OPENINGS
Saturday
“Twilight of the Golds” — through Nov. 11 at Apple Tree Theatre, 1850 Green Bay Rd., Ste. 100, Highland Park; 847-432-4335. Highland Park’s long-standing Equity theater finally opens its 25th anniversary season with a new production of Jonathan Tolin’s emotional family drama about genetic testing and its consequences. Tim Gregory directs.
Monday
“Weapon of Mass Impact” — through Dec. 2 by A Red Orchid Theater, 1531 N. Wells St.; 312-943-8722. The longtime Chicago playwright Brett Neveu opens his latest work in his intimate, spiritual home. Ed Sobel directs a play concerned with fear, preparation, terrorism and personal survival.
“The Island of Dr. Moreau” — through Dec. 2 at Lifeline Theatre, 6912 N. Glenwood Ave.; 773-761-4477. Lifeline Theatre presents a new adaptation by Robert Kauzlaric of the classic horror story by H. G. Wells. Wells’ Prendick — who finds himself marooned on an island after a shipwreck — is a Survivor from a time before reality television.
CLOSINGS, last chance
Sunday
“Passion Play: a cycle in three parts” — Sarah Ruhl’s expansive deconstruction of the long and oft-inglorious history of depicting the son of God on stage dares to explore the complex co-existence of the secular and the sacred in Western culture. “Passion Play” is penned in Ruhl’s typically whimsical, quirky, post-modern style, but has a thematic heft atypical for this gifted, Chicago-bred writer. In excess of three and a half hours, it’s not a show for the easily exhausted, and it has its flaws-most notably a rambling final third. But it’s an admirably daring and intermittently profound play. And Mark Wing-Davey’s colossal production features eye-popping spectacle, including a full-on ascension into the heavens. At Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn St.; 312-443-3800.
“Thyestes” — The Roman playwright Lucius Annaeus Seneca knew his way around cruel men with big egos. His tragedy about the formative years of the twisted House of Atreus starts with two brothers who don’t much like to share, and ends with one brother serving the other a dinner composed of the flesh of his own children. That incestuously cannibalistic image is so profoundly disturbing, you’re repelled almost through the back wall of the Court Theatre. Some will find this short show tough to take. Others will find director JoAnne Akalaitis’ highly stylized approach alienating. But as in her previous work, Akalaitis eschews the modern diminishment of classic tragedy. Her actors move in bizarrely jumpy fashion and use the full range of their voices. And they’ll suddenly start screeching in their upper registers as if their director wanted to remind you that you’re not watching some nasty pulp drama on HBO. It can feel forced and inorganic, but I’m a longtime fan of Akalaitis’ work, in no small part because she’s one of the few working directors able to shove a blood-and-guts Roman play into the modern consciousness without reducing its scale. By Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis Ave.; 773-753-4472.
