Articles tagged with: Tracy Letts
‘The Minutes’ at Steppenwolf: At a small-town council meeting, comedy takes shattering turn
Review: The individual agendas of the Big Cherry village council members, in Tracy Letts’ comedy-chiller of a new play “The Minutes,” are credibly various and amusingly personal. What really resonates, however, is the one thing they all hold in common — the raw, elemental conviction that safeguards and perpetuates Big Cherry as a community. ★★★★
‘Linda Vista’ at Steppenwolf: Letts’ new play frames photographer who can’t get selfie right
Review: Wheeler, the only name he goes by, is a smart guy, a good photographer and his own worst enemy. He’s the case study in self-destruction at the center of Tracy Letts’ new play “Linda Vista,” now headed into the final week of a crackling production directed by Dexter Bullard at Steppenwolf Theatre. Wheeler – played with barbed comic timing and ruinous ferocity by Ian Barford – imagines himself astride the world, or indeed like Jupiter above it, taking the measure of all the things and people in it and finding that people mostly don’t measure up. ★★★★
‘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. ★★★★★
Theater 2015-16: Steppenwolf 40th anniversary boasts premieres by Frank Galati, Tracy Letts
13th in a series of season previews: Two world premieres and three first-time Chicago stagings form a doubly celebratory season at Steppenwolf Theatre – marking the company’s 40th anniversary and honoring the legacy of its longtime artistic director, Martha Lavey, who stepped down at the end of last season. Steppenwolf opens with the world premiere of Frank Galati’s adaptation of “East of Eden,” John Steinbeck’s sweeping, tumultuous epic novel about family dynamics and fortunes set mainly in California early in the 20th century.
Left dangling by Sandy: Carnegie Hall looks warily up and B’way pauses as NY regroups
Report update: Carnegie Hall’s concerts for Nov. 1 have been cancelled as the crane remains unsecured, and more cancellations are expected. Broadway theaters have resumed their performance schedules, so it’s back to work for several Chicago-based performers. Many off-Broadway theaters in the downtown area are still without electricity and remain closed.
‘Penelope’ at Steppenwolf: Four guys in an empty pool, down to life’s last threads
And Odysseus is bearing down. 3 stars.
