned in the distant wilds of Australia might seem, well, remote – and too likely to harangue on the morally transformative powers of theater. Suspend your disbelief. “Our Country’s Good,” by British playwright Timberlake Wertenbaker, explores such a premise in crackling drama that’s raw, funny, sober, persuasive and brought off with disarming humanity by the fine ensemble of Shattered Globe Theatre. ★★★
To corporate raider, the blood is just business in ‘Other People’s Money’ at Shattered Globe
Review: Larry Garfinkle lives by the numbers, as in quarterly profits and losses. He’s a practical guy, all business, with a nose for blood. When he sees a company in trouble, he moves in, goes for the kill, let the working stiffs fall where they may. And Larry Garfinkle is thoroughly inhabited, from his three-piece suits to his vulgar charm, in Ben Werling’s portrayal at the center of Jerry Sterner’s wry comedy “Other People’s Money” for Shattered Globe Theatre. ★★★★
Theater 2013-14: Shattered Globe puts deposit on edgy season with ‘Other People’s Money’
Fifth in a series of season previews: The stuff of Shattered Globe Theatre’s season planning might be described as polar opposites: The issues that concern us all and the issues that pull as apart. Perfectly matched to that conflicted perspective is the company’s 22nd season opener, the double-edged comedy of Jerry Sterner’s “Other People’s Money.”
Amid war to win vote for British women, flames of passion illuminate ‘Her Naked Skin’
Suffrage at Shattered Globe. 4 stars!
