In 1971, Nicki Giovanni was a young Black poet already risen to prominence when she and the celebrated Black author James Baldwin met for a two hour conversation broadcast from London on PBS. Baldwin, 47, an éminence grise, answered the poet’s questions at length and Giovanni, 28, offered her own commentary as she asked a range of things, from the factual such as, why did he move to Europe, to queries on African-American creatives, writing and about the world at large - all in the context of the Black experience of life.

“The Baldwin | Giovanni Experience” at Evanston’s Fleetwood-Jourdain Theatre attempts to capture the essence of that conversation, in a 90-minute world premier of the theatrical work at Evanston’s Fleetwood-Jourdain Theatre. Directed by Tim Rhoze who co-authored it with Bria Walker-Rhoze, the work includes music, poetry and dance woven into the discussion, and appropriately so. Especially given that we have Nikki Giovanni (Rachel Blakes) on stage, who is poetry personified.

“To be African-American,” Baldwin tells Giovanni, and the camera, “is to be African without any memory, and American without any of the privileges.” That incisive assessment incredibly forthright for broadcast television in its time. The show was “Soul!” produced by WNET in New York from 1968 to 1973.

Baldwin told Giovanni he felt he had to go to Europe and get away from the U.S. to find his voice, but found he brought many things with him. Away from his home turf Baldwin discovered he carried along the emotional baggage born of systemic racism, one that he realized he had internalized and which imposed on him cultural constraint. “The world is not my only oppressor,” Baldin relates. “I was doing it to myself.” He offers an example of Black internalized limits on behavior. “You don’t eat watermelon or fried chicken in public.”

The conversation goes much deeper in the course of the show, touching on the role of Black churches (“The Church is always in me as a Black man,” Baldwin says), family violence, and laments the loss of Black leaders assassinated.

“What do you say when the chosen few are gone too soon?” Giovanni offers. “Whatever it was, we found a way to love through it,” she says.“We, who were enslaved, found a way to cook, to dance, to laugh”

Both Giovanni and James Baldwin (Sean Blake) talk at length, the poet mostly providing the prompts that lead to lengthy erudite, deeply reflective discourse from Baldwin - as was his wont. With sections drawn directly from the 1971 PBS video (available at YouTube), Sean Blake gives a fully realized performance when he is recounting the words of Baldwin: literary and cultivated, polished and worldly, yet rooted in his origins in Harlem, NY - his utterances salted musically with the vernacular of his birthplace. Blake’s Baldwin is completely convincing.

It is amazing on viewing the original PBS tape how consistently “The Baldwin | Giovanni Experience” represents key points from the original - yet it gives us more. Giovanni speaks up, offering her reflections on life as a Black poet - just like the original.(The show also reminds me of the Baldwin-focused staging earlier this year, “Debate: Baldwin vs. Buckley,” also based on a television encounter, this one at Cambridge in 1965.)

But the stage version also diverges, for good, though also in some ways not so much. Giovanni gives us snippets of poetry, and Baldwin on stage adopts periodically a more poetic version of himself, speaking at times in meter and rhyme - letting us know he is being influenced by Giovanni as they speak. Eventually the two are up from their chairs, and we have song and dance - the playwrights offer an imagined Baldwin, in red framed glasses voicing a hip-hop passage. It all seems natural and true, probably relying more on Giovanni in her later years for styles that arose after Baldwin was gone.

Where I felt some disappointment was in how Giovanni is portrayed as though she is lesser than Baldwin, placing him on a pedestal - where he belongs, for sure - but where she should be too. On the PBS video, she is more expressive, more self-possessed and serious, not just a foil for Baldwin the star. On stage, Giovanni becomes more of a worshipful cheerleader, interjecting “I can dig that” multiple times after an elegant and sharp monologue by Baldwin - making the performance more about him than her. To be sure, Giovanni on stage gets her words out, but on the whole seems to stand in Baldwin’s shadow.  

On opening night, a lovely lagniappe was offered in a warmup before the show, as Isaiah Jones, Jr. soloed at the piano and accompanied vocalist Mardra Thomas. 

“The Baldwin | Giovanni Experience” runs on weekends through November 16, 2025 at Evanston’s Fleetwood-Jourdain Theatre.

In an opening scene of “Duck Soup,” a new adaptation by The Conspirators of the Marx Brothers 1933 film, the wealthy heiress Gloria Teasdale (Hayden Hartrick), has been asked to increase her financial support of the deficit-ridden, mythical nation of Freedonia.

“Just loan us $20 billion dollars, so we can lower taxes,” they exhort the dowager widow. She agrees, but with one condition: they must appoint as president with unlimited power her chosen candidate, a whimsical reform-minded television star, Rufus T. Firefly (Mitchell Jackson).

Before this scene unfolds, however, playwright Sid Feldman artfully tips us off that we may see parallels to current events - wealth disparities, autocratic leadership, former TV stars in power. We witness a plaintive rendition of “Brother Can You Spare a Dime” by a hobo veteran (Tucker Privette). “They used to tell me I was building a dream…why should I be standing in line, just waiting for bread?”) And then appears a red and white MAGA cap, the G covered over with F - for Freedonia.

Back in Freedonia, the ministers agree to Teasdale’s terms. And in short order, Firefly appears.
In the film version of “Duck Soup,” Firefly is played by Groucho Marx, who was indeed a television star. Is this beginning to sound familiar?

Jackson channels Groucho's style, representing in the playwright's film adaptation his penchant for a fast-paced barrage of throwaway jokes and puns, many of them bawdy. Hartrick is perhaps even more remarkable in the role of the dowager Teasdale, matching that aristocratic mid-Atlantic accent Margaret Dumont brought to the film, and like Dumont decked out in formal gown, crowned with a glittering diadem.

This memorable scene between the two captures Dumont’s obliviousness to Firefly’s degrading overtures:
Rufus T. Firefly: Not that I care, but where is your husband?
Mrs. Teasdale: Why, he's dead.
Rufus T. Firefly: I bet he's just using that as an excuse.
Mrs. Teasdale: I was with him to the very end.
Rufus T. Firefly: No wonder he passed away.
Mrs. Teasdale: I held him in my arms and kissed him.
Rufus T. Firefly: Oh, I see, then it was murder. Will you marry me? Did he leave you any money? Answer the second question first.
Mrs. Teasdale: He left me his entire fortune.
Rufus T. Firefly: Is that so? Can't you see what I'm trying to tell you? I love you.

If Groucho is onstage, trust that Harpo (Sarah Franzel as the film character Pinky) and Chico (Deacon Leer as the film character Chicolini) are not far behind. We’re treated to classic sight gags and verbal puns drawn from the Marx Brothers’ treasury of schtick that is both laugh-inducing and readily recognized by fans. As in the film, a scene where the three appear in bedshirts and nightcaps, mimicking each other, is very funny. Many other scenes from the film, and the core structure of its plot is transplanted to live action. Kudos to director WM Bullion, for in comedy timing is everything, and under his baton the performers don’t miss a beat.

While so many of the performances are noteworthy, Sarah Franzel in the role of Pinky is truly memorable. Franzel gives the silent Marx Brother, the one who speaks only by honking a horn, a sharp intensity, almost bird-like looking here and there, and reacting just so to the surrounding action. Deacon Leer likewise is remarkably funny as the fake-Italian Chicolini, the name referencing Mussolini. (The film “Duck Soup,” notably, was banned in Italy during Mussolini’s years in power.)

In addition to transplanting events from a 1933 film, this “Duck Soup” makes them current, setting them in contemporary times amid a retro landscape. A famous routine from the film, for instance, which takes place as a bedroom phone conversation between Firefly and Teasdale, is updated to a texting exchange that becomes borderline sexting. Playwright Feldman, and the cast, pull it off, even funnier than the original. Likewise some of the just plain comical scenes - Chico and Harpo gabbing with a government functionary while driving him bananas with their antics - are timeless hilarity.

But an additional complexity comes with the unique acting approach used by The Conspirators, which eschews naturalism for a highly stylized approach known as The Style. Developed by Tim Robbins for The Actors Gang in Los Angeles, it’s a blend of 16th century Commedia dell' Arte, Kabuki, Looney Tunes and a high-energy punk-rock aesthetic. Actors, made up in thick white greasepaint with dark browlines and furrows drawn in, express but four emotions, all in the extreme: fear, anger, happiness, and sadness. Lines are delivered full throttle, and a percussionist on-stage adds drum rolls, cow bell, etc. in response. Anthony Soto performed on opening night, and was decidedly hilarious, especially taking on the duties for a garbled voice on the telephone receiver in several scenes.

In previous shows, The Style has dominated delivery. In “Duck Soup,” it’s softened a bit, as the comedy is more reliant on the funny lines and comic timing. The formula works well for this “Duck Soup,” though I missed the extremes The Style can deliver as we’ve seen in The Conspirators’ takes on Shakespeare in “Chicago Cop Macbeth” and Dario Fo’s “Accidental Death of a Black Motorist." Nevertheless, this is time well spent in the theater, and is a lot of fun.

The original “Duck Soup” was a satire of the rising fascism in Europe. This “Duck Soup” brings that message home. "Duck Soup" extended through December 7th at Stars & Garters, 3914 N. Clark in Chicago.

“Strange Cargo: The Doom of the Demeter,” is a compelling proposition for a stage play. Now in its world premiere in a Black Button production with City Lit Theater, Timothy Griffin’s original two-act script draws on Chapter 7 of Bram Stoker's novel “Dracula,”  .

That chapter in the book “Dracula” is sparse on details. It opens with the crash of the Demeter into the wharf in Whitby, England, with no one found alive on board (This is the point in time where Griffin's play ends.) The book chapter is mostly filled with details of the ship’s route and descriptions of weather—but salted with incidental references to a crew growing demoralized, brought on by unexplained disappearances of their fellow sailors as the month-long journey from Varna, Russia to Whitby, progresses.

The minimal details in the book gives the playwright free rein to fill in things not described in the Demeter’s log—ostensibly translated hastily from Russian for a journalist in Whitby, who is the narrator of the chapter.

Playwright Griffin adds in the tale of Yorga (Herb Metzler is compellingly sinister and cloyingly evil), as he transits from Transylvania in Eastern Europe to England, accompanying his “strange cargo.” In Griffin’s telling, it lists on the ship’s manifest as “50 sealed crates of earth” but we suspect it also carries something more wicked.

Some disambiguation may be in order here: in “Strange Cargo,” Yorga appears to be either a ghoul who acts as consigliere for Dracula, who perhaps is sealed in one of the crates in the hold? We’re uncertain. The Yorga character does not appear in the book “Dracula,” but was created for a 1970 Dracula film, so the playwright may be giving a nod to that piece.

Directed by Ed Rutherford, “Strange Cargo” opens as the crew of the Demeter confront a last minute booking on the Russian cargo ship arranged by Yorga, who wrangles space for the crates of not fully disclosed contents. The audience might suspect (it isn’t explicitly revealed in the play)—and those familiar with the Stokers’ tale or its recent depiction in Robert Eggers’ 2024 film “Nosferatu”—this cargo is the necessary support for an unknown entity who remains sealed for the journey, at least most of the time.

Though the steward Abramoff (Andrew Bosworth in a very good performance) objects there are no cabins or food for civilian passengers, Yorga makes the case he needs little, that he carries his own victuals, and is willing to bunk in the hold with his cargo. Grateful for the business, Captain Gorodetsky (Brian Parry is strikingly good) signs off after it’s already loaded, and Yorga is doubtless hanging from a nearby beam by this time.

Much of Griffin’s script focuses on the life of the crew and the minutiae of operations, mind-numbingly so at least to my mind, but filled with realism. As the ship makes its way through the month-long journey - supratitles periodically tracking the day count and maps of its progress - the Demeter must put in mid journey for a customs inspection in Turkey. A variety of other nautical events recounted in Stoker’s book are dutifully recounted by Griffin, to the detriment of the audience’s interest.

What the playwright does accomplish, furthered by very good performances, is the establishment of memorable characters: Guza (Jennifer Agather), Basarab (Alex Albrecht), Digeren (Riles August Holiday), Munir (Cameron Austin Brown), Bucatar (Ross Compton), Post (Robert Howard), and Petrofsky (Nathaniel Kohlmeier). Thus as these characters one by one meet their unhappy fates in the next act, we know who they are. 

When Act II opens the play takes a more sinister turn, and crew members start disappearing regularly. So frequently does this happens that it becomes tedious, and repetitious. “Captain!” shout various crewmembers in repeated scenes of alarm, and Captain Gorodetsky is forever being warned that individual sailors have fallen into depressive stupors. After each of these warnings he promises to “keep an eye on him.” Sailors on watch simply disappear nearly nightly, which Gorodetsky addresses by searching the ship from stem to stern.

But the action warms up as the Demeter finally reaches the English coast, crossing the Channel and navigating in the final events that lead to the decimated ship reaching port. Monstrous puppetry and silhouettes of terror-filled action below decks bring a culmination to the show.

The excellence of the performances outshine the meager script. And Brian Parry, an acting powerhouse, manages to stabilize the production with the weight of his performance. Some software-driven technical glitches opening night were rapidly set right, so no complaints should be lodged on that score. But the repetitiveness of the loathsome sufferings inflicted on the crew detracted from the effect the playwright doubtless intended. With some script polishing, this has the makings of a great recurring seasonal show for Halloween. And overall it’s still fun to watch.

“Strange Cargo: The Doom of the Demeter” runs through November 23 at City Lit Theater in Chicago.

Jojo Jones’ “Veal,” premiering at A Red Orchid Theatre in Old Town, is among the recent wave of plays set in a post-apocalyptic near future - the better to show how core social values and structures might play out for individuals placed abruptly in a clean-slate setting. The increasing frequency with which this plot line appears on stages and screens tells us much about the trending thoughts of playwrights, who likely are voicing societal angst about the state of things - and reasonably so.

Directed by dado, the apocalypse in “Veal” is loosely defined but certainly political in nature, a revolution that has reset things. We do know this much: it has resulted in the character Chelsea (well played by Alexandra Chopson) to be installed as Queen of North America. That simple fact packs loads of information: that the U.S., Mexican, and Canadian governments have fallen, their respective Constitutions trashed, and a monarch now rules.

That Queen Chelsea is likely a despotic type is suggested immediately by her regal demeanor in royal array, on a throne, and by her side a servant, Unnamed Male Concubine (Jasper Johnson) who sits silently a step below. When Chelsea descends from her throne to walk upon the floor below her, the silent Concubine unbidden gets on his hands and knees, and with infinite care wipes up the floor where Chelsea has trodden, then resumes his vigil on the step below.

Soon enough three characters arrive: Franny (Jojo Brown), Lulu (Carmia Imani) and Noa (Alice Wu), all of whom were in middle school with Chelsea 13 years ago. In fact, we learn, this setting is the very middle school they attended, a place this monarch has chosen as the site for her palace. She has resurfaced the floor with imported marble and demolished the gym.

“My advisers kept telling me to use the White House, but I’d never been there,” Chelsea lets her classmates know, and they all offer obsequities as they converse with her. Their fear and trepidation is palpable as they try to avoid taboo subjects or potentially incite Chelsea's anger.

“The Revolution was weird,” offers Franny, as Chelsea benevolently asks if they are hungry, then orders her Concubine to provide a repast for the visitors. This ends up being Lunchables that are 13 years past their expiration date, still sitting from their school days. This tips us off that Queen Chelsea harbors some resentments from those days.

Gingerly, they decline the food, except for LuLu, who having allowed that she was hungry, is now ordered to eat, and Chelsea shows her tyrannical side. After this set-to subsides, Franny reveals the reason for this visit: to petition the Queen of North America for medicine for her sister and she begins gingerly on her sibling’s behalf. “We all knew you would be successful,” Franny says of their middle school days. “But Queen of North America?!”

After that, a bit more groveling. “The revolution - huge fan - kinda messed up the supply chain,” Franny says, and lets Queen Chelsea know she cannot find insulin for her sister, a Type 1 diabetic, to which Chelsea replies, indirectly, that she is always being asked for things.

“You know, it is so hard. I keep getting people telling me I’m like Nero, or Caligula.” Though the subject of “Veal” is completely absorbing, every now and then I found myself thinking of current events and another despot who rules by whim, and loves to surround himself with sycophants.

As the action advances, Queen Chelsea dispatches the Unknown Male Concubine to look into insulin availability, but signals there will be a price to pay, and the play moves into territory somewhere between “Mean Girls” and “Carrie.” The dramatic tension hinges on whether and how much Queen Chelsea’s former classmates will debase themselves in the hopes of securing the insulin for Franny’s sister. Queen Chelsea forces them to re-enact the classroom scenes in which she suffered their bullying and ostracism. But eventually the trio reaches a limit, each on their own terms, and ultimately Queen Chelsea tires of the game.

The performances are really excellent, especially Alice Wu as Noa, and Jojo Brown, who does the lion's share of the dramatic heavy lifting as Franny. Accolades for the most intriguing character go to Jasper John as the Unknown Male Concubine, a largely silent role with huge stage presence.

“Veal” runs through November 9, 2025 at A Red Orchid Theatre, 1531 N. Wells in Chicago.

If you are familiar with the Marx Brother 1933 film “Duck Soup,” it is probably from clips of some of the timeless schtik delivered by the erudite punster Groucho, the womanizing “Italian” Chico, the mute Harpo and the straight man in the bunch, handsome brother Zeppo.

So when I first heard The Conspirators was going to adapt this seemingly light-hearted confection to its stage at Stars & Garters (formerly Otherworld Theater), it didn’t sound like a fit—not based on their more hard-hitting satires of the past. Were they retreating from a world grown too contentious? But having read up on it, then viewed the film recently—which as a whole remains laughworthy—I learned that “Duck Soup” delivers serious social commentary, a send-up of fascism and authoritarianism—so topical in its day, and today for that matter. And so it does indeed fit right into The Conspirators’ sweet spot.

The Clark Street troupe’s stock in trade is theater that perceptive audiences willing to scratch through the surface will find speaks bitingly of the times. The pill is made easier to swallow because it’s delivered in a unique farcical performance mode, known as The Style (more on that later). It has you laughing at its silliness even as the baleful messages hit home. That makes “Duck Soup” perfect grist for the script mill of Sid Feldman, founder of The Conspirators with director Wm. Bullion. Both are in the final phases of casting and adapting the film for an October 30 opening.

Past productions are a good indicator of where The Conspirators take aim. Shows are often hung loosely on the bones of works by 20th century modernist playwrights. Dario Fo’s “Accidental Death of an Anarchist” became the 2019 “Accidental Death of a Black Motorist.” Brecht’s “The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui” (1941) is hinted at by the similarly named “The Resistible Rise of Herr Helmut Drumpf” (2016). Its follow up, “The Deckchairs,” finds an iceberg denier elected captain of an already sinking ship (subtitle: “Make the Titanic Great Again.”) And then there was the latest production, adapting Macbeth from William Shakespeare to Chicago vernacular for “Chicago Cop Macbeth.” 

A circle of hell in “Commedia Divina: It’s Worse Than That”

Other works include “Commedia Divina: It’s Worse Than That,” a riff on "Dante’s Divine Comedy," or the 19th century “The Epidemic,” an obscure political farce by French writer Octave Mirbeau, adapted as a Covid19 parallel in “The Ineptidemic.” The Conspirators’ shows are hilarious satires, laughworthy regardless of one’s political orientation. But they also point up some heavy-duty dramaturgy at play. Bullion and Feldman are deeply knowledgeable theatrical professionals at work on serious artistic expression.

If there is a challenge for audiences watching The Conspirators productions, it lies in adapting ourselves to their performance method, known as The Style. They are the only company in Chicago using it (it originated with actor Tim Robbins at The Actors Gang in Los Angeles; Robbins was a schoolmate of Bullion’s), and it can take some moments to get used to it. For one thing, actors are heavily made up, in thick white greasepaint with dark exaggerated brows, lines and mouth drawn in.

"The Deckchairs, or Make the Titanic Great Again"

The lighting is starkly bright. Delivery is exaggerated, in quick bursts. A stage-side drummer punctuates the lines. And sets are minimalist. There is no dramatic naturalism to be found, quite a departure from Steppenwolf or Goodman or any of Chicago’s storefront stages.

Most arresting is the acting method. No individualized background story is developed in the minds of the actors to inform their expression of character. Instead, just four emotions are allowed, usually delivered full throttle: happiness, sadness, anger and fear. All these elements are the foundation of the version of The Style employed by The Conspirators, introduced to Chicago by a player from LA’s The Actors Gang, Chicago’s John Cusack, for the now defunct New Crime Theater.

The Evanston Connection
“Sid and I both come from Evanston, which is kind of important,” says Bullion. “The high school theater program was really advanced - right next to Northwestern.” Bullion went on to study theater at UCLA, in the same program as actor Tim Robbins who, along with Cynthia Ettinger, originated The Style 40 years ago. Robbins founded The Actors Gang, which describes The Style as rooted in “Théâtre du Soleil, Grotowski, Viewpoints, punk rock and popular culture.” It is still used and taught at Robbins’ Culver City stage near Los Angeles, currently presenting “Topsy Turvy” through September 27, written and directed by Robbins.

The history of The Style corresponds to Bullion’s and Feldman’s backgrounds. Feldman went to school in Evanston with Cusack. After his time with The Actors Gang, Cusack started Chicago’s New Crime Theater in the 1990s as a local platform for productions in The Style.

Feldman ended up connecting with Cusack at New Crime. “I was always a business guy,” Feldman says. When a producer at New Crime melted down during a production of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” its co-directors Cusack and Steve Pink then tapped Feldman to step in at the Chopin Theater, in 1991. (Jeremy Piven was in the cast.)

“It was just a monster of a show to produce,” Feldman says. “And Steve told me I had to come over, and I found the producer in a fetal position, rocking in a corner, it was just too big of a show, she just couldn’t handle it. So I got in through that end, and as I was watching their workshops in The Style, I realized what storefront theater was missing.” Feldman felt drawn to change it.

“Billy [Bullion] and I did a few plays together in the late 90s,” says Feldman. “That’s when we got together. Then we broke up, I started writing screenplays and I went to LA.” Feldman spent the winter months each year on the West Coast during this period. “I had some minor success and I did some rewrites for people who needed help.”

"Accidental Death of a Black Motorist"

Bullion meanwhile was in Chicago, “living the storefront life,” he says. “I had a company called Sliced Bread Productions, and I was doing Brecht, Richard III, two Charles Ludlam plays—farce—wacky, statement making shows.”

Bullion and Feldman had first met up in the subculture music scene in Chicago, but eventually their paths crossed again in theater as well.

Feldman eventually soured on the movie business when one of his scripts, all of them written on spec, finally was made into a movie that he didn’t get paid for.

“That was the turning point,” says Feldman. “The producer never gave me a contract, he stole my possession, he never gave me a dime, I tried suing him for years.” When Feldman returned to Chicago, he and Bullion decided to do some shows together.

“We did Sternheim's "The Underpants" and Friedrich Dürrenmatt's “The Physicists." Bullion had been directing and acting in Chicago. “I was in “Hizzoner Daley the First” for about four years [at Prop Theater] and by the time that was ending we were finding our way back together. During the run-up to the 2016 election Feldman asked Bullion, "Why don’t we put on some workshops and try to put on a show?”

When Bullion, who had also been directing for Babes with Blades in 2014, received a script by Aaron Adair for “L’imbecile” — a gender reversal of “Rigoletto,” he immediately thought of an approach. “There was only one way this play can possibly be done, and that was in The Style,” Bullion says. Soon after The Conspirators was formed.

“So he brought me in and I taught them The Style,” Feldman says.“The plays I had done with New Crime were all in The Style. A lot of our terminology comes from them. Tim Robbins has gone to a more softened version of The Style for major productions at The Actors Gang. At The Conspirators, we have kept it pure, we have actually made it more pure in some ways. It’s a living beast with us; we’re always changing it.”

Because there is no ready cadre of actors schooled in The Style to cast for its shows, The Conspirators have taken to running free workshops, training actors in the technique. From these workshops, it casts its shows.

As Feldman explains, “In college you study to learn who the character is, you study the background and the backstory - and you let that form how you deliver the monologues.
“This is what I teach them,” says Feldman. “I tell them to come in with a one to two minute monologue, with nothing, and in our workshops we only use four emotions: happiness, sadness, fear, and anger - all extremes. There’s no jealousy (“No bemusement” Bullion says.) You come in with a monologue, with nothing prepared - and I just randomly shout out what your next state is, in which you have to deliver the next line or two, in that state. And it always works, no matter what the character is, no matter what the words are. It always works if you commit to it.” This departure from all the character building methods most actors have been trained to can be mind blowing for performers.

“We all say it’s not real, it’s not realistic,” says Bullion, who will direct “Duck Soup.” ”But what makes the style work is the absolute sincerity, and the absolute commitment to real emotion. And that is what gives a harmonic. I don’t want someone ‘acting’ mad. I want the real emotion.”

Feldman notes, “If you pretend to be angry, you can see it immediately. And that exercise is the most important one that gets them to be real actors. This confidence to make choices that other people might not make.”

Outlandish as this approach might sound, it is firmly rooted in deeply established performance traditions, beginning with 16th century commedia dell arte, which used masked archetypal characters and a mix of script and improvisation. This has cropped up on Chicago stages in a variety productions, including Court Theatre’s 2016 “One Man, Two Guvnors” 
In The Conspirator’s adaptation for The Style, heavy make-up along with an abrupt, exaggerated delivery recalls the stylized performance of Japan’s Kabuki. But there is more to it than that.

Promoting the training workshops to actors, The Conspirators describe The Style’s combination of classic commedia dell’arte, kabuki, and sprinkles of Ariane Mnouchkine via actor Tim Robbins’ The Actors’ Gang, “a soupçon of clown” along with the aesthetic of actor John Cusack's New Crime Productions, with influences of “Bugs Bunny and punk rock.”

“One of the things Billy and I talked about before we did “Chicago Cop Macbeth” was not only how people treat Shakespeare too preciously, but also too linearly. As though every single monologue has one point to it. What we see is that people grow during these monologues. People are trying to outwit the other characters to get what they want. Sometimes it’s sarcasm. Our style punches that up. When you compare it to the recent Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand, that was a snoozer. By putting it in the style we’re giving people not just entertainment to watch, but I think it breaks the story down better and makes it more understandable.”

Bullion agrees. “It’s accessible. Because you are laughing along with this meta reality we are creating, because you are laughing along with the cast, you are with them.” To attract contemporary audiences, Feldman believes more radical approaches to theater are called for.

“I would argue, and this is going to be controversial, people are not interested in realism in the theater. When you give them reality in the theater they go to sleep. Young playwrights will give me something, and I’ll say, ‘This is boring.’ And they’ll say, ‘Yeh, but it’s real.’ Nobody wants to watch me get ready to go to bed. That’s real too. Give me something outrageous.”

How this will play out in ”Duck Soup” will be known soon enough. We’ll meet Groucho’s character Rufus T. Firefly, just appointed dictator of Freedonia, who in the film lets us know,. “If you think this country's bad off now, just wait till I get through with it!” What can be said is we can expect the unexpected from The Conspirators’ version opening October 30 at Stars & Garters (formerly Otherworld Theater).

Hershey Felder has made a significant part of his life’s work playing the roles of piano prodigies, and at Writers Theatre he takes on the role of Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943), considered the last of the romantic Russian composers, and a virtuosic pianist. Felder, a very good actor (he received a Jefferson award in his role of Chopin last spring) and remarkable pianist, is perfect in the role, for which he has developed an extensively researched script. The Writers Theatre production, directed by Trevor Hay, is the Midwest premiere of the rolling national debut of “Rachmaninoff and the Tsar.”

Felder has mined this territory for decades, developing shows centered on musical luminaries including historic figures—Chopin, Liszt, Debussy, Mozart , Beethoven—as well as modern figures like Bernstein, Irving Berlin and Gershwin. (He has also produced film versions of some of these stagings.)

Ordinarily performing solo, for “Rachmaninoff and the Tsar,” Felder has for the first time incorporated into the script a second character—Tsar Nicholas II (Jonathan Silvestri), the last Romanoff to rule Russia, until the Bolshevik revolution forced him to abdicate in 1917. Rachmaninoff fled Russia for New York City. This allows for a more robust script, with two characters playing against each other, and sharing the burden of exposition, which can be a downside for story-telling plays. Many other characters are incorporated in silent films shown periodically as a backdrop to what’s on stage.

Jonathan Silvestri as Tsar Nicholas II and Hershey Felder (right) as Sergei Rachmaninoff

The disruption that the Russian Revolution brought to Rachmaninoff’s career meant there were lengthy gaps in his work as a composer. Rachmaninoff was a favorite of the royal family and celebrated across Russia for capturing timeless slavic themes. Felder livens up the story with a creative conceit, set in 1943 as Rachmaninoff lays dying in his Beverley Hills home. On a morphine drip, Rachmaninoff conjures up visions of conversing with Tsar Nicholas II, and the play covers wide terrain as the two converse, and recall their intersecting history.

Throughout, Rachmaninoff takes to the gleaming ebony Steinway concert grand piano, playing 15 works, mostly the musicians own works with one piece by Tchaikovsky, and one by Lvov. At times Felder’s Rachmaninoff plays live against recorded orchestral arrangements, most times he solos. One particularly notable piece was an arrangement Rachmaninoff did of “The Star Spangled Banner.” In open question and answer period at the show, Felder explained the arrangement had been taken from a paper piano scroll recorded by Rachmaninoff himself. It was quite lovely.

Felder also took the time to expound on the reason he added a second character for “Rachmaninoff and the Tsar.” It alleviated the burden of telling the back story and history all by himself. “It gets lonely on the stage,” Felder said. The addition of Tsar Nicholas II also allowed for a divergence into the story of Anastasia, the Tsar’s youngest daughter who for decades was theorized to have survived. Ultimately DNA science dispelled this as myth.

Silvestri as Tsar Nicholas II adopted a growling Russian accented delivery. We learn during the question and answer period that his daughter in real life plays Anastasia in those film reels shown during the performance.

The performances are great overall, and the show is entertaining and engaging, though there is little dramatic tension, and I found my interest lagging in the storyline. Still, “Hershey Felder’s Rachmaninoff and the Tsar” comes recommended, and runs through September 21 at Writers Theatre in Glencoe, IL.

*This review is also featured on https://www.theatreinchicago.com/! 

Notable New York playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis’s 2000 breakthrough play, “Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train,” is receiving a dynamic revival at City Lit Theater, with a fantastic cast delivering excellent  performances and inventive staging, all under the direction of Esteban Andres Cruz. Guirgis went on to win a a Pulitzer Prize in 2015 for his celebrated work, “Between Riverside and Crazy.”

Berwyn-born Cruz has a history working with Guirgis, and played the role of Angel Cruz in a 2008 Raven Theatre production for which they received a Jefferson Award. Now Cruz is guiding a brace of accomplished actors in Guirgis’ drama, along with 2024 University of Michigan graduate and relative newcomer Lenin Izquierdo, “an angel sent to us from heaven,” says Cruz. “He just had the beautiful thing about his heart that you can’t teach or fake.”

Izquierdo has the lead role that Cruz played, the young Latino Angel Cruz, who wounds a cult leader—Rev. Kim—who he believes is stealing away with his friends and family, and their money. Angel is arrested and sent to Rikers Island to await trial. When Rev. Kim dies from complications following surgery, the charges rise to murder. “Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train” thus carries the inherent dramatic tension of a jailhouse drama, and a courtroom trial.

Maria Stephens as Mary Ann

Guirgis’ play is structured in two acts, with a series of interconnected vignettes that allow each of the characters to deliver exposition, and full portrayals of themselves. Sometimes the vignettes feature a single character, or Angel paired with another—the sadistic guard Valdez (Manny Tamayo is stunningly good as an unvarnished tyrant); the court-appointed lawyer Mary Jane Hanrahan (Maria Stephens in a knock-out performance); the sympathetic guard D’Amico (Michael Daily brought me to tears); and Luscius Jenkins (Bradford Stevens) in a demanding role as a fellow prisoner, a convicted serial killer awaiting execution.

Lenin Izquierdo as Angel (left) and Manny Tamayo as Valdez

Scenic design by Tianxuan Chen is surprisingly effective in its minimalism: layers of canvas graffitied and draped as backdrop to an open stage. A backlit scene (lighting by Josiah Croegaert) is very striking representing off-stage prisoners tormenting Angel. Several scenes stay lodged in my mind: Angel Cruz forlorn in his cell, struggles in his first night in prison to recall the Lord’s Prayer, as prisoners taunt and complain in the background; the empathic guard D’Amico recounting his witness of an execution; Angel’s vivid recollectionis of the joyful play with his friends in the days of his youth.

With all its strengths, “Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train” falters perhaps on the basis of script: we get a little too much of the ravings of Lucius the serial killer, and the closing scene of the play seemed more like a diversion than a resolution.

“Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train” runs through September 27 at City Lit Theater in Chicago. It comes highly recommended.

*This review is also featured on https://www.theatreinchicago.com/! 

In its world premiere at Writers Theatre in Glencoe, “Dhaba on Devon Avenue” is a strong play, from a promising writer, Madhuri Shekar, winner in 2020 of the Lanford Wilson Playwriting Award. A TimeLine Theatre production, it is directed by Chay Yew.

Another of Shekar’s plays, “A Nice Indian Boy,” produced by Chicago’s Rasaka Theater Company in 2015, was adapted to a 2024 film released theatrically (now streaming) —a kind of “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” crossed with “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” set in India and with a gay white American boy as the surprise fiance.

“Dhaba on Devon Avenue” is in that vein, but a more serious drama: the widower Neeraj (Anish Jethmalani), patriarch of the struggling Dhaba Canteen, a South Asian restaurant on Chicago’s Devon Avenue, is coaching his sous chef daughter Rita (Tina Muñoz Pandya) on the eve of the restaurant’s 30th anniversary banquet. As Neeraj reveals his secrets of Sindhi cooking (Sind is a region of what is now Pakistan) we move into “The Bear” territory—a bit of demanding “Yes Chef” performance as Rita never seems to get the sauce up to Neeraj’s expectation—despite having made it for years.

We suspect Neeraj is tasting with his emotions rather than his palate, and indeed this proves to be the case. Neeraj is one of those old timers that thinks if we can just get things back to exactly where they were in the old days, the problems will go away. But that’s complicated by a diagnosis of Parkinson’s, with early symptoms just beginning to show.

Though she is frustrated by her father’s demands - Rita has been successfully making these dishes for years - she submits to Neeraj’s demands, starting dishes over multiple times to get the flavors just right. The pressure for this “Big Night” banquet is seasoned with urgent calls between Neeraj and his bank, with a deadline for satisfying his loan closing in. When Rita suggests forestalling foreclosure may be more important than perfecting the meal, Neeraj is dismissive. “We always have money problems,” but we can’t serve “substandard food,” in a cruel slight to his daughter Rita.

While the dramatic force plays between father Nareej and daughter Rita, it is the supporting roles that provide color and flair to “Dhaba on Devon Avenue.” Enter Neeraj’s daughter Sindhu (Arja Daire is terrific), an emancipated married professional living the upper middle class life in Seattle. She tries to connect with her dad, and could advise him well, if Neeraj would only give her the chance. He won’t.

Enter brother-in-law Adil (Muheen Jahan, in an excellent comedic performance), who is inspired to invest in Dhaba Canteen. Reluctant to admit his impending failure, Neeraj responds with a wall of “No,” even as the pressure builds. To add more fuel to the dramatic fire, Rita has struck up a romantic tryst with the line cook, Luc Fuentes (Ina Arcinegas in a solid performance), the one non-South Asian character.

All these components add a lot of baggage to the core of the drama - Neeraj’s resistance to the changes necessary for the business to survive. Or more broadly, a man facing the end of the road by doubling down on the past, and with little grace.

How all this gets resolved is nicely packaged in a 90-minute, no-intermission show. But I couldn’t help feeling that keeping the focus on the patriarch, making it more like Lear or Death of a Salesman, might have made for better drama.

The set (Lauren M. Nichols) with a fully equipped kitchen—commercial range, stainless work surfaces, under counter coolers, even tiled floors—was spot on, but props seemed scant for a truly working kitchen. Transition music between scenes was rather too loud. And in certain scenes—such as Rita rummaging around in a file box for a long lost recipe book—she finds it in seconds. It should have taken longer, perhaps, with more stuff in that box.

Definitely worth seeing, if only to get on the track to follow Madhuri Shekar’s next work, “Dhaba on Devon Avenue” runs through July 27, 2025 at Writers Theatre in Glencoe, IL.

*This review is also featured on https://www.theatreinchicago.com/!