Blow Hard

“Free” jazz pioneer Fred Anderson turns 80 in March, and the five-day celebration at his club, the Velvet Lounge, begins…

Dutch Treat

Rouw siert Electra (Mourning
Becomes Electra)

 
Eugene O’Neill’s take on the Oresteia trilogy (a.k.a. the House of Epic Dysfunction, wherein son loves mother, murders father; wife murders husband, is avenged by children; and so on) is stripped down to its primal essence by the renowned Toneelgroep Amsterdam. Raw, merciless, and pungent with sexuality, this production incorporates TV, video, and plenty of nudity. In Dutch with English supertitles.

Talk of Our Town

Two Chicago theatres have liberated Thornton Wilder’s warhorse of a play from its nostalgic conventions to deliver productions both radical and real. Why now?