“Bare” ???1/2
I had never thought that much of this musical from 2000 dealing with sexual expression, confusion and betrayal in a Catholic boarding school — until I saw it lustily staged in a church. Choral numbers are harmonized from the pews. Students in their rooms sit within the stone, cloister-like spaces to the side. There is a rave under the cross at the front of the cavernous house of worship. But its main point is that the church looms large in the lives of young people desperate for guidance. If you like pop musicals and young casts, this should be enough to get you to church for one of those cool, exciting, affordable, only-in-Chicago theatrical experiences. Through Nov. 6 at Epworth United Methodist Church, 5253 N. Kenmore Ave.; $20 at www.refugetheatre.com
“Batsu!” ???
The word “batsu” is Japanese for punishment or penalty. And in the raucous, new improvised entertainment in Old Town, the audience is encouraged to chant it whenever one of the performers fails at some game or another. At that moment a woman appears from the wings with some kind of rubber hammer or paintball gun or raw eggs, ready to bash, shock or splat the participant with goo. If all of this sounds perverse, maybe you haven’t watched too many Japanese game shows. “Batsu!” — performed by a diverse cast in the upstairs room in the Kamehachi restaurant in Old Town — is intended to be a live, slapstick version of just such a show. We’re a long way from Benihana. Open run at Kamehachi, 1531 N. Wells St.; $25.50-$40.50 at 347-985-0358 or www.batsuchicago.com
“Blue Man Group” ????
When “Blue Man Group” first opened in Chicago in 1997, most of the attention went to the drumming, the swallowing of marshmallows and the wordless communication from the baldheaded blue dudes. In the latest version of the show at the Briar Street Theatre, a trio of giant “GiPads” descend from above, one per Blue Man, representatives of the technological moment. Open run at the Briar Street Theatre, 3133 N. Halsted St.; $49-$69 at www.ticketmaster.com
“Bobbie Clearly” ???
The murder of a Nebraska teenager in a cornfield is at the center of the dark and ambitious new play by Chicago scribe Alex Lubischer, staged with great overall intensity and some blistering individual performances at this highly respected storefront. It wants to be a kind of faux oral history of a small Nebraska town — a clear-eyed look at a traumatic event, wherein one local teen killed another local teen, from various points of view. The most interesting parts of the drama — which is very skillfully directed by Josh Sobel — concern whether this town can ever forgive the teenage killer, Bobbie Clearly (Carson Schroeder, who makes quite a splash here). There are a few moments that really zone in on the intersection of anger and pain that are as good as any play you can see right now, anywhere in town. Through Nov. 19 at Steep Theatre Company, 1115 W. Berwyn Ave.; $10-$35 at 773-649-3186 or www.steeptheatre.com
“East Texas Hot Links” ???1/2
Eugene Lee is one heck of a playwright, and if you head up to Writers Theatre, you’ll likely conclude that “East Texas Hot Links,” the story of a horrific night in a “colored only” bar in 1955, is an important American play. It’s directed by Ron OJ Parson and acted with blistering intensity by many of the same actors who, along with Lee, performed the late August Wilson’s canon in Chicago years ago. For much of the 90 minutes, Lee paints a picture of an impoverished rural community that has carved out its own space in a backwoods bar. But by the end, you come to see that the safe space of these African-Americans was never really safe at all. Through Jan. 22 at Writers Theatre, 325 Tudor Court, Glencoe; $35-$80 at 847-242-6000 or www.writerstheatre.org
“Hamilton” ????
This Broadway show penned in heartfelt tribute to a place it declares the greatest city in the world, has given Chicago a Chicago-style production. The heartland “Hamilton” is performed by players mostly younger and less experienced than the original New York cast and is less flashy. But it is thus more in touch with the fundamental scrappiness of the early years of a rebel colony turned into spectacular democratic experiment. And — thank God in a city whose native theater is founded on truth — it is somehow very much more human and vulnerable. That Chicago-style sensibility is led by Miguel Cervantes, the superb actor in the title role. His brilliantly misfit Hamilton squares off against the show’s true stand-out, the gorgeously voiced and richly nuanced Joshua Henry..This is a company that deserves to be embraced. Open run at The PrivateBank Theatre, 18 W. Monroe St.; $65-$400 at 800-775-2000 or www.broadwayinchicago.com
“Learning Curve” ????
I watched a kid get bullied in a school bathroom. Then I took a standardized test; it was considerably harder than you might imagine. And although asking people to dances was never this much fun for me, I watched a truly joyous moment where a young fellow creates an entire fantasy romance to woo his grinning gal. All of these experiences took place at Ellen Gates Starr High School, a fictional creation of the youth-oriented Albany Park Theater Project developed with Third Rail Projects to offer an immersive experience that you only could do inside an actual school building. Most high school drama you’ll have seen will have inhabited merely a literal plane; the sophisticated “Learning Curve” embraces the symbolic, the inner life of the kid, the deeper context. It is not to be missed, if you can snag a ticket. Through Dec. 17 at Ellen Gates Starr High School, 3640 W. Wolfram St.; $40 ($18 for CPS community) at 773-866-0875 or www.aptpchicago.org
“Life Sucks” ????
If you’re in an Anton Chekhov play — or Posner’s brain-candy blast acted by a top-notch ensemble of mostly middle-age malcontents in a modern, country-house riff on “Uncle Vanya” — then life does have to suck. For pretty much everybody. Lest you have no play. Love, longing and loss, the three horsemen of the human apocalypse, the trio that put more of us in therapy than anything else, are the currency of two hours’ traffic on the stage. This show is exceptionally well-cast with a truly delicious performance from Eddie Jemison, whose resting face is a smile. That’s especially great because his character, Vanya, hardly ever smiles. By the end of a funny, wise night that reminds you of how much more fun theater can be than any other form of dramatic entertainment, you realize that, like the rest of us, the characters are just trying to make life not suck, and you forgive them all. Through Nov. 6 at Lookingglass Theatre Company in the Water Tower Water Works, 821 N. Michigan Ave.; $35-$80 at 312-337-0665 or www.lookingglasstheatre.org
“The Magic Play” ???
This three-character (plus volunteers) affair is the work of the savvy writer Andrew Hinderaker and does indeed contain real magic, mostly performed by the very likable Brett Schneider, who (unlike most magicians) deeply understands the emotional vocabulary of the actor. And there is indeed a play — a story of a young magician, played by Schneider. His skills take him far out into the audience but he must navigate a pair of very difficult relationships with his boyfriend, an Olympic-class swimmer (played by the luminously fine Sean Parris) and his sad sack father (the aptly stolid Francis Guinan). The show gets right up in our faces, demanding we turn off our phones, until the show requires us to turn them on again for a more human reason. Through Nov. 20 at Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn St.; $10-$40 (may go higher) at 312-443-3800 or www.goodmantheatre.org
“Naperville” ???
Set in a Caribou Coffee, Mat Smart’s new play tells the story of several sad-eyed denizens of the fifth-largest city in the great state of Illinois. Smart is smart enough not just to get trapped with his characters but to realize that a play about a city has to strive to find the essence and the ironies of that setting. This is no parody of suburban life. Not only do you sense the writer’s appreciation for the eccentrics who, as you likely know, hardly are limited to big cities, but Smart actually goes so far as to construct an argument for moving back home and taking care of your mom. You might find it sentimental, but there’s no doubting its celebration of maternal wisdom. Through Nov. 6 at Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont Ave.; $12-$36 at 773-875-8150 or www.theaterwit.org
In life, there is head-spinning change: The Chicago Cubs win the World Series! In life, there are immutable constants: The Marriott produces the musical (based on the film) set as the talkies kill off silent movies. Both of those occasions involved smiling people dancing in puddles. Director William Brown’s production is much better than the clunky 2012 staging in Oakbrook Terrace. Brown, an incurable romantic of the Chicago stage, has given the show the fluidity and lightness of touch it needs. You feel secure in Brown’s hands watching the travails of the stars Don Lockwood and Lina Lamont as they try to navigate the change alongside Don’s sidekick Cosmo Brown and the newcomer Kathy Selden. Through Dec. 31 at the Marriott Theatre, 10 Marriott Drive, Lincolnshire; $50-$55 at 847-634-0200 or www.marriotttheatre.com
I actually had a blast at the version of the semiscripted affair that employs 23 actors to play members of the two feuding families joining in holy matrimony. Don’t judge without going. Still, I wouldn’t be recommending this thing if it were just like last time. The difference this time around is that the show begins in an actual Chicago church, where the congregants are to be commended for their sense of humor. Also, the scale and quality of the Chicago improv community (not all of whom are in the first blush of youth) have improved vastly in the years since I last saw this show. It’s a rough, tough, divisive world out there. Here, everyone was having fun. Go in a group. Open run at Resurrection Church, 3309 N. Seminary Ave.; $75-$85 at 773-327-3778 or www.tonylovestina.com
“Visiting Edna” ???
Although David Rabe’s deeply disturbing new play is fundamentally about an ordinary American mother and her equally quotidian son, the distinguished American playwright employs a couple of extraordinary devices. One Steppenwolf Theatre Company actress in the premiering drama is charged with playing a television. Another, at the top of the show, says, “I am to portray cancer.” As the furiously unsentimental Debra Monk, who is playing the elderly widow with this uninvited guest, goes about her business in her little Iowa kitchen, cancer, like some medieval devil, has a cozy little chat with her audience about what has motivated this visit. Shortly afterward, Edna’s son, Andrew arrives back in his mom’s house. When you are suddenly spending time with someone who is dying, and all parties know that you are there because someone is dying, only because someone is dying, then the pain of impending loss only multiplies. I hesitate to tell you to go. And yet … Through Nov. 6 at Steppenwolf Theatre Company, 1650 N. Halsted St.; $20-$89 at 312-335-1650 or www.steppenwolf.org
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