There’s good theater and then there’s good attempts at theater. But there are also those rare occasions that a good theater makes a good attempt at a plain bad production; a good example of this is Sex Marks the Spot, a new political comedy by Charles Grippo.

The play attempts to delve into the seedy world of political sex scandals and, based upon an interview with Grippo, illuminate the rarely seen point-of-view of the politician’s wife. Unfortunately for this play, it fails to even cast a flicker of light on either point, and lacks the character development, humor, and plot that would have made the 2 hour play bearable.

Sex Marks the Spot opens up on the incumbent Senator Clooney on the eve of a debate against his challenger, a notorious porn star named Desiree Le Bonque. But to our surprise, or lack thereof, Miss Le Bonque is the Senator’s mistress and threatens to reveal their affair on national television if the Senator does not agree to marry her. The Senator drugs the porn star, a recurring theme throughout the play, and attempts to hide the evidence from his loyal band of idiot supporters. From the nervous, and profusely sweaty campaign manager, to the secretly beautiful yet-disguised-as-frumpy press secretary, these characters are a dime a dozen and lack any real emotional development that would make this play seem realistic.

The play goes downhill from there as the audience is subjected to witless one-liners and commonplace dialogue that a young playwright typically learns to avoid in eighth grade journalism. While the play is supposed to “investigate what goes on ‘behind the scenes’” in the world of political scandals and lascivious affaires, the playwright fails to touch on any of these issues. The characters never come face to face with one another, ironically missing one another by the opening and closing of a door. The characters are horribly stereotyped to the point of boredom; from an overweight hotel security guard eating donuts and lacking any brain power to the nosy journalist trying to get his next big scoop.

And what is severely lacking is Grippo’s so-called focal point of the play, wanting to illuminate the thoughts and feelings of the spouse of the adulterer. The Senator’s wife has approximately ten minutes of stage time in which she rarely expresses any real thought of emotion and is stumbling about it a drug-induced stupor, hardly leaving her any room to develop emotionally.

Sex Marks the Spot was neither funny nor witty, the audience hardly laughed once, making this a far cry from a farce or a comedy. It relied far too heavily on stereotypes and endless run-on jokes and the ham actors did nothing to enhance the enjoyment or the entertainment of this play. Overall, the play lacks the humor and cleverness to be a farce, and the real world familiarity to be a satire.

They say opposites attract. So what do you get when a recently divorced sportswriter and eternal bachelor acquires an uptight, compulsive hypochondriac as a roommate? You get a polarized reaction that is pure comedic gold.

Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple comes to life at the Raven Theater with a witty and irreverent cast. The play brings together best friends Oscar Madison, played by Eric Roach, and Felix Ungar, played by Jon Steinhagen, in a simple tale of tragic circumstances and true friendship. When Felix is thrown out of the house by his wife he stumbles his way to his best friends’ bachelor pad where Oscar, having recently been divorced himself and concerned for his neurotic best friend, takes Felix in. The easy-going and carefree lifestyle of Oscar is turned upside down when Felix’s compulsive tidiness and penny pinching thriftiness threaten to destroy his sanity and their friendship. Can this odd couple learn to live together? Can they get it together before they drive each other insane?

The Odd Couple first premiered on Broadway in 1965 followed by a film and a very successful television series. What makes this play timeless is the relate-ability of Simon’s work. Rumors have it that the play was first dreamt up when Simon witnessed the odd pairing of his brother rooming with a playwright But whether the play was created out of actual events or completely fictionalized, it’s the exposure of human weaknesses and the a portrayal of characteristics that define the American Experience theater that make this play worth seeing. It’s not prophetic, does not have some great moral conclusion, it merely reveals the frailties and familiarity of the human spirit, something that the Raven Theater grasps so accurately with this Odd Couple Cast.

With set designs that completely immerse you in a 1950s/60s bachelor pad, stale pizza and beer included, and the wonderful stage direction and character choreography of Michael Menendian, The Raven Theater captures the Odd Couple as spot-on as when it first premiered in 1965. Everyone has an Oscar and a Felix in their life, so take that special person to the Raven Theater, located at 6157 North Clark Street, for an experience that will leave you thankful that you can afford that one-bedroom studio all on your own.

The Casualties rocked the Metro on the 24th to two stories of skinny jean wearing, eyeliner drenched, spiky haired Chicago youths. From the beginning of their hour long set to their final number, the band seamlessly transitioned from song to song, giving an eardrum shattering, head banging performance.

During their final number, lead singer Jorge Herrera took off his sweat covered shirt revealing a Che Guevara cutoff and holding a scarf above his head. Herrera launched the scarf into the mosh-pit where hundreds of fans wrestled for ten minutes after the band had left the stage, battling screaming girlfriends, rowdy entourages, and even muscled bouncers, for one young man to hold the frayed and tattered trophy above his head and scream out “Yea! Casualties!” Talk about a loyal following.

The Casualties' music is a mix of angry anthems, hardcore punk rock, with just a touch of “I-hate-my-parents”; just the type of music 16-year-old, pre-pubescent, angry, disenchanted youths could relate to. While it's generally not the genre I would plug into my IPod, I have to give the band credit for their nonstop energy, powerful vocals, and incredible stage presence. With ‘Meggers’(Mark Eggers) on the drums, Rick and Jake on bass and guitar (respectfully), and Jorge at the mic, these four men played with an intensity and a wildness  that even an argyle-sweater wearing concert goer such as myself could appreciate.

The Swellers opened at the Metro, energizing the restless crowd, and Less Than Jake rocked as the headliner, but as the stage crew set up for The Casualties, it was clear who the audience wanted to see. The Casualties immediately began playing as soon as they took the stage, and didn’t come up for air, or to rest their hands, until their final number. This band definitely eats their Wheaties.  

As one fan with spiked orange hair (one of Jorge’s old looks as I am told) informed me, “The Casualties are old school, hardcore punk.” Hardcore? Yes. Old School? Beats me. What I can say is that amidst the extraordinarily fast drum beats, finger-crippling guitar chords, speaker-breaking bass, and vein popping vocals, this band screams (literally and figuratively) that they are a force to be reckoned with on the hardcore punk scene. They have an incredibly loyal Chicago-based following, so expect the next time they roll into Chicago to be just as rocking as this time around.

Fans of punk will appreciate this band’s style and power. For the rest of us, if you’re having a really bad day and need one song to verbalize what you are feeling, check out The Causalities’ new CD “We are All We Have” available in stores now. Songs like “Carry on the Flag,” and “Depression-Unemployment Lines,” will definitely help you get all your aggression out. For more information on this band and to upcoming tour dates check out www.myspace.com/thecasualties.

Who doesn't love to have fun? Personally, I am all up for fun of any kind. So imagine my excitement when I get a call to interview the band 'fun.'. Haven't heard of them? You're missing out. The name is more than a band; it's a state of mind...

Oscar Wilde once said “Memory is the diary that we all carry about with us.” For Leo Gold, that diary is filled with an anguish that has haunted his memories and greatly impacted his life. Battling with Alzheimer’s and the recent death of his wife, retired statistician Leo Gold attempts to unravel the pain of his past while bringing a sense of logic to the horrors that he lived through.

A beautiful and often poignant play, Number of People, written and directed by Emilie Beck, is a one man show about Leo Gold, a Holocaust survivor who struggles through his memories and the pains of his past. We chance upon Leo in a minimalist stage at the Piven Theater. He awakes from a slumber to find us (the audience), in his home. Like a welcomed though unrecognizable guest, we are immediately brought into Leo’s world, sharing his past experiences and life stories. Leo Gold, played by the seasoned Piven actor Bernard Beck (the playwright’s father), brings the grumbling, humorous, confused, and tragic elderly Gold to life. He engages the audience much like an eager paternal grandparent wanting to tell his grandchildren about his life. Telling jokes that only an elderly grandfather would find funny; “There are two groups of people in the world, those who put people into groups and those who don’t.” Leo shares his memories of the birth of his daughter, the number 1 person in his life, the memories of his wife, “a perfect figure eight,” and recounting tales two gruesome and horrifying to fully comprehend.

Beck’s main character is dealing with Alzheimer’s, but there is something missing from the character. For anyone who has seen the deterioration of a loved one's mind knows the pain and turmoil that comes with the disease. They are often battling with an invisible enemy that skews memories, twists details, and leaves the person confused, saddened, and angry. Beck’s Gold tangents from one memory to the next, but there is one trait that he fails to convey, throughout his entire 90 minute monologue; many Alzheimer’s patients segue from memory to memory, their logic understandable and predictable only to themselves. Beck always brings the audience back to a central theme of numbers, odds, and statistics, so that we, and Gold, are never really too confused, though he reminds the audience (his guest) that he does not know who we are. But perhaps this is the point.

Gold is a man whose life has been impacted from one of the most horrific events in history. The way he acted throughout his life, from telling his wife she was not really cold when the heat went out in their Sweden apartment “you don’t know what cold is!,” to Gold’s relationship with his daughter, and to the experiences he had counting dead bodies during other worldly tragedies, Gold’s actions are a result of the horrors he endured and survived. From the whistle of a train to the laughter of children, Leo Gold’s life was so defined by his events in a concentration camp that he can trace everything back to what he survived through. He uses numbers and odds in order to understand how he survived “if you stood in the back you were less likely to be chosen,” when one stood in the front, they were chosen and they died.

When Number of People is on target it is poignant, tragic, and mystifying. Beck’s vulnerability and old-age charm draws an audience in, as eager as young children listening to a grandfather’s tale. Beck as a playwright crafted a beautiful story of one man struggle to understand one of the most horrible catastrophes in history. While the play lacks in some areas, the play is worthy of being seen. Though the run time is too long and often too heavy handed, the play reflects on one of the core messages of the play; that if you remember, someone we loved is never really forgotten; if we remember the past, the life of one person, they don’t become a statistic, their life had a purpose, and it is remembered.

Evanston, IL- Piven Theatre Workshop continues its 2009-10 season with the world premiere of Number of People, written and directed by Emilie Beck. The production will run through April 11, 2010 at Piven Theatre Workshop, 927 Noyes Street.

  They say a picture is worth a thousand words. But what happens when you combine photography with live art? This is one of the core questions that is explored in the new Neo-Futurist play “I Am a Camera” written and directed by Greg Allen.

One of the great things about this Neo-Futurist play is that it requires the audience to really intellectualize what they are viewing. “I Am a Camera” leaves room for interpretation from the audience as well as the interpretation of its two person cast. Jeremy Sher and Caitlin Stainken lead the audience through various photographic exercises that lead us to ask “What is photography?” “Can a picture convey more meaning than words?” “Can a picture accurately replace an emotion?” “Can a single image depict an entire experience?” “Can a photograph capture a memory?” “Can we replace memories, or diminish the value of them, with a photograph?” All of these questions and concepts are explored throughout “I Am a Camera.”

The play uses still photography as both “the medium and the message” to convey abstract emotions and experiences to illustrate issues of vulnerability and identity in the 21st century. Set to a background of eclectic music, a mix of classic modern rock, and using all aspects of photography from Polaroid snapshots to digitally projected images onto objects, screens and human bodies, “I Am a Camera” is as much a visual experience as it is a thought-provoking one.

One of the best scenes in the play seemed more improvised than rehearsed. Sher and Stainken sat together at a wooden table, dozens of 8x10 photos in front of them, and the booth technician coached them with a buzzer about the exercises they had to do. In exercise one they asked one another questions and had to find still photos that described the emotion they felt, the next exercise asked them to find photos that conveyed what they thought the other was feeling when sharing a memory.  In one instance, Sher asked Stainken “how did you feel when you farted in English class and cried?” She then, laughingly, finds a photo of herself curled up in a ball in the corner of a room, an image that the audience could both laugh at and empathize with. Another question had Stainken asking Sher, “where do you see yourself in five years,” to which he finds a photo of a small hand reaching up to grasp a man’s finger, leaving the audience to interpret a family, a child, a future of hope. This was one of the more hilarious, yet simultaneously provocative moments of the play.

Sound confusing? At times I thought so too. While the visual experience of the play was incredible, at times it ventured so far into the abstract that the interpretation of the play began to drift away from the core concepts. But Allen’s play is nothing short of beautiful, and one that theater goers would be sad to miss. Sher and Stainken provide the perfect balance of humor and charm, offering an accessible and relatable experience for the audience, one of the more intriguing common aspects at the heart of Neo-Futurist plays.

So go, enjoy, and experience the Neo-Futurist interpretation of photography on our lives, and don’t forget to bring a Smartphone (you’ll see why as soon as walk into the waiting room…)