Valerie Jean Johnson

With a record number of productions in regional theaters across the country this season, Thornton Wilder's "Our Town" is reestablishing the claim that it is the most-produced play of the American theater canon. Written over seventy years ago, you'd be hard-pressed to find someone brought up in the U.S. public school system who hasn't at least read or studied the play, perhaps even been in a production themselves at one point. With such a long-standing culture familiarity, it’s difficult to imagine breathing new life into this old standard without pulling out some serious smoke and mirrors. That’s precisely why David Cromer's staging for The Hypocrites is such a revelation: this intimate production, from a company known for turning classics on their head, stays true to Wilder's stripped-down, bare-bones stage (with the exception of a brief and brilliant third-act sequence)—relying on the talents of the fairly rock-solid ensemble to bring Grover's Corners to life (with Cromer himself at the helm onstage as well, in the role of the narrating stage manager). What's missing, thankfully, is any trace of the sometimes saccharine sentimentality that can make this play seem to last nearly as long as the lifespan it covers. On the contrary, the Hypocrites staging is urgent, honest and unflinching, played with an immediacy that cuts right to the heart of the matter—the play, like the lives it portrays, is over before you know it—leaving both characters and audiences wanting just a little bit more. Jennifer Grace and Rob Fagin are particular standouts as Emily Webb and George Gibb.

"Our Town" runs at the Chopin Theatre, 1543 West Division, (773)278-1500, through June 8. (2008-04-29)

Also by Valerie Jean Johnson

The Long Goodbye
For the past twenty-one years, from its home base on the hardwood floor of a church gymnasium in Lincoln Park, Goat Island has been slowly, carefully, perhaps somewhat imperceptibly, changing the world—one word-gesture-breath, one performance, at a tim
(2008-03-25)

Tip of the Week
In Gary Owen’s challenging and poetic post-apocalyptic nightmare, "The Drowned World," the "citizens," physically diseased and spiritually destitute, have declared war against the genetically superior and emotionally fulfilled "non citizens," for whom beauty and happiness have become deadly commodities. Actors Revolution Theatre tackles this difficult script, a terrifying and timely exploration of social depravation and genocide, with real earnest
(2008-01-22)

Girl Crazy
From an oozing liquid cocoon atop a long slab reminiscent of an examination table, a naked woman emerges and takes her place onstage, born anew. So begins renowned Italian imagist theater company Societas Rafaello Sanzio’s "Hey Girl!," described as "an intense symbolic work that follows a girl’s evolution from birth through the brutality of adolescence to the sexual independence and power of womanhood"
(2008-01-15)

Over the Ocean
The name Copi is synonymous to most Europeans with the Abusurdist movement of the mid-twentieth century, and Chicago's Trap Door Theatre began its love affair with the Argentinean-born playwright over a decade ago, when Artistic Director Beata Pilch embarked on a two-month theater-research trip to Paris, funded by the French embassy
(2007-12-26)

Tip of the Week
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Histrionic Perversity in Chicago
(2007-12-04)

Tip of the Week
(2007-11-06)

Ring Around the Rosen
(2007-10-30)

Tip of the Week
(2007-10-30)

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