Timed to coincide with what would have been Samuel Beckett’s 90th birthday, on Thursday the fifth annual Buckets o’ Beckett Festival, launches its biggest outpouring yet of the minimalist master’s dark dramas.
Stretching to 18 plays over four weeks and performed at the new 300-seat Mercury Theatre, this tribute to the Irish Nobel Prize winner numbers John Mahoney, Estelle Parsons and Robert Breuler among a lineup of 31 actors led by such noted directors as Sheldon Patinkin, Brian Russell, Matt O’Brien, Michael Maggio, Nicholas Rudall, Richard Block and Marc Rosenbush. The festival is produced by the Splinter Group Theatre Company.
The works include familiar Beckett bleakness — the bitter retrospective “Krapp’s Last Tape” (with Mahoney as Beckett’s grim banana eater); “Happy Days,” a surreal sitcom in which Estelle Parsons will act from her waist up (as she sinks into the earth); and “Endgame,” where the monstrous Hamm (Breuler) converses with his parents, who live in, not from, garbage cans.
The festival also includes 15 of Beckett’s “dramaticules,” short plays that can haunt as much as the larger efforts.
“Buckets o’ Beckett” runs through May 19 at the Mercury Theatre, 3745 N. Southport Ave.; 312-335-8026.
Other theater openings to anticipate:
“Heartbeats,” Friday, Illinois Theatre Center, 400A Lakewood Blvd., Park Forest; 708-481-3510: It recently played Marriott’s Lincolnshire Theatre, and now Grammy-winner Amanda McBroom’s 20-song musical is revived in the southern suburbs. It remains the story of a Midwestern housewife and mother who, facing her 40th birthday and 20th wedding anniversary on the same day and bewildered by an apparently failing family, has a lot to think — and sing — about. Shelley Crosby tackles the assignment.
“Breaking the Stereotypes: An Evening of Fully-Clothed Gay & Lesbian Theatre,” Friday, Theater Q at Halsted St. Cafe, 3641 N. Halsted St.; 312-802-9167: Nudity, this troupe boldly proclaims, may not be necessary to draw a gay audience. The new gay theater presents a two-act collection of original and published scenes and monologues. Seven actors (four women and three men) portray more than 30 characters, including a lesbian who asks her ex-husband to father her child, a straight man dealing with the death of his gay brother and a trio of catty debutantes dishing it up in a ritzy women’s room.
“Ed Wood’s The Bride and The Beast,” Friday, Bailiwick Repertory, 1229 W. Belmont Ave.; 312-883-1090: Jungle fever takes on a whole new meaning in this revival of Kitty Hopper’s late night show. Featuring a live three-piece combo and new cast members, this camp recreation apes a wacko film where a bride discovers that she was a gorilla in her past life — and now must control her lust for her husband’s pet gorilla, Spanky. Don’t ask — and the posters caution, don’t tell anyone what happens to the heroine.
“Richard III,” Sunday, Shakespeare Repertory, Ruth Page Theater, 1016 N. Dearborn St.; 312-642-2273: Shakespeare Rep concludes its ninth season with a Tale of a scoundrel, re-imagined as a living nightmare. Barbara Gaines’ staging concentrates as much on the private world of the characters’ unconscious — dreams, intuitions and spirits of the dead — as on the dynastic struggle that turns the title character into a killing machine. New York actor Brendan Corbalis makes his Chicago debut as a uncharacteristically handsome Richard. The toast of Moscow and Broadway, Russian-born master designer Alex Okun provides the abstract but highly dramatic set.
“The Greatest Story Never Told,” Sunday, The Free Associates at Ivanhoe Theatre, 750 W. Wellington Ave.; 312-975-7171: Is nothing sacred? After tackling Tennessee Williams and Emily Bronte, the very Free Associates are now spoofing the Hollywood Bible epic, complete with bad acting and worse hair. Guaranteed not to be 3 1/2-hours long, this is billed as “no golden calf; don’t pass it over.”
“Forever Tango: The Eternal Dance,” Tuesday, Arie Crown Theatre, McCormick Place, 23rd Street and Lake Shore Drive; 312-902-1500: An all-Argentine cast of dancers and musicians present seven dance pairs who trace the development of the tango from its sensual origins in the bordellos of 1880s’ Buenos Aires to its popularization through Rudolph Valentino and, recently, the Joffrey Ballet.
“Night of the Mime,” Thursday, StreetSigns at Strawdog Theatre, 3829 N. Broadway; 312-296-1875: In the tradition of “Old Yeller,” George Brant’s wicked parody tells the tale of how a young farmgirl comes of age, with help from her trusty pet mime.
“Waiting on Sean Flynn,” Thursday, T.A.N.S.T.A.A.F.L. Productions and Close Call Theatre at Chicago Dramatists Workshop, 1105 W. Chicago Ave.; 312-929-5083: Set in 1975, as Saigon is about to surrender to the Viet Cong, Oregon playwright Steve Patterson’s play focuses on three journalists who share a common bond in their friendship and the loss of Sean Flynn, the photojournalist son of Errol Flynn who was lost in Cambodia in 1970. The production is an effort to raise awareness and funds for the little-known Vietnam War Museum, located in Chicago’s “Little Saigon” area at 954 W. Carmen St.
