Comprising 19 adventurous scenes, Beth Henley’s aptly named “ABUNDANCE” begins in 1868 and stretches 25 years to spin the saga of Bess and Macon, mail-order brides who meet in the Wyoming Territory. Pioneers of the Old West got plenty of sudden wealth and squalor, natural disasters and manmade hardship. Henley’s rich chronicle depicts that embarrassment of experience with cinematic breadth; it includes everything from crop failures to bank repossessions to capture by Native Americans. “Abundance” is Henley’s first historical play, and it conspicuously avoids her usual dotty Dixie stereotypes, familiar from “Crimes of the Heart” and “The Miss Firecracker Contest.” Authentic in its lived-in detail and convincing in its characters, this is, despite its gritty setting, Henley’s most tender work. It was first produced here in 1992 by Center Theatre Ensemble; Bill Redding’s revival by the Pendulum Theatre Company opens Friday to explore the contradictions and reversals of these remarkable survivors.
“Abundance” runs through April 9 at Athenaeum Studio Theatre, 2936 N. Southport Ave.; 312-902-1500.
Other theater openings to spark the week to come:
“The Love Talker,” Defiant Theatre at Victory Gardens Theater, 2257 N. Lincoln Ave.; 773-871-3000: Opening Thursday in a staging by Richard Ragsdale, Deborah Pryor’s “erotic horror story,” a hit at the Actors Theatre of Louisville’s Humana Festival, follows two orphaned sisters struggling for survival in their crumbling family home located in a dark, mysterious woods. When a lustful spirit named The Love Talker preys on the sisters as he did their mother, the women must confront their long-repressed sexual longings and inner demons.
“Abducting Diana (Il rato della Francesca),” TinFish Productions, 4247 N. Lincoln Ave.; 773-549-1888: Opening Saturday in an adaptation by Stephen Stenning, Dario Fo’s play depicts the kidnapping of a millionaire media boss and her triumph over her clumsy abductors. Fo also throws in a gun-toting priest and a deranged altar boy and concludes the play with fires and explosions. Kerstin Broockmann directs the mayhem.
“Chicago,” Rosemont Theatre, 5600 N. River Rd., Rosemont; 312-559-1212: Beginning Tuesday, television personality Alan Thicke stars as a passionate trickster lawyer and Vicki Lewis of the “News Radio” sitcom plays murderess Velma Kelly in this touring production of Kander and Ebb’s very cynical Chicago-based musical. Originally a fact-based 1926 play by Chicago Tribune criminal courts reporter Maurine Dallas Watkins, in 1975 it became a steamy musical about crime as show biz, appropriately choreographed by Bob Fosse with slinky abandon. Now the old reliable “Razzle Dazzle” moves to Rosemont.
“My One and Only,” Drury Lane Oakbrook, 100 Drury Lane, Oakbrook Terrace; 630-530-8300: Loosely based on the Gershwin brothers’ 1927 musical “Funny Face,” the 1983 Tony-winning romp “My One and Only” celebrates the complex romance between a famous aviator and a former swimmer of the English Channel. Andy Lupp and Kate Strohbehn play the lovers. Ray Frewen’s revival of this “new” Gershwin hit opens Wednesday.
“Wise Blood,” WNEP Theater Foundation at Chopin Theatre, 1543 W. Division St.; 773-334-8661: Opening Thursday in an adaptation by artistic director Jen Ellison, Flannery O’Connor’s darkly comic play follows the fate of Hazel Motes. Returning from World War II to his native Tennessee in search of punishment for his sins, he meets a host of eccentrics, including a blind preacher, his daughter Sabbath and an 18-year-old outcast who believes his blood tells him what to do. After Hazel founds a new cult (the heretically titled Church Without Christ), fate dogs him like a wolf pack.
“Circle,” Royal George Theatre, 1641 N. Halsted St.; 312-902-1500: Following a sold-out tour of the United Kingdom, British comedian-actor-writer Eddie Izzard brings his one-man show to Chicago on Tuesday, the first leg of his North American tour. His work has been praised in The Guardian as “two hours of floppy geniality, stream-of-consciousness waffle and absurd sketches.”
