Theater
Below: Review 2 / Review 3 / Review 4
Christopher Carter Messes With Your Mind
At: Live Bait Theater
Phone: (773) 388-0730; $20
Runs through: July 27
BY RICK REED
Chrisopher Carter
Christopher Carter, a rather ordinary looking man dressed in sports coat, casual shirt and pants, is careful to explain to the audience that he is not a psychic. No, when Christopher Carter takes the stage, he wants it made clear from the outset that the admittedly amazing feats the audience will see over the course of the next hour and a half are the work of a skilled "mentalist." He wants us to know that he uses a combination of intuition, a heightened awareness of subtle clues through body language and the like, and the power of suggestion to work with us in suspending our disbelief.
When I saw Mr. Carter's show, I wanted to be sure to bring along my most skeptical friend. She would act as a barometer of the proceedings, because I knew, with my own fascination with the paranormal, I would fall too easily into Carter's capable hands.
But even my friend had trouble explaining all of Carter's feats. Carter is a very affable and engaging fellow, who easily holds the audience in the palm of his hand throughout the course of his show, which pays homage to famous mentalists of the past, stories from his own life, and of course, stunts of the inexplicable. Some of his stunts, like glorified card tricks, weren't all that impressive. I can't tell you how he knew what cards four audience members had merely looked at from a shuffled deck, but I'm willing to bet there's a little man behind the curtain, making things work. But other stunts the mentalist performed were truly amazing, and that's what makes the show so much fun. We want to believe...and we do.
For example, in one extended set, Carter had an audience member place silver dollars over his eyes, then duct tape them in place from every possible direction, then put a heavy blindfold over that, and finally duct tape over the blindfold. He then had audience members write their names, a number that meant something to them (most put things like date of birth or social security number), and a secret about themselves that wouldn't be obvious from looking at them. His accuracy on this "trick" was nothing short of amazing. Holding a card in his hand, he could guess one woman's social security number (in its entirety), another's birthday, and when he got to me, he was able to deduce my initials, my first name, the fact that I put I am gay on the card, and also the number I put down (he didn't say it...it's a family show, but he intimated that it was a "naughty" number that read the same upside down and right side up).
The fun of this show is its mystery, and the sense of wonder it induces in audience members. There's no way we can easily figure out how Carter manages to make a man's watch in the audience lose 20 minutes, or how he, Uri Geller style, bends a bunch of spoons in his hand, or how he's able to guess a fairly complicated word from a book an audience member chose at random.
If you're looking for an evening that reconnects you with a sense of magic and childlike wonder, Christopher Carter can do just that as he very happily delivers on the promise of "messing with your mind."
2
Whose Body?
Playwright: Frances Limoncelli (adapted from the
Dorothy L. Sayers mystery)
At: Lifeline Theatre
Phone: (773) 761-4477; $20
Through: August 18
BY RICK REED
The ambitious, feisty, and literate Lifeline Theater in Rogers Park has turned its sights to the classic British mystery in this adaptation of whodunit maven, Dorothy L. Sayers, first book in her Lord Peter Wimsey series, Whose Body? The story begins with an intriguing set up: a carefully groomed body is discovered in the bathtub of Mr. Alfred Thipps. The body wears only a pair of pince-nez glasses. Mr. Thipps has never seen the body and has no idea who it is, nor how it got there. The intrigue is enough for Lord Peter Wimsey, a thirtysomething aristocrat with enough leisure time on his hands to spend it sniffing around corpses and the like, trying to discover who helped them meet their untimely ends. His sleuthing is much to the consternation of the literal minded Inspector Suggs, who doesn't have the intuitiveness, keen intellect, or imagination of Lord Peter, but who does have the professional capacity for investigation. Suggs wants to take the easy route, and blame Thipps, who, on the surface, does seem a likely suspect. But he has no known connection to the body (whom most erroneously assume at the outset is that of a renowned financier), and he is, for lack of a better word, a mouse of a man.
I won't give away the entire plot line of Whose Body? although it has all the earmarks of British mystery writing, of which Sayers was a prominent, and pioneering, figure. The tale is replete with nasty secrets, snooty dowagers, all-knowing and long-suffering butlers, and a cast of characters more defined by their upper crust quirks than anything else. Whose Body? published in 1923, was the first of Sayers' beloved Lord Peter Wimsey series, and it's the slimmest, least provocative entry in the line-up, although it does serve as a good introduction to the characters and tone set forth in Sayers' subsequent novels about the aristocratic amateur sleuth. As a mystery, Whose Body?, despite an intriguing set-up, isn't really very good. I say that because there isn't much here for a reader, or an audience, to work with in solving the puzzle. And that's what mystery readers love most: seeing if they can solve the criminal enigma before the characters do. Whose Body? never really gives us enough to go on to fire our imaginations and actively involve us. Its sinister conclusion, with a diabolical character at its center, is too handily tied up and explained away.
In spite of these shortcomings, Lifeline should be credited for putting together a true-to-its-source adaptation and an ensemble and creative crew to bring it to authentic life. Under the capable direction of Lifeline artistic director, Dorothy Milne, the ensemble shines with credibility and a kind of daffy humor, with a few chills thrown in for good measure. Outstanding among the cast were Marssie Mencotti as Wimsey's Duchess mum. Mencotti has the style of her role down perfectly and stole every scene she was in. Peter Greenberg, as Lord Peter, was likable and sympathetic and James L. Grote, as his butler, Bunter, was also in great form, conveying a kind of paradoxical subservience and superiority that made him fascinating to watch.
Alan Donohoe's scenic design makes good use of the theater's tall space, managing to suggest a lot with very little. Many smaller theater companies could learn a lot from his example, which is large in imagination.
3
Galileo Galilei
By: Philip Glass (score) and Mary Zimmerman (libretto)
At: Goodman Theatre
Phone: (312) 443-3800; $35-$50
Through: Aug. 4
BY RICK REED
Combining two such visionary theatrical forces...Philip Glass and Mary Zimmerman...with the life story of one of our most visionary figures, astronomer Galileo Galilei, and one is almost guaranteed something explosive and beautiful. And the Goodman, in this world premiere opera, scores on both accounts. Galileo Galilei, with a rousing, evocative and immediately recognizable Glass score and a sort-of "found" libretto by Zimmerman (to create her mosaic portrait of Galileo, Zimmerman artfully cobbled together trial transcripts, Galileo's own scientific writings, letters, poetry, and biographical works), is an authentic work of genius, a nearly perfect fusion of style, creativity, and execution. In short, this operatic piece is one of the most exciting events to come to a Chicago stage in a long time, eclipsing (forgive the pun) even some of Zimmerman's astonishing imagery in shows such as Metamorphoses and The Odyssey.
Under Zimmerman's deft, inspired direction, we move backward through time and gain a portrait of a troubled, brilliant figure who was as much an artist as he was a scientist. We begin at the end, with an elderly, blind Galileo (John Duykers, whose impressive baritone powerfully conveys Galileo's state of mind at the end of his life) decrying his ambition, wondering if his loss of vision (along with the death of his daughter, the beloved nun, Maria Celeste) is punishment for his pride and single-minded scientific intent at the expense of more earthly pursuits. From there, we watch as the opera gracefully flows backward, using telling moments from the astronomer's life to illustrate how he came to such an end. From the staccato rhythms of Galileo's recantation of his great book, the Dialogue Concerning the Chief Systems of the World, before a tribunal of cardinals at Santa Maria Sopra Minerva (and its heretical assertion that the earth revolved around the sun), to the plaintive poetry of a letter from his daughter in her convent bringing to the fore the absence of her father and offering him humble gifts of candy, pears, a winter-blooming rose, to the Roman Inquisition, to Galileo's discoveries of scientific principles such as inclined planes and pendulums, Galileo Galilei offers a stunning portrait.
Zimmerman has stamped her brand of poetic imagery on the production, making it as much a journey of vision as it is of discovery. Witness the crumbling facade of the nunnery where Maria Celeste writes to her father, as snow falls on the stage, the zest and joyfully orchestrated movement in the young Galileo's laboratory, the swinging lamp in a church that inspires Galileo to time its motion using the pulse of his daughter, and finally, the last scene, which is an opera within an opera (giving a nod to Galileo's father, Vincenzio, who has been credited with the invention of the operatic form) depicting the celestial mythology of Orion's love for Merope, and how her enraged father blinded him for his passion, which dovetails with Galileo's own life.
The Goodman has brought together a world-class assemblage of powerful voices to bring the story to life, including the aforementioned Duykers, Eugene Perry as the young Galileo, Elizabeth Reiter's heartbreakingly clear voice as the young Maria Celeste, and Alicia Berneche's breathtaking turn as the elder version of Galileo's daughter. The remainder of the cast is equally powerful in supporting roles.
Daniel Ostling's scenic design provides a gorgeous tableau, one that is both historically evocative and blindingly original and works in tandem with T.J. Gerckens' stunning lighting design. Mara Blumenfeld's costume designs are, simply, character defined and brought to life in fabric. And Beatrice Jona Affron's capable music direction bring Glass's score to haunting life flawlessly.