Nearly a decade after it debuted at the Royal Court Theatre in 2013, Rachel De-lahay’s Routes has landed at Theater Wit for its American premiere. Presented by Remy Bumppo, Routes is a story of progressively intertwined, mirrored vignettes of two characters and the handful of people who will determine their respective fates. Olufemi (Yao Dogbe) is a Ghanian immigrant who, after running afoul of British law, is deported with a near-guarantee to never reenter the country, effectively separating him from his family for life. Bashir (Terry Bell) is a barely 18-year-old Somalian refugee, orphaned young, who is completely unaware of his precarious  status in the only country he’s ever known. 

Routes Through 11/20: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 2:30 PM; also Sat 10/29-11/12 2:30 PM and Thu 11/17 2:30 PM; audio description and touch tour Sat 10/29 2:30 PM (touch tour begins 1 PM), open caption performance Sat 11/5 2:30 PM; Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont, 773-975-8150, remybumppo.org, $32-$40 ($15 industry, $10 student)

“Routes” and “roots” are homophones (at least in the typical British “Received Pronunciation” accent), and this subtle duality speaks to the play’s underlying theme. How do you chart a new route that is in conflict with your roots?

You can’t watch this play today without considering the impact Brexit has had on the efficacy of the European Court of Human Rights, an already dubious protective measure in the lives of asylum seekers (as the play demonstrates). But the timing of Routes’s American premiere is especially relevant with regard to the rampant inhumanity of current immigration policy in the U.S., as well. Mara Zinky’s scenic design casts these issues into the literal box they are often shelved in by politicians and cozy constituents alike. The entirety of the production, directed by Mikael Burke, takes place inside a sparse, glass-walled structure. The audience views the action through a sharper-edged fishbowl perspective while the six-person cast orbit each other fluidly and gracefully. Helming this choreography the night I attended was Lucas Looch Johnson, understudy for Bashir’s boisterous, tenderhearted, and unexpected ally, Kola, who was a joy to watch.

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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.

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Sam Shepard’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama about a rural Illinois family beset by delusion and dysfunction is brilliantly brought to life by AstonRep Theatre Company.  

Alcoholic patriarch Dodge (Jim Morley, who brought to mind Richard Widmark in a stellar performance) is permanently ensconced on the living room couch yelling to his wife, Halie (Liz Cloud). Few people could be worse caretakers for the ornery Dodge than Halie, who spends most of her days and nights upstairs, wistfully gazing at the fallow fields, remembering (misremembering?) happier days. Characters throughout Buried Child turn on a dime, but Halie is especially brutal when she turns on a dime from foggy, wistful reminiscences to acrid denunciations, thanks to Cloud’s masterful interpretation.   

Buried ChildThrough 11/19: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM, the Edge Theater, 5451 N. Broadway, 773-828-9129, astonrep.com, $20

Indeed, Dodge is also under the care of his and Halie’s two sons, the lumbering and highly traumatized Tilden (Robert Tobin) and the psychotic Bradley (Rian Jairell, equally lumbering but electrifyingly terrifying). Halie’s warmth is reserved for her and Dodge’s late son Ansel, whose heroic athleticism, she maintains, warrants a statue in town. When either Tobin or Jairell are onstage, it’s nearly impossible to look away from their characters.

The ghosts of O’Neill, Williams, and Steinbeck are definitely in the air, but Shepard’s thematic preoccupations are front and center as well—decaying family structures, the inherent instabilities within masculine identity, and the expansive emptiness of the American plains. Director Derek Bertelsen and his cast and crew make a complicated drama riveting.

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The game Clue taught me what “confidential” means, that a conservatory is just a fancy greenhouse, and that Miss Scarlett is always the right choice. Any armchair detective that could identify those little toy weapons in the dark with their eyes closed will enjoy this new stage adaptation of the 1985 movie based on the 1943 game. Mercury Theater’s production of Sandy Ruskin’s adaptation of Jonathan Lynn’s screenplay (which director Lynn created with John Landis) is goofy, slapstick fun. Under L. Walter Stearns’s direction, the 90-minute one-act starts strong, introducing each (literally) colorful character, from Colonel Mustard to Mrs. Peacock, with zany quips and precisely timed comedic physicality. Mr. Green is scared of his own shadow, Professor Plum is predictably pompous, and Mrs. White can’t even, thanks to McKinley Carter’s droll deadpan.

Clue Through 1/1: Wed-Fri 8 PM, Sat 3 and 8 PM, Sun 1 and 5 PM, Mercury Theater Chicago, 3745 N. Southport, 773-360-7365, mercurytheaterchicago.com, $35-$85

Central to the plot and the highlight of the show is Mark David Kaplan as the butler, Wadsworth, conductor of the evening’s “game” and an all-knowing presence at turns both sarcastic and sinister. Supported by a hilarious Tiffany T. Taylor as French maid Yvette, he eye-rolls and stalks his way from room to room of Bob Knuth’s jewel-box set like a puppeteer, reaching peak comedy during his rapid-fire reenactment of the plot points so far, as we approach the show’s conclusion. While the movie famously sent alternate endings to different theaters, the play chooses to address all outcomes sequentially, ratcheting back up the momentum after a bit of a lag midway. Like the game, it’s a good indoor amusement with just enough intrigue to keep you on your toes. 

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Though it’s called The Cleanup, Hallie Palladino’s new play, now in a world premiere with Prop Thtr under Jen Poulin’s direction, is all about messiness in the aftermath of the COVID-19 shutdown. Set at a nursery school co-op established by dedicated community mom Julie (Lynnette Li), the play traces the fallout when two of the parent volunteers, Nicole (Lucy Carapetyan) and Logan (Chad Patterson), begin an affair. He’s already separated (well, sort of) from his ER doctor wife, and she’s been in a loveless marriage with a man whose already low interest in his own kids seems to have turned into outright resentment during stay-at-home. Meantime, Ryan (Brandon Rivera) and his husband are taking their kids to a more upscale day care than the makeshift church basement Julie’s been running on financial fumes and holding together with sheer determination. (Alyssa Mohn’s set neatly captures the homespun but frayed charms of the day care.)

The Cleanup Through 11/19: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM; open caption performance Sat 10/29; Athenaeum Center, 2936 N. Southport, athenaeumcenter.org, $32 ($10 students and industry)

While the story takes a little while to ramp up dramatically, Palladino shows a deft touch throughout with the small details of parental stress that add up to feeling overwhelmed. Patterson’s Logan, who begins his first conversation with Nicole asking that they talk about “substantive stuff,” gives early but subtle warnings of his powers of manipulation. But throughout Palladino’s shrewd and sometimes aching portrayal of contemporary parenthood (never easy, and rendered so much harder in the past two years) weaves in the palpable uneasiness all the characters feel as balancing work, kids, and everything else starts to feel like a Jenga game with a body count. 

Carapetyan’s Nicole doesn’t make the best choices, but she makes us understand the aching loneliness driving her decisions. “I am done with ‘for now,՚” she tells Logan early on. “I’m ready for ‘next.՚” But what comes next in a world that, as Julie observes, “runs on maternal sacrifice?” Palladino’s play reminds us that finding the right answers is crucial for the well-being of kids and parents alike.

Read More

The game Clue taught me what “confidential” means, that a conservatory is just a fancy greenhouse, and that Miss Scarlett is always the right choice. Any armchair detective that could identify those little toy weapons in the dark with their eyes closed will enjoy this new stage adaptation of the 1985 movie based on the 1943 game. Mercury Theater’s production of Sandy Ruskin’s adaptation of Jonathan Lynn’s screenplay (which director Lynn created with John Landis) is goofy, slapstick fun. Under L. Walter Stearns’s direction, the 90-minute one-act starts strong, introducing each (literally) colorful character, from Colonel Mustard to Mrs. Peacock, with zany quips and precisely timed comedic physicality. Mr. Green is scared of his own shadow, Professor Plum is predictably pompous, and Mrs. White can’t even, thanks to McKinley Carter’s droll deadpan.

Clue Through 1/1: Wed-Fri 8 PM, Sat 3 and 8 PM, Sun 1 and 5 PM, Mercury Theater Chicago, 3745 N. Southport, 773-360-7365, mercurytheaterchicago.com, $35-$85

Central to the plot and the highlight of the show is Mark David Kaplan as the butler, Wadsworth, conductor of the evening’s “game” and an all-knowing presence at turns both sarcastic and sinister. Supported by a hilarious Tiffany T. Taylor as French maid Yvette, he eye-rolls and stalks his way from room to room of Bob Knuth’s jewel-box set like a puppeteer, reaching peak comedy during his rapid-fire reenactment of the plot points so far, as we approach the show’s conclusion. While the movie famously sent alternate endings to different theaters, the play chooses to address all outcomes sequentially, ratcheting back up the momentum after a bit of a lag midway. Like the game, it’s a good indoor amusement with just enough intrigue to keep you on your toes. 

Read More

Though it’s called The Cleanup, Hallie Palladino’s new play, now in a world premiere with Prop Thtr under Jen Poulin’s direction, is all about messiness in the aftermath of the COVID-19 shutdown. Set at a nursery school co-op established by dedicated community mom Julie (Lynnette Li), the play traces the fallout when two of the parent volunteers, Nicole (Lucy Carapetyan) and Logan (Chad Patterson), begin an affair. He’s already separated (well, sort of) from his ER doctor wife, and she’s been in a loveless marriage with a man whose already low interest in his own kids seems to have turned into outright resentment during stay-at-home. Meantime, Ryan (Brandon Rivera) and his husband are taking their kids to a more upscale day care than the makeshift church basement Julie’s been running on financial fumes and holding together with sheer determination. (Alyssa Mohn’s set neatly captures the homespun but frayed charms of the day care.)

The Cleanup Through 11/19: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM; open caption performance Sat 10/29; Athenaeum Center, 2936 N. Southport, athenaeumcenter.org, $32 ($10 students and industry)

While the story takes a little while to ramp up dramatically, Palladino shows a deft touch throughout with the small details of parental stress that add up to feeling overwhelmed. Patterson’s Logan, who begins his first conversation with Nicole asking that they talk about “substantive stuff,” gives early but subtle warnings of his powers of manipulation. But throughout Palladino’s shrewd and sometimes aching portrayal of contemporary parenthood (never easy, and rendered so much harder in the past two years) weaves in the palpable uneasiness all the characters feel as balancing work, kids, and everything else starts to feel like a Jenga game with a body count. 

Carapetyan’s Nicole doesn’t make the best choices, but she makes us understand the aching loneliness driving her decisions. “I am done with ‘for now,՚” she tells Logan early on. “I’m ready for ‘next.՚” But what comes next in a world that, as Julie observes, “runs on maternal sacrifice?” Palladino’s play reminds us that finding the right answers is crucial for the well-being of kids and parents alike.

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

Sam Shepard’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama about a rural Illinois family beset by delusion and dysfunction is brilliantly brought to life by AstonRep Theatre Company.  

Alcoholic patriarch Dodge (Jim Morley, who brought to mind Richard Widmark in a stellar performance) is permanently ensconced on the living room couch yelling to his wife, Halie (Liz Cloud). Few people could be worse caretakers for the ornery Dodge than Halie, who spends most of her days and nights upstairs, wistfully gazing at the fallow fields, remembering (misremembering?) happier days. Characters throughout Buried Child turn on a dime, but Halie is especially brutal when she turns on a dime from foggy, wistful reminiscences to acrid denunciations, thanks to Cloud’s masterful interpretation.   

Buried ChildThrough 11/19: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM, the Edge Theater, 5451 N. Broadway, 773-828-9129, astonrep.com, $20

Indeed, Dodge is also under the care of his and Halie’s two sons, the lumbering and highly traumatized Tilden (Robert Tobin) and the psychotic Bradley (Rian Jairell, equally lumbering but electrifyingly terrifying). Halie’s warmth is reserved for her and Dodge’s late son Ansel, whose heroic athleticism, she maintains, warrants a statue in town. When either Tobin or Jairell are onstage, it’s nearly impossible to look away from their characters.

The ghosts of O’Neill, Williams, and Steinbeck are definitely in the air, but Shepard’s thematic preoccupations are front and center as well—decaying family structures, the inherent instabilities within masculine identity, and the expansive emptiness of the American plains. Director Derek Bertelsen and his cast and crew make a complicated drama riveting.

Read More