A Night at the Theatre

We are theatre people.  I'm not sure either one of us is a "theataaaah" person, but, having been on both sides of the curtain, we both love theatre of all kinds: plays, musicals, opera, even some weird, avant-garde theatre that's really more performance art.  That usually requires a special kind of audience member to appreciate it, though, and I, at least, am not always that audience member.  However, got a play about a laundromat set in a laundromat where I get to watch from atop one of the dryers as the three other dryers around me are on spin cycle?  I'm totally game.  (Thank you, Edinburgh Fringe Festival.)

So we were very excited to have not one but TWO opportunities to go to the theatre last week!  Chicago, as you may know, is a theatre town, and we just happened to arrive in the middle of the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre's Shakespeare in the Park Festival.  On Friday and Saturday, CST presented The Comedy of Errors in Welles Park, a really lovely community park walking distance from our humble abode.  My lovely friend, Charlotte, and her husband, Craig, invited us to join them for a picnic dinner and the Saturday performance, and as we always enjoy a good outdoor performance, particularly at Miller Outdoor Theatre in Houston, we agreed.

The play was excellent!  Great performances, though Michel and I agreed we both preferred the Antipholous and Dromio from Ephesus to the ones from Syracuse.  They even had three actors performing quite impressively as acrobats who performed the bit parts and executed the scene changes as acrobatic routines.  Such a fun evening!  I will say, the lack of a hill and people's propensity to bring lawn chairs hindered our view a bit, but overall you can't beat a gorgeous evening outside watching a well-performed play with good friends and delicious food.  

Our next theatrical opportunity came on Thursday evening when we attending the opening night performance of Sarah Ruhl's The Clean House at the Athenaeum Theatre.  The performance was the final play of the Something Incredibly Marvelous Happens theatre festival, put on by my good and amazingly talented friend, Laura Nash, and her other incredibly talented friends.  

The play, directed by Emmi Hilger and presented by Crabapple Productions, explores what happens when the lives of a doctor, her sister, a comedian from Brazil, and a breast cancer patient converge and is alternatively hilarious and heartbreaking.  Honestly, we were not sure quite what to expect, but it was a truly wonderful production with a great cast.  We were both particularly blown away by Cruz Gonzalez Cadel as Matilde, the Brazilian comedian who does not like to clean.  It was as if the part was written for her.  We highly recommend it, so CHICAGOANS, GO SEE IT!!  Tickets are available here.  There are four performances left, and it closes this Sunday, September 1st.  And a big thank you to Laura's mom, Gail Nash, for generously giving me and Michel her tickets!!

 

 The set, post-performance (that's Laura's couch!)

Me and Laura at the champagne toast, post-performance

If this is representative of the theatre Chicago has to offer, Michel and I have a lot to look forward to these next couple of years!