What’s New

In this adaptation of a popular 1965 children’s book, Javier Bardem, who is one of cinema’s greatest living performers, receives licks from a 2,000-pound CGI reptile that sings. Bardem makes you believe it’s really happening, too, because that’s the kind of acting muscle that he brings to the table, in even the most canned of productions. Every minute of the overlong Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile that does not feature him is worse off for it, and seeing that he’s only in roughly a third of them, it’s a bit of a struggle on the whole.

It’s how the big green beast croons its melodies that best distills the movie’s various disappointments—all failing Bardem’s admirable, nourishing commitment to transformative cartoon joy. Lyle, voiced by Canadian pop star Shawn Mendes, sounds auto-tuned and generic and is animated with a similar lack of imagination. Rather than embrace the unique possibilities that come with depicting a biped croc perambulating through a human metropolis, the production opted for bland photorealism. The look is not just uninspired, but also nudges the whole affair onto the wrong side of the dividing line between the endearing and the uncanny. The songs, seemingly written for unaired practice rounds of American Idol, don’t help any.

Had the movie embraced its creepier glimmers, Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile may have been an appropriately horrific October release. Instead, it bears only the suggestion of such a thing and never finds distinction. None of this may matter to you if you’re merely looking for something to get your kids out of the house. In which case, you can stay awake for Bardem’s mirthful embodiment of a greasy vagrant showman grifter who lives in melodic defiance of his debtors and haters, and take a nap through the rest. PG, 106 min.

Wide release in theaters

Read More

While 1993’s Hocus Pocus was neither a critical nor financial smash hit upon its release, every subsequent Halloween has enhanced its reputation, so much so that clamors for a sequel have grown and grown. Twenty-nine years after the original, audiences have finally got their wish with Hocus Pocus 2, which sees Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy reunite as the Sanderson sisters once again. This time around, the three witches are accidentally resurrected by high school students Becca (Whitney Peak) and Izzy (Belissa Escobedo). They then have to stop the trio from killing Mayor Traske (Tony Hale), the father of their estranged best friend Cassie (Lilia Buckingham), the direct descendant of the reverend who banished the Sandersons from Salem back in 1653. 

The opening 30 minutes of Hocus Pocus 2 are a slog to get through. Despite the presence of Hale (Arrested Development), Sam Richardson (Veep), and Hannah Waddingham (Ted Lasso), the comedy is trite, the teenage actors are dull, and the attempted plot is needlessly convoluted. Worst of all, though, Midler, Parker, and Najimy are completely absent. However, as soon as the trio turn up, Hocus Pocus 2 immediately becomes compelling and enjoyable. Midler in particular is utterly magnetic, but all three bounce off each other with such glee, and inject so much fun and nostalgia into the proceedings, that all of the film’s obvious flaws immediately feel trivial. PG, 103 min.

Disney+

Read More

Reader senior writer Ben Joravsky riffs on the day’s stories with his celebrated humor, insight, and honesty, and interviews politicians, activists, journalists and other political know-it-alls. Presented by the Chicago Reader, the show is available by 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays at chicagoreader.com/joravsky—or wherever you get your podcasts. Don’t miss Oh, What a Week!–the Friday feature in which Ben & producer Dennis (aka, Dr. D.) review the week’s top stories. Also, bonus interviews drop on Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays. 

Chicago Reader podcasts are recorded on Shure microphones. Learn more at Shure.com.

Chicago Reader senior writer Ben Joravsky discusses the day’s stories with his celebrated humor, insight, and honesty on The Ben Joravsky Show.

Read More

Dr. Barbra Joan Frankenstreisand (Tyler Anthony Smith)—that ultimate hyphenate: superstar-mad scientist—has commandeered the stage at the Raven Room at Redline VR bar for what she calls a “clone-cert” to duplicate her beloved and very dead pooch. 

Few theater companies understand characters toeing the line between stardom and monstrousness like Hell in a Handbag Productions. Frankenstreisand, just in time for the Halloween season, crosses that line brilliantly into horror parody in its hilarious depiction of Dr. Frankenstreisand’s inept attempts at cloning and/or necromancy (the main characters initially are unsure whether they are duplicating the dog or bringing her back to life). 

Frankenstreisand Through 10/31: Thu 7:30 PM, Fri-Sat 9:15 PM; also Mon 10/31 7:30 PM; no performance Sat 10/8, Redline VR, 4702 N. Ravenswood, handbagproductions.org, $40 VIP, $30 at the door, $25 advance

The good doctor is accompanied onstage by her lab assistant, the Hunchback (Dakota Hughes, also the musical director), whose eagerness to please their mistress is matched only by their ineptness, thanks to a limited attention span and stumps for hands. Housekeeper Frau Fräulein (Brian Shaw), the very embodiment of weltschmerz, offers dry commentary and loads CDs as the cast cycles through highlights from the Streisand songbook.

Making occasional appearances are also Judy Garland (Elizabeth Lesinski), Oprah (Robert Williams), and Barry Gibb (Nicky Mendelsohn)—who ends the show looking as battered as Frankenstreisand’s dog—among others. 

The real Streisand’s reported ego and perfectionism are no secret to her public, so the intersection of her persona with your average mad scientist’s inherent hubris and existential terror is a natural fit for Hell in a Handbag. The company’s shows frequently deconstruct the personas of iconic stars by playing to the audience’s knowledge of their ghoulish behavior behind closed doors. At the same time, Handbag shows speculate on the anxiety, neuroses, and survival mechanisms that brought the star to those behaviors in the first place (cofounder David Cerda’s recurring depiction of Joan Crawford comes to mind). 

Smith offers a terrific depiction of Frankenstreisand and really looks and sounds the part—with one exception where he lip-synchs, it’s him singing those Barbra songs. Smith’s generosity as both a writer and performer—ironic as he’s riffing on a person noted for being a control freak—is evident from all the moments the Hunchback just beams in Frankenstreisand.

Hughes, a fabulous singer, is a standout. The show is the Hunchback’s journey even more than it is Barbra’s. The Hunchback opens Frankenstreisand by elegantly entering in a fur coat as the Funny Girl overture plays (I was reminded of the opening to Cher in the 70s, wherein Cher would toss off an expensive mink when her opening number hit a key change). It’s the Hunchback who also leads the grand finale, not Barbra. 

Smith’s script and Stephanie Shaw’s direction keep the show moving along at a brisk clip, though they probably could have done with a few less “who’s on first”-type exchanges that bring everything to a halt without advancing any story or characters.  

Kudos should go to costume designer Beth Laske-Miller, especially for her exquisite re-creation of Barbra’s sheer jumpsuit from the 1968 Oscars. Special mention also should be made of the wigs by designer Keith Ryan—Dr. Frankenstreisand’s 70s perm evoking the disco/Jon Peters era and a later nod to the Bride of Frankenstein are terrific.

I have never noticed anyone’s fingernails, save for Wolverine’s and Freddy Krueger’s, in a play or movie, but makeup designer Sydney Genco needs to do Barbra Streisand’s nails in real life. Finally, Lolly Extract and Jabberwocky Marionettes’ interpretation of Frankenstreisand’s dog will likely guest star in a few of your nightmares.

Read More

Dr. Barbra Joan Frankenstreisand (Tyler Anthony Smith)—that ultimate hyphenate: superstar-mad scientist—has commandeered the stage at the Raven Room at Redline VR bar for what she calls a “clone-cert” to duplicate her beloved and very dead pooch. 

Few theater companies understand characters toeing the line between stardom and monstrousness like Hell in a Handbag Productions. Frankenstreisand, just in time for the Halloween season, crosses that line brilliantly into horror parody in its hilarious depiction of Dr. Frankenstreisand’s inept attempts at cloning and/or necromancy (the main characters initially are unsure whether they are duplicating the dog or bringing her back to life). 

Frankenstreisand Through 10/31: Thu 7:30 PM, Fri-Sat 9:15 PM; also Mon 10/31 7:30 PM; no performance Sat 10/8, Redline VR, 4702 N. Ravenswood, handbagproductions.org, $40 VIP, $30 at the door, $25 advance

The good doctor is accompanied onstage by her lab assistant, the Hunchback (Dakota Hughes, also the musical director), whose eagerness to please their mistress is matched only by their ineptness, thanks to a limited attention span and stumps for hands. Housekeeper Frau Fräulein (Brian Shaw), the very embodiment of weltschmerz, offers dry commentary and loads CDs as the cast cycles through highlights from the Streisand songbook.

Making occasional appearances are also Judy Garland (Elizabeth Lesinski), Oprah (Robert Williams), and Barry Gibb (Nicky Mendelsohn)—who ends the show looking as battered as Frankenstreisand’s dog—among others. 

The real Streisand’s reported ego and perfectionism are no secret to her public, so the intersection of her persona with your average mad scientist’s inherent hubris and existential terror is a natural fit for Hell in a Handbag. The company’s shows frequently deconstruct the personas of iconic stars by playing to the audience’s knowledge of their ghoulish behavior behind closed doors. At the same time, Handbag shows speculate on the anxiety, neuroses, and survival mechanisms that brought the star to those behaviors in the first place (cofounder David Cerda’s recurring depiction of Joan Crawford comes to mind). 

Smith offers a terrific depiction of Frankenstreisand and really looks and sounds the part—with one exception where he lip-synchs, it’s him singing those Barbra songs. Smith’s generosity as both a writer and performer—ironic as he’s riffing on a person noted for being a control freak—is evident from all the moments the Hunchback just beams in Frankenstreisand.

Hughes, a fabulous singer, is a standout. The show is the Hunchback’s journey even more than it is Barbra’s. The Hunchback opens Frankenstreisand by elegantly entering in a fur coat as the Funny Girl overture plays (I was reminded of the opening to Cher in the 70s, wherein Cher would toss off an expensive mink when her opening number hit a key change). It’s the Hunchback who also leads the grand finale, not Barbra. 

Smith’s script and Stephanie Shaw’s direction keep the show moving along at a brisk clip, though they probably could have done with a few less “who’s on first”-type exchanges that bring everything to a halt without advancing any story or characters.  

Kudos should go to costume designer Beth Laske-Miller, especially for her exquisite re-creation of Barbra’s sheer jumpsuit from the 1968 Oscars. Special mention also should be made of the wigs by designer Keith Ryan—Dr. Frankenstreisand’s 70s perm evoking the disco/Jon Peters era and a later nod to the Bride of Frankenstein are terrific.

I have never noticed anyone’s fingernails, save for Wolverine’s and Freddy Krueger’s, in a play or movie, but makeup designer Sydney Genco needs to do Barbra Streisand’s nails in real life. Finally, Lolly Extract and Jabberwocky Marionettes’ interpretation of Frankenstreisand’s dog will likely guest star in a few of your nightmares.

Read More

Things have gone from bad to worse for the Chicago Bears and their offensive line. With Cody Whitehair being placed on injured reserve due to a knee injury, the Bears are now without their top offensive lineman for at least four weeks.

It has been a season that’s seen quarterback Justin Fields get pressured and sacked over and over again, which makes developing a second-year passer nearly impossible.

Much of the blame can certainly be placed on Fields, himself, for being indecisive and not being able to read the field as quickly as he should. But, some of that uncertainty can also be derived from a lack of trust in his offensive line and receiving core.

The latter of the blame falls squarely on the shoulders of general manager Ryan Poles. Was the 2022 season going to be fun to watch? Of course not. The plan, all along, was for Poles to truly go all-in next year. But, there are some serious doubts about Fields surviving this year without getting banged up. Last week, he was pressured on half of his drop backs.

One of the biggest reasons this offense has sputtered is due to the offensive line play, and specifically, one player has been about as bad as you can get: starting center Sam Mustipher.

Sam Mustipher has been the Chicago Bears’ weakest link up front, and other options must now be explored.

Even with Whitehair going to IR, the Bears have options if they want to replace Mustipher. First and foremost, let’s look at just how bad Mustipher has been.

Through four games, he has a Pro Football Focus pass-blocking grade of 22.7 (definitely in the red, for those wanting the color-coded version). Just last week against the New York Giants, Mustipher was given a grade of 1.5 in that area — yes, you read that correctly.

Mustipher has been abysmal in both pass blocking and the run game. Therefore, the Bears need to move forward with signing free agent center Matt Paradis and plugging him in as quickly as they can.

With Teven Jenkins and Lucas Patrick at guard, and Paradis at center, the Bears would have their best possible interior formation at this moment. Patrick still doesn’t appear ready to play center, so locking him into guard should be a priority if the Bears can upgrade their center position.

Paradis played last year for the Carolina Panthers and earned a pass-blocking grade of 53.6 (yellow, fine), a run-blocking grade of 69.9 (green, good) and an overall grade of 66.9 (green, good).

Paradis only allowed two sacks all of last year and registered just one penalty. To know that, first of all, Paradis would be a huge help in the run game is a positive. That’s a win. But, he’s a much better pass blocker than Mustipher — at this rate, just about anybody else would be, too.

Getting Paradis in the fold would be a huge victory for Poles, and would assure Bears fans he is still looking out for his young quarterback.

Read More

The sound design hits you first in Alma, Benjamin Benne’s 70-minute two-hander that uses a mother-daughter relationship to depict precisely how inextricable the political is from the personal.

Director Ana Velaquez’s staging for American Blues Theater (in association with the fifth Destinos: Chicago International Latino Theater Festival) is compact—a little too so. At just over an hour, it needs a bit more to feel fully complete. But Alma has impact, and it will keep you engaged. More than that, Benne distills the legion of issues densely packed into any discussion of immigration and documentation into a relatable mother-daughter relationship.

Alma Through 10/22: Thu-Fri 7:30 PM, Sat 3 and 7:30 PM, Sun 2:30 PM, Rivendell Theatre Ensemble, 5779 N. Ridge, 773-654-3103, americanbluestheater.com or clata.org, $25-$45

Alma offers a prelude of sorts before getting into the fraught conversation that plays out in real time between 17-year-old U.S.-born Angel (Bryanna Ciera Colón) and her mother, Alma (Jazmín Corona), who migrated to the U.S. before Angel was born.

Benne begins long before then, in pre-Columbian Tongva land (today, Greater Los Angeles). The stage is in darkness, but sound designer/composer Eric Backus’s watery splashes and feathery rustles quickly give way to new, defining sounds as epochs and eras are identified in brief supertitles. 1769: Spanish colonization and the toll of church bells. 1846: Gunfire and screams from the Mexican-American War. So it goes through 2016, when we meet Alma and Angel in their home in La Puenta, California.

For Alma nothing is more important than securing her daughter’s education and future success. Crucial in those goals: the SAT exam Angel is to take shortly. But Angel has very different priorities—none of which include taking a standardized test. As Angel points out, she’s testing with students who have the means to afford tutors and the time to study. There’s little chance she’ll get a score that can compete with that.

Alma has more on its mind than an intergenerational argument about the importance of a test score, or even the unfair weight that standardized tests have long held in college admissions offices.

When Alma mentions she saw a lawyer shortly after “the election,” the higher stakes become ominously clear. Outside the meticulously cared-for apartment (check out the tabletop Christmas tree, which is a lovely, detailed depiction of Christianity and far older traditions), the United States under 45 looms. Alma and Angel don’t know precisely what’s coming, but they know it’s not good. The audience, however, does know, and that makes watching Alma all the more wrenching.

Mother-daughter conflicts are nothing new in theater; they go back at least to the Greeks. But in Alma, Benne has given us a relationship that sheds a harsh light on a place where nascent fascism and toxic nationalism are problems of far greater impact than a test score.

Colón brings her own light to Angel, whose frustration with her mother never rings false. Corona’s Alma is a warrior and a true believer. Benne doesn’t give us a happy ending but for this: as Corona plays it, Alma will win her battles, be they with Angel, or with anything that wants to harm Angel.

Read More

Welcome to Florence, circa 1485, where the Medicis rule by fear and favors—and where their favorite bad-boy artist, Sandro Botticelli, is about to fuck around (literally) and find out.

Canadian playwright/novelist Jordan Tannahill’s Botticelli in the Fire premiered in 2018, before COVID-19, but plague is one of the problems facing Lorenzo De Medici’s Renaissance fiefdom. Populist civic unrest, fanned by repressive cleric Girolamo Savonarola (Christopher Meister), makes the libertine lifestyle of men like Botticelli (Alex Benito Rodriguez) dangerous. Botticelli’s affairs with other men, including his new assistant, Leonardo da Vinci (John Payne), are only one potentially fatal complication in his life; he’s also having an affair with Clarice Orsini (Neala Barron), the wife of Lorenzo (Andrew Cutler). She’s the model for what will be his most famous painting, The Birth of Venus (or what puckish sorts have long called “Venus on the Half-Shell”).

Botticelli in the Fire Through 11/5: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 3 PM; also industry nights Mon 10/10 and 10/24 8 PM, Den Theatre, 1331 N. Milwaukee, firstfloortheater.com, $25-$35 ($20 students/industry)

Tannahill’s play uses the anachronistic aesthetic of history-as-pop-culture previously seen in pieces like David Adjmi’s 2012 play, Marie Antoinette, and more recently, James Ijames’s The Most Spectacularly Lamentable Trial of Miz Martha Washington. He’s not bothered with fealty to the historical record in pursuit of making his contemporary points about the ways that the forces of “morality” (as embodied in patriarchy and heteronormativity) continue to wreak havoc with those who refuse to bow to either political or religious power structures. For example, though da Vinci and Botticelli knew each other, the former was never an apprentice to the latter, as Tannahill has it. The actual model for The Birth of Venus was Simonetta Cattaneo Vespucci, a noblewoman who was allegedly an object of affection for Lorenzo Medici’s brother, Giuliano.

So if you’re looking for an art history lesson, you’ll not find one in Bo Frazier’s high-octane staging for First Floor Theater. (As we’re told near the beginning, “This isn’t a play. It’s an extravaganza!”) What you will find is a show that, despite some longueurs here and there, is insistently flashy, ribald, passionate, and as unapologetic in its stances as its protagonist.

Until, that is, he decides to renounce his art in order to save someone he loves. This too is playing fast and loose with the historical record, but by the time the decision was made, I found myself buying into it for the most part, thanks to the way that Rodriguez slowly reveals the frightened and guilt-ridden man behind the swaggering devil-may-care legend.

One of the strongest aspects of Tannahill’s script is how it dissects the false liberality of men like Lorenzo, who decries the unwashed mobs (and Meister’s toxic rabble-rousing priest) for their ignorance and praises himself for being an instrument of enlightenment. But that all changes on a dime as soon as his “property rights” to his wife are violated. Cutler and Barron excel at playing the cat-and-mouse game of high-society spouses who are far less sure of each other and themselves than they let on. (An early scene at a ball has a whiff of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death,” as we see the Medicis and their society playthings flirt and banter, even as we hear of bodies piling up in the streets outside.) Lauren Nichols’s set uses a large gilt frame around the playing area, which is a minimalist bright-white world reminiscent of a fashion catwalk. (Perfect for showing off Hilary Rubio’s glam-trash costumes.) Nearly everyone (except Leonardo) is putting on a show for each other—until reality kicks down the door.

It’s a messy show in some ways, but these are especially messy times (meaning both the era of the Medicis and our own fraught reality). It’s fitting that the real hero ends up being Payne’s Leonardo. In interludes reminiscent of Mary Zimmerman’s The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, the ensemble occasionally sings a choral arrangement (musical direction by Andres Fonseca) of da Vinci’s notes on Vitruvian Man, his famous synthesis of art and science. The way forward requires finding the balance between passion and politics, personal freedom and civic responsibility. Botticelli in the Fire offers an extravagant and at times unnerving portrait of what happens when that balance is destroyed by malevolent opportunists.

Read More

The sound design hits you first in Alma, Benjamin Benne’s 70-minute two-hander that uses a mother-daughter relationship to depict precisely how inextricable the political is from the personal.

Director Ana Velaquez’s staging for American Blues Theater (in association with the fifth Destinos: Chicago International Latino Theater Festival) is compact—a little too so. At just over an hour, it needs a bit more to feel fully complete. But Alma has impact, and it will keep you engaged. More than that, Benne distills the legion of issues densely packed into any discussion of immigration and documentation into a relatable mother-daughter relationship.

Alma Through 10/22: Thu-Fri 7:30 PM, Sat 3 and 7:30 PM, Sun 2:30 PM, Rivendell Theatre Ensemble, 5779 N. Ridge, 773-654-3103, americanbluestheater.com or clata.org, $25-$45

Alma offers a prelude of sorts before getting into the fraught conversation that plays out in real time between 17-year-old U.S.-born Angel (Bryanna Ciera Colón) and her mother, Alma (Jazmín Corona), who migrated to the U.S. before Angel was born.

Benne begins long before then, in pre-Columbian Tongva land (today, Greater Los Angeles). The stage is in darkness, but sound designer/composer Eric Backus’s watery splashes and feathery rustles quickly give way to new, defining sounds as epochs and eras are identified in brief supertitles. 1769: Spanish colonization and the toll of church bells. 1846: Gunfire and screams from the Mexican-American War. So it goes through 2016, when we meet Alma and Angel in their home in La Puenta, California.

For Alma nothing is more important than securing her daughter’s education and future success. Crucial in those goals: the SAT exam Angel is to take shortly. But Angel has very different priorities—none of which include taking a standardized test. As Angel points out, she’s testing with students who have the means to afford tutors and the time to study. There’s little chance she’ll get a score that can compete with that.

Alma has more on its mind than an intergenerational argument about the importance of a test score, or even the unfair weight that standardized tests have long held in college admissions offices.

When Alma mentions she saw a lawyer shortly after “the election,” the higher stakes become ominously clear. Outside the meticulously cared-for apartment (check out the tabletop Christmas tree, which is a lovely, detailed depiction of Christianity and far older traditions), the United States under 45 looms. Alma and Angel don’t know precisely what’s coming, but they know it’s not good. The audience, however, does know, and that makes watching Alma all the more wrenching.

Mother-daughter conflicts are nothing new in theater; they go back at least to the Greeks. But in Alma, Benne has given us a relationship that sheds a harsh light on a place where nascent fascism and toxic nationalism are problems of far greater impact than a test score.

Colón brings her own light to Angel, whose frustration with her mother never rings false. Corona’s Alma is a warrior and a true believer. Benne doesn’t give us a happy ending but for this: as Corona plays it, Alma will win her battles, be they with Angel, or with anything that wants to harm Angel.

Read More