News & Reviews
Sarah Grant and Michael McKeough in 'Southern Gothic' at Chicago's Windy City Playhouse MICHAEL BROSILOW
FORBES: How Chicago Is Doing Something New With 'Immersive' Theater
by Darryl King
Anyone paying attention to theater in the last decade will have noticed the explosion in “immersive” productions. Punchdrunk’s “Sleep No More”—which I’ll always describe as “Macbeth: The Video Game, IRL”—paved the way and set the template. On the whole, Punchdrunk’s immersive brethren (and imitators) favor dance, scenic design and other dazzlements over dialogue, dramaturgy and nuanced acting. Read the full article.
"Southern Gothic" is now at the Windy City Playhouse on Irving Park Road. MICHAEL BROSILOW
CHICAGO TRIBUNE: Come to the gripping ‘Southern Gothic’ and make yourself at home. Can they pour you a drink?
by Chris Jones
A house has been built inside the Windy City Playhouse on Irving Park Road.
I speak not of a conventional setting nor the usual stage facsimile of a house. As you walk into the theater for the play “Southern Gothic” by Leslie Liautaud, your senses immediately intuit that you are approaching a real house built in the 1940s or 1950s. Replete with exterior walls, a functioning lime-green kitchen, a dining room with a table and a soda siphon, a living room with a fireplace and hardwood floors, wainscoting and whatnot. There is a seemingly working bathroom, front and rear exterior doors and even a patio with a hedge and grill out back. Read the full article.
Amanda Drinkall in Hamlet is Dead. No Gravity. AUSTIN D. OIE
CHICAGO TRIBUNE: If you're ready for raw experimentation, heaven is waiting
by Chris Jones
Red Tape Theatre, a 10-year home of experimental theater in Chicago, said last week that it has lost the lease to its longtime theater inside the St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Lakeview. The Church is going in a different direction, apparently. That's fair enough, although I hope it has nothing to do with the admittedly godless content of "Hamlet is Dead. No Gravity," a very interesting and highly intellectual piece of deconstructive Austrian experimentation by that household name, Ewald Palmetshofer, which posits a universe in which heaven is one big empty space, with all the men and women merely playing below. And playing some nasty games, too. Read the full article.