WBEZ | Onstage/Backstage

Shaw and Brecht Even Shaw- and Brecht-Haters Will Enjoy, Plus An Alice Childress Revival

Thu, 17 Jan 2013 13:00:00 -0600

Florence and Wine in the Wilderness, eta Creative Arts, 7558 S. South Chicago Ave. in Grand Crossing, 773-752-3955; through March 3.

Alice Childress, author of the novel A Hero Ain’t Nothin’ but a Sandwich and the first woman to win an Obie Award, was also the first African American woman to have a play professionally produced. That play, Florence (1949) is the curtain-raiser of this evening of her work, and while it receives a fine production anchored by the delicate performance of Kona N. Burks, it’s the second piece—written twenty years later—that’s the real find. Wine in the Wilderness, set in the chaos of the late 60s, shows a black man coming painfully to terms with the idea that he doesn’t get to define black womanhood. Under Mignon McPherson Stewart’s capable direction, Mark Howard and Alicia Ivy White conduct a romance that’s as sweet as it is unconventional.

Pygmalion, Stage Left and BoHo Theatre at Theatre Wit, 1229 West Belmont Ave. in Lakeview, 773-975-8150; Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 and Sundays at 3 through February 10; tickets $20-$25

George Bernard Shaw’s most familiar play turns out to be not so familiar after all as Vance Smith directs it at the speed of light, with no time for the audience to get restive. Shaw’s complex ideas about identity, class and gender are spouted rapid-fire as if they were part of normal conversation rather than material for the lecture hall. This leaves us free to invest ourselves in the proto-love affair between Professor Henry Higgins (Steve O’Connell, adorable enough to avoid invidious comparisons with Leslie Howard and/or Rex Harrison) and the Cockney flower-girl Eliza Doolittle (the extraordinary Mouzam Makkar). The result is a bit like standing under a volcano of ideas sharing an umbrella with terrifically interesting commentators (especially Mark Pracht’s Alfred Doolittle, avatar of the ‘undeserving poor’). Theresa Ham’s costume designs could put Downton Abbey to shame.

The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Promethean Theatre Ensemble at City Lit Theater, 1020 West Bryn Mawr in Edgewater, 800-836-3006; Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 and Sundays at 3 through February 9; tickets $20 at brownpapertickets.com

Jon Stewart once created a spectrum of comedy that ran from “Pants-Wetting” down to “Brechtian;” and Brecht is indeed generally less funny than trying. This production, though, is funny and moving in equal measure, as expertly performed by a company of 15 actors. Not only do they handle Brecht’s dry wit with fluency, they play instruments and sing Matt Kahler’s gorgeous original music with flair. (Kahler’s arrangements enlivened Gilbert & Sullivan for the Hypocrites, but even if you saw Penzance or Mikado you’ll be amazed by his composition skills.) The text of Caucasian is classic Brecht: we’re at war, the world is run by cretins, and no good deed goes unpunished. Yet director Ed Rutherford enables us to care about Grusha (Sara Gorsky, with a voice to match her strong acting chops) and the child she adopts--even though the child is actually and obviously a doll. Brecht, who worked to alienate the audience, might be horrified–-but for the rest of us, a Brecht play about real people with real feelings is a joy to behold.

Best Picture breakdown: Les Miserables

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 23:10:00 -0600

Based on its vivid colors and exaggerated gestures, one is tempted to dismiss Academy Award Best Picture nominee Les Miserables as a cartoon. But cartoons have clarity of line and a sense of direction, not to mention momentum from frame to frame. This movie is more like the result of dropping the Sunday funnies in a mud-puddle: smeared with detritus and coming apart at the seams.

Start with the source. The musical itself, though much beloved by aficionados of Glee and Smash, takes Victor Hugo’s outraged critique of post-revolutionary France and turns it into a parade. While purporting to address the depredations and degradations of poverty, Cameron Mackintosh’s production was staged so elaborately that it depended on $150 tickets to keep it running. Thus there was the awkward matter of cheering gaunt poor people on the barricades from plush seats in the orchestra.

Happily even overpriced movies like this one cost only $10 or so to see, reducing the contradiction between medium and message. But director Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech) and his collaborators have replaced that one difficulty with a raft of their own: frying pan, meet fire.

First, Hooper is too enamored of his genuine French scenery to shoot an opera––necessarily a stylized event––in an appropriately artificial fashion. (The Anna Karenina device of placing the movie within a stage set would have worked brilliantly here.) But he won’t shoot these realistic scenes in natural light, or anything resembling it, because he’s also too enamored of all the stars he’s cast. So instead we get blinding illuminations of the dying face of Fantine (Anne Hathaway), of the three days’ growth of beard chronically sported by Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman) and of the moles which make stern Inspector Javert (Russell Crowe) look like an ogre instead of a complicated man too wrapped up in doing his duty as he sees it to recognize its impact on the world.

Many reviewers have blamed Crowe for everything wrong with Les Miz, making particular fun of his 30 Odd Foot of Grunts-level singing. In fact his work is perfectly adequate, and it’s not his fault either that Javert’s songs are humdrum or that he’s required to perform them perched ludicrously atop a horse at the edge of a storm-tossed battlement, a setting that reveals nothing about this pivotal character except that he doesn’t know enough to come in out of the rain.

What’s wrong with Les Miz goes much deeper. This is famously the story of a man (Valjean) imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread whose jailer (Javert) becomes obsessed with him. (Remember Lieutenant Girard’s dogged search for Richard Kimble? Ever wonder who was handling his other cases while he relentlessly pursued this single Fugitive? The same thought strikes here.) While on the run Valjean encounters numerous others trying to make a life on the margins of late-Napoleonic France, including a saintly priest and the piteous Fantine, a woman whose out-of-wedlock child makes her first a pariah and then a prostitute. (Now we’re on Route 66, with its inexhaustible supply of characters having interesting problems adjacent to the famous highway. But episodic television is supposed to consist of episodes; full-length movies are supposed to have developing plots and characters.)

By the time Valjean and Fantine cross paths she’s got time only for a dying wish: that this near-stranger protect her daughter from Fantine’s own fate. Another series of episodes: Valjean looks for Cosette, finds Cosette, springs Cosette from street thugs (played with excess relish by Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter), rears Cosette and finally turns Cosette (by now a young woman) over to Marius, the Paris communard with whom she’s fallen in love.

Somewhere in all this Valjean is also supposed to go beyond proper guardianship and fall in love with Cosette (Amanda Seyfried). Hugo’s work includes a strong whiff of forbidden love; Hooper’s does not, as Jackman never appears anything beyond avuncular. And without that element, the second half of Les Miz is nearly pointless. If Valjean never allows himself to be emotionally vulnerable, his life is no more interesting than a game of Pac-Man; we watch indifferently as he scuttles barely ahead of the open jaws of the law.

(Sure, our proposed romantic hero is a lot older than either Seyfried or Eddie Redmayne, who plays her age-appropriate lover. But between Redmayne and Hugh Jackman, one-time People Magazine “Sexiest Man in the World,” there’s no contest. Sure, Jackman isn’t as young as he used to be––but given the way he looks I wouldn’t care if rigor had set in.)

I raced to this movie based on the moment in the previews when Anne Hathaway unfurls an amazing voice and the acting chops to match for “I Dreamed A Dream.” And that scene is truly wonderful; but it’s a long, hard slog from there to the end, with neither absorbing plot nor moving performance nor distinguished score to alleviate the monotony. So see that big scene here or when it appears (as it’s bound to) on Oscar night. Then gaze into the mirror like so many of the characters in the film, and warble yourself congratulations on the time and money you just saved.

Shatner Unbound, war profiteering and swing music

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 12:00:00 -0600

Shatner’s World (We Just Live In It), Paramount Theatre, 23 East Galena Boulevard in Aurora, Friday night only at 8 p.m. Call 630-896-6666 for tickets ($65, $75 and $85).

I admit it: when I first saw this show announced in September I instantly called for tickets. I was a Captain Kirk freak when all the cool kids were into Spock; I watched TJ Hooker just to hear the leading man say “Dirt Bag.” I owned a bootleg of Star Trek outtakes and another of our hero's bizarre interpretation of “Rocket Man.” I’ve even seen the unspeakable studio version of The Brothers Karamazov because his Alyosha looks so cute in a cassock. So naturally I’m prepared to drive an hour out to Aurora and an hour back to see William Shatner do whatever it is he’s going to do in this one-man one-night-only show. It could be Priceline commercials (or even Promise commercials) for all of me. If you share my passion for the King of Self-Deprecation, the Master of the Unmotivated Mid-Sentence Pause, the ex-Shakespearean actor with the grace not to mourn his lost serious career for the phenomenal silly one he’s had, I don’t need to tell you: it’s going to be well worth the Friday rush-hour drive.

Allotment Annie, inFusion Theatre Company at Strawdog Theatre, 3829 North Broadway, previews tonight and tomorrow, opens Saturday (Jan. 5) at 8 p.m. Call 773-528-9696 for tickets ($10 previews, $25 and $15 for students and seniors); Thursdays-Sundays through February 3.

Or if you’d rather hear singing by people who can actually sing, coupled with swing dancing by people who can still swing, check out the world premiere of this new play “infused” (as the company says) with music and dancing of the 1940s. The play itself (not actually a musical) features renegade Air Force pilots, grasping bartenders, war profiteering and (as the company says) “sex, betrayal and murder.” Just good clean fun with which to start the year.

Playwrights at Center Stage: Trap Door Premieres Vaclav Havel, Red Twist Captures Bruce Norris

Wed, 26 Dec 2012 19:32:00 -0600

The Unveiling and US Premiere of Dozens of Cousins, Trap Door Theatre, 1655 W. Cortland; 773-384-0494; Thursdays-Saturdays 8 p.m. through January 26; tickets $20 (2 for one Thursdays, $25 Saturdays).

Few theaters in the country, and none in Chicago, do the kind of work in which Trap Door Theatre specializes: the highly intellectual, deeply political and quasi-absurdist plays of contemporary Europe. So an evening at Trap Door is never less than an adventure, and often absolutely thrilling. That’s the case with the company’s current offering, a pair of plays by poet-dramatist Vaclav Havel. (In his spare time Havel engineered the Velvet Revolution against Soviet domination of Czechoslovakia and then became the first president of the Czech Republic.) Havel’s bizarre comedies anatomize with surgical precision the ludicrous self-absorption of people determined to reform others, and Trap Door Artistic Director Beata Pilch captures every nuance. You know how some people have perfect pitch? Pilch and her actors have perfect rhythm for Havel’s dialogue, and express it not only in speech but in dance and acrobatics as precise as the workings of a Swiss watch. It’s impossible to describe: just go see it! (KK)

Purple Heart, Redtwist Theatre, 1044 West Bryn Mawr; 773-728-7529; Thursdays-Saturdays 7 p.m., Sundays 3 p.m. through January 27; tickets $30 ($25 Thursdays, seniors/students $5 off)

Another first-rate work in a space the size of your living room. Redtwist Theatre in Edgewater isn’t afraid to take on big projects, and when the project matches the company’s very contemporary sensibility the results are outstanding. (Its production of The Man From Nebraska made brilliantly clear a play I’d found puzzling and tedious at Steppenwolf.) Here again it takes on a one-time Steppenwolf commission, teasing out every layer of meaning in this early work by the Pulitzer-Prizewinning author of Clybourne Park. The four actors (including the remarkable teenager Nicholas Roget-King) strip back the surface of routine exchanges among a war widow, her mother-in-law, her son and a mysterious visitor so we can see the blood and muscle underneath. Director Jimmy McDermott gets the best from everybody, and Clay Sanderson takes the concept “creepy” to previously unknown heights.

Den Theatre's Faith Healer: Short of Miraculous

Mon, 24 Dec 2012 14:00:00 -0600

Playwright Brian Friel ("Dancing at Lughnasa") is the bard of waning traditional Ireland, recounting the sad stories behind the jocund facade. In "Faith Healer", he leaves Ireland without actually leaving it, addressing the quintessentially Irish question of how to reconcile faith with reality.

The title describes both the central character (a maybe-mountebank, maybe-miracle worker) and the phenomenon of having one's faith in others healed or destroyed by their actions. In a series of monologues, the ostensible healer Frank (Si Osborne), his wife Grace (Lia Mortensen) and their amanuensis Teddy (Brad Armacost) recount the complexities of their long-term three-way relationship.

The names are significant: Frank refuses to delude himself or the others about the nature of his "gift," if there is one; Grace clings to her belief that her husband is a blessing; and Teddy (Theodore, or "God's gift") turns out to be the only thing holding them together.

And their collective reflection on themselves and one another gains resonance from the three actors' having played the roles under the same director (J.R.Sullivan) nearly 20 years ago, and from Osborne and Mortensen's now-dissolved marriage. Yet with all these elements going for the production, it doesn't quite make it.

Friel's play is a bit long-winded, as though the playwright were simply intoxicated by the sound of his characters' voices. And though Armacost's touchingly comic performance and Mortensen's fierce, nuanced and loving one make their characters come alive, Osborne's Frank remains something of a cipher.

He's a perfect blend of confidence and self-doubt, charm and mockery, in his opening monologue. But when it's time for him to wrap up the story and resolve the contradictions in what the three of them have said, he seems to run out of steam.

To be fair, he's also burdened with a final sentence that's less a resolution than a punch-line, which falls flat just like the punch-line of a joke that's gone on too long. The artists' desire to return in middle age to a work of their youth is understandable, particularly a work as profoundly retrospective as this.

But that desire can't overcome a fundamental weakness — whether of script, direction or performance — which leaves the "Faith Healer" audience scratching its head, wondering exactly what all the fuss was about.

And now for something completely different: Dickens!

Thu, 20 Dec 2012 05:00:00 -0600

Just when you thought you'd had all the Dickens anyone could stand . . .

Dickens' Women, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Navy Pier, Thursday, Friday and Saturday only; 312-595-5600; tickets $50-$60.

Charles Dickens actually did write about women — and not just Scrooge's dead sister and his long-lost love. To prove it, British actress Miriam Margolyes presents this one-woman show in which she portrays characters from the novelist's life as well as his work. She's in town for only a flying visit though, so see it in the next few days or forever hold your peace. Evening performances are at 7:30 p.m. and there's also a Saturday matinee.

Oliver!, Light Opera Works, Cahn Auditorium, 600 Emerson Street, Evanston; opens Saturday (the 22nd) and plays through New Year's Eve; 847-869-6300; tickets $32-$92 with some half-price availability.

Fun facts to know and tell: Davy Jones of The Monkees' fame played The Artful Dodger in the original London production of this musical based on Dickens' Oliver Twist. I've never been able to get through the novel myself, but the musical is superb; it would be worth the price of admission just to hear the vendors' cries blend subtly into "Who Will Buy?" You can always count on Light Opera Works for top-notch singing, so this is the place to go if you love the show or if you've never had a chance to see it. And the unrepentantly wicked Bill Sykes makes a refreshing change from that guy — what's his name? — who let a few cheesy visions change his whole perspective.

The Q Brothers do Dickens

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 05:00:00 -0600

A Christmas Carol, a work in progress by the Q Brothers; inside the Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park, tomorrow (Friday the 14th) through Sunday (the 16th); Friday and Saturday at 7, Sunday at 2; FREE!

The Q Brothers are a pair of actual brothers from the North Side who've carved out an unlikely niche: They turn Shakespeare plays into hip-hop musicals, thereby managing to horrify both Shakespeare aficianadoes and hip-hop fans. And yet — speaking from the Shakespeare side, at least — it absolutely works. The Brothers' verbal and physical inventiveness, coupled with complete understanding of the plays, made The Bomb-itty of Errors and Funk It Up About Nuthin' not just fun but faithful to the originals in every way that matters.

Now they take on another classic that could use a good shaking-up: Charles Dickens' nearly exhausted A Christmas Carol. While it's still a work in progress, the Brothers are spicing up this year's holidays by sharing their reinvention of the work we think we all know. The audience will sit safe and warm in the choir lofts of the Pritzker Pavilion stage and see what new changes can be rung on the familiar story. Believer me, if there are any changes left, the Qs will find them! Tickets are free, but RSVPs are strongly recommended. To RSVP, please contact qbrotherschristmas@gmail.com. And when that's over . . .

The Second City That Never Sleeps, a benefit for Onward Neighborhood House, Tuesday (the 18th) at 6 pm at The Second City e.t.c. Theatre, 1608 North Wells, 2nd floor; 312-337-3992; tickets $20 at the door throughout the 24-hour event.

The Second City may be a for-profit company (unlike most Chicago theaters) but its heart is apparently in the nonprofit world. For 24 hours beginning Tuesday evening, Second City company members, alumni and friends will present improv, music, stand-up comedy and even an interview with political stats maven (and University of Chicago graduate) Nate Silver. Proceeds will benefit Onward Neighborhood House, a broad-spectrum social service agency (or what Jane Addams would have called a settlement house). If you can't imagine rising and shining to see Fred Armisen perform at 1:30 in the morning, there are plenty of offerings at reasonable hours, including Jeff Tweedy at 9 p.m. Tuesday, the aforementioned Nate Silver at 10 a.m. Wednesday, and others too numerous to mention: find details on the Second City That Never Sleeps Facebook event page.

Don't-Miss List December 6-12: Comedy Tonight! Gilda Radner lives, 'Fifty Shades' becomes a musical

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 05:00:00 -0600

Spank! The Fifty Shades Parody, the Royal George Theatre, 1641 N. Halsted Street, 800-982-2787; through December 16; tickets $42.50-$52.50.

What were the chances a musical parody of Fifty Shades of Grey would be anything more than an endless series of jokes about middle-aged women masturbating? While there are certainly plenty of those, Spank! is actually a hilarious satire of practically every trope in popular culture, from the conventions of Harlequin romances to the standard scenes in chick flicks. This entire enjoyable evening is performed by three improv-trained actors who handle songs, impossible dance maneuvers, ludicrous dialogue and conversations with the audience with equal ease. Perfect for a girls' night out/bachelorette party/frothy evening. You don't have to have read the book to get the show — and, of course, I haven't.

Celebrating Gilda, Second City's UP Comedy Club, 230 W. North Avenue, 312-337-3992; Thursday December 6 only from 5 to 6 p.m.; free!

Now that a tone-deaf group of Gilda's Clubs around the country have announced their intention to change their names because nobody remembers Gilda Radner, the Second City has decided to make it clear why people should remember her. This is not a show but a panel discussion of Gilda's influential work featuring Mainstage ensemble cast members, Second City alumni and a member of the Governing Board for Gilda's Club Chicago — whose name will remain proudly the same. Doors open at 4:45. Get there early: This group of people won't be able to help being funny.

Don't-Miss List November 29-December 5: Two Gilbert & Sullivans, a family drama and a first-rate 'Annie'

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 05:00:00 -0600

The Gilbert & Sullivan Reperatory, The Hypocrites at Chopin Theatre, 1543 W. Division; 773-989-7352; $28; runs through Jan. 13.

Wildly challenging and sometimes pig-headedly wrong, The Hypocrites are never dull in their reinvention of the classics. Sometimes, however, the great works merely need to be presented and not reinvented. Ya' pays yer money, ya' takes yer choice. They had a super big hit last year with a version of Gilbert & Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance and so they're repeating it this year along with The Mikado, staged in rotating repertory. Company co-founder Sean Graney is the director and skilled musician/composer Kevin O'Donnell has "re-imagined" the music. Both shows are presented in promenade style, meaning the audience and cast both move about the performance space, a presentation style which Mr. Graney often has favored. Accommodations are made for audience members with mobility issues. Also, in both shows the cast members double as musicians and performers (a trick also on display currently in Failure: A Love Story at Victory Gardens Theater). Fair warning: As brilliant as he can be, Mr. Graney's interpretations of the classics often are much more about Sean Graney than they are about the classic. –JA

The Feast, Prop Thtr, 3502 N. Elston, 773-539-7838; $20; runs through December 16

This world premiere skillfully weaves a family drama set at that most family-dramatic of times, Thanksgiving day, with an examination of the way health care is meted out (or not) in this country. Though the play has a strong political view, it's never pedantic; we see politics through the eyes of the characters, whose family business is running a for-profit HMO. Director Brian Bell wrings every ounce of tension, meaning and humor out of Tony Fiorentino's script, which deserves as many productions as he can find for it. Any subsequent version would be hard-pressed, though, to match the stark beauty and eerie intensity of Joseph Lark-Riley's sets, Nevena Todorovic's costumes and Katherine Campbell's props. The Feast plays only for a few more weekends; get yourself to Elston and Addison (cati-corner from Chief O'Neill's Pub) before it disappears. –KK

Annie, Paramount Theatre, 8 East Galena Boulevard in Aurora 630-896-6666; $34.90-$46.90; through December 30

If Rachel Rockwell were a man, she would long since have been recognized as a genius of musical theater. However belatedly, let me hail her as one now. Certainly it would be hard to beat her range: After directing last year's extraordinary production of Sweeney Todd at Drury Lane, she's turned her hand to Annie. I'm a certified curmudgeon and was accompanied by another, and we both loved it. Gene Weygandt is such a perfect Daddy Warbucks that his abundance of hair doesn't even seem strange, and Christine Sherrill is a riotous Miss Hannigan; but when every performer is this good, credit rightly goes to the director. Rockwell gets particular kudos for directing a troupe of children (led by the able 12-year-old Caroline Heffernan in the title role) AND a dog while keeping the show wonderfully lively and treacle-free. This perfect family production even contains just enough Christmas to remind you of the season without drowning you in it. Brava, Madame Director! –KK

Eggnog, grog and a holiday theater blog

Mon, 19 Nov 2012 09:00:00 -0600

Jonathan writes:

I call it "the sugarplums-and-treacle time of year." Kelly calls it "another chance for Jonathan to spout off."

Obviously, we're talking about the same thing: that six-week hiatus — from mid-November through the New Year— during which theaters large and small abandon art in favor of Yuletide commerce, raking in dollars with a Holiday Season show.

We know they are successful because there are more and more of them every twelfth month, and they never disappear: Just like a seasonal allergy the same shows—and generally the very same productions of them — come back year after year. Some have been around for decades now. According to our careful calculations, Chicago area theaters and dance companies are offering no fewer than 40 Holiday Season shows in theaters throughout the city and suburbs.

The two oldest Holiday Season theater "traditions" are The Nutcracker ballet danced to Tchaikovsky's ever-tasty roasted chestnut of a score, and A Christmas Carol. Both always are available in numerous versions presented with varying degrees of opulence and fidelity to the originals.

As far back as I can remember (and that's 60 years, rounded to the nearest decade), The Nutcracker has been presented as a family-friendly Holiday Season special event. For eons (it seems) it was the province of the Chicago Tribune Charities in a version staged by the late Ruth Page. However, for the last 17 years The Nutcracker has been owned and operated (one might say) by The Joffrey Ballet in a lavish version which even curmudgeonly critics openly can enjoy (Dec. 7-27, Auditorium Theatre). The Joffrey production features live musical accompaniment by the Chicago Philharmonic Orchestra.

As for A Christmas Carol, the Mother of All Local Productions is the big one at the Goodman Theatre, now in its 35th year (through Dec. 29). The Goodman version not only is lavish but it’s also true to the tone and spirit of Charles Dickens's 1843 novella.

Y'see, Dickens didn't write A Christmas Carol for kids and families. His target was the adult populace who made Christmas happen, or not. It's a ghost story intended to scare the bejesus out of people or, more correctly, scare the be-Jesus back into folks at a time when Christmas, in Dickens's view, had grown crassly commercial and non-spiritual. The Goodman version is NOT suitable for very young children (say, under six or seven) because it IS scary and also because it's not short. Those who prefer a 75-minute musical reduction of the tale, suitable for wee ones, will find several of them around town.

Now that I've gotten all of that off my chest, Ms. Kleiman and I offer some ideas of the range of Holiday Season fare available to those with varying tastes. The productions below are far from a comprehensive list. We offer merely a stuffed stocking of choices in four categories: Family-Friendly Traditional, Adult Traditional, Alternative/Weird (generally for adults) and New.

Adult Traditional

You don’t have to be earnest, but these are plays about the season that will reward the un-ironic attention of grownups as well as older children.

It’s a Wonderful Life (x 2). After the divorce between American Theater Company and American Blues Theater, each got (or took) custody of this crowd-pleaser, an old-time radio script version of the famous Frank Capra film. The American Blues version is at Victory Gardens Biograph Theatre (Downtown, Nov. 23-Dec. 30). The American Theater Company's version, part of its “Radio Rep” (The Wizard of Oz is on deck), plays at the troupe's Northcenter location (also Nov. 23-Dec. 30) and will actually be recorded for broadcast on WBEZ. Before you take small children to either one, remember that it’s about suicide.

The reconstituted Congo Square Theatre offers The Nativity, McKinley Johnson’s story of the journey of Joseph and Mary, with music and lyrics by Jaret Landon. Add gospel music and modern dance and it should be a delightful evening (Kennedy-King College Theatre, Dec. 13th-23rd).

The House Theatre of Chicago, always first-rate storytellers, repeats its version of The Nutcracker, more closely adapted from the E.T.A. Hoffman German original about spooky magic on Christmas night (at the Chopin Theatre through Dec. 30). It has original music in it and dance, but it's NOT the traditional ballet. Not a note of Tchaikovsky to be heard. The House says it's a family show, and why not? After all, the villain is a rodent and city kids probably are used to rats.

Alternative/Weird

The gang at ComedySportz is offering It's a Bierberful Life (Fridays at Midnight, through Dec. 29) in which Justin is "saved" by an angel who looks like Robert Pattinson, and Profiles Theatre is presenting a 20th anniversary new production of Will Kern's Hellcab (Profiles mainstage through Dec. 23) in which a put-upon Chicago cabbie deals with a collection of Christmas Eve crazies, and Chemically Imbalanced Comedy stages Dirty 30's Christmas (Dec. 7-Jan.12) featuring guns, booze, dames, deadbeats, gangsters and bank robbers in Depression Era Kansas (yes, it's a comedy).

Tongue-in-cheek or outright cynical, a few alternative choices have entered the realm of Chicago holiday "tradition." Consider The Santaland Diaries, the tart and funny reflections of David Sedaris on seasonal employment as a department store elf. It's been done by Theater Wit for eight years now (Nov. 23-Dec. 29 in its still-new Belmont Avenue digs), with Mitchell Fain once again the star. Mr. Fain has made this elf role so much his own, we hear his ears now are permanently pointed.

Also returning for its 12th year, courtesy of Hell in a Handbag Productions (Nov. 29-Dec. 30 at Mary's Attic in Andersonville), is the annually-updated Rudolph the Red-Hosed Reindeer, about a darling little transvestite quadruped.

One more choice is Charles Dickens Begrudgingly Performs "A Christmas Carol." Again, which nicely straddles the line between world-weary and inspiring as Dickens himself, whom most supposed to have died in 1870, proves he is alive, if not quite well. Blake Montgomery is as cranky as one could wish as he essays the 200-year-old Dickens, reduced to a one-trick pony, at the Building Stage (Nov. 29-Dec. 24 at the Building Stage in the Randolph Market area).

Family-Friendly Traditional

We’ve already noted the Goodman Theatre production of A Christmas Carol, but at least two other takes on the tale are catering to suburban family audiences: the Drury Lane Theatre Oakbrook Terrace presents daily matinees of an hour-long musical version clearly intended for children (Nov. 23-Dec. 22), and Piccolo Theatre in Evanston adapts the tale as an English-style Xmas panto under the title Bah, Humbug! (Evanston Arts Depot, through Dec. 22).

The Christmas Schooner, long a local holiday tradition, now is in the second year of a new production at a different theater, the Mercury Theater (Nov. 23-Dec. 30). This original, lyrical musical by John Reeger and the late Julie Shannon is a fact-based, Chicago-specific musical about the sailing ship that brought Christmas trees to Chicago from Michigan every year–until one year it didn’t. In fact, this is the 100th anniversary of the wreck of the "Rouse Simmons," the actual Xmas tree ship.

Now in its spiffy new home in Uptown, the Black Ensemble Theatre remounts its Christmas show of many years, The Other Cinderella, a take on the fairy tale so vibrant and sweet and wonderfully sung that you’ll almost forget it’s not actually a Christmas story.

The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey, an original adaptation of an award-winning children's book, is back for a second year at Provision Theater, a troupe dedicated to advancing Christian values. The tale of a boy and a grumpy woodcarver who bond in the spirit of the season is presented at the Chernin Arts Center (Nov. 21-Dec. 23) near UIC.

New

Trying to find a new Holiday Season show actually is difficult, although the earnest but light-hearted Hannukatz the Musical comes close as it's only in its second year. National Pastime Theater (in the Preston Bradley Center in Uptown) presents this brief easy-rock exploration of the Jewish Feast of Lights, suitable for the family (Nov. 29-Dec. 30).

For really new, however, consider The Gifts of the Magi at Porchlight Music Theatre (through Dec. 23), the Chicago premiere of an 85-minute musical by Mark St. Germain and Randy Courts that combines two classic O'Henry short stories, the familiar tale of impoverished newlyweds Jim and Della, and the story of street bum Soapy Smith who wants only cozy jail cell for Xmas. Sounds like another Holiday Season "tradition" in the making.

Also, there's the multi-cultural, all-inclusive It's a Wonderful Santa Land Miracle Nut-Cracking Christmas Story . . . Jews Welcome at Stage 773 (through Dec. 30), promising singing, dancing, stories, audience-interactive games and "non-holiday specific eggnog." They say it's an all-holiday show for all ages.

Finally, The Agency Collective offers Out of Tune Confessional, a new musical “holiday show for the holiday wary," at the Underground Wonder Bar (Nov. 23-Dec. 15). The holidays somehow bring together a trio of musicians whose between-song patter reveals more angst than the torchiest torch song.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly listed the venue for the American Blues Theatre production of It's a Wonderful Life.