Week of Plays...Free At Last

Week of plays, which turned into epic never ending onslaught of plays has finally come to an end. Now I just have to save up all my energy for nine hours of Gatz next month. Let's pretend I have to give stars to the plays based on a five star system (because six would just be totally ridiculous) with the breakdown going like this:

5 = Brilliant!

4 = Really Good!

3 = Pretty good, average

2 = Oh, honey.

1 = Just plain bad.

0 = It's badness made me actually get angry.

5's and 0's will be rare. Cause I'm tough as nails I tell ya. But plays don't usually make me angry with their badness...unless they are that play I saw with Kris a couple years ago called "History of the World." A lot of times when he tells me about a particularly bad play he's just seen I will say, "Was it History of the World bad?" and he will laugh and say, "No...of course not." Oh, and I won't use stars, I'll use kittens, cause they are cuter than stars and cause I want to spice it up a bit. Mmm, spicy kittens. 

Here we go.

Last Monday:

Haywire with Hell in a Handbag. 

I'm sorry but I'm not allowed to rate this with stars or kittens since these are my close and lovely friends. So all I will say is go see this show and try not to be jealous of how much better David Cerda's legs are than yours. Cause they are. A lot better. 

Last Tuesday

Amadeus at Chicago Shakes

4 Kittens

I already wrote about how this show is very very good. Apparently there is a lot of discussion that claims where you sit changes how much you like the set. I won't get into it, I'll just say that I'm right. However, the production is very good. 

Last Wednesday

Caroline or Change at Court

4 Kittens

I already wrote about this too. It's really good, yadda yadda, don't go with sleeping teenagers yadda yadda...

Last Thursday

Our Town by Hypocrites

10 Kittens

What? It's my kitten system, I can do whatever I want. Maybe I gave it five kittens and then one of the kittens was actually a really small cat and then she had a litter so now there are 10 kittens. Better to have a pregnant cat on a show like this than on "History of the World". Ok, you caught me, I snuck that pregnant cat in so she would deliver all over this show and raise the amount of kittens I gave it. Or maybe some of the other kittens from the other shows wandered over, which really isn't my fault and even though I feel bad that the other shows therefore have less kittens...well, kittens are harder to contol than stars. Deal with it. 

Last Friday

Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind at the Neo-Futurearium

3 Kittens...but really really cute ones. 

So, I'd never seen this show. I appreciated it being avant garde and imaginative. I thought it was going to be all sketch comedy but there were actually some very poignant pieces (particularly one monologue about chronic illness typed onto a screen with classical music playing in the background...strangely moving) however, for actors who rub pie all over their faces and use lipstick as eyeshadow they were  obsessed with sweeping the stage. Oh, I know...they had to consider their "safety" but that seemed contrary to the risky style of the show. Also, I think I was grumpy about the part where I had to stand in the rain with 50 hipsters waiting to get in at 11:30pm. It made me nostalgic for the sleepy teenagers from Caroline or Change. 

Last Saturday

I sat on my ass and did nothing at the Brookeararium

5 Kittens

Sunday

Dirty Dancing: Redux at the Cadillac Palace (Vroom Vroom)

2 Kittens (in a corner)

Because I arrived kinda late to the theatre I didn't so much see the show as I did "Watch a snippet of it on the video screen outside the Cadillac Palace". But that's all right, because once I got there I thought to myself, "Why am I about to go see this crap again?" so it worked out for the best. 

Monday

Dogsitting at Jens

5 Dogs

I stayed in and watched Cable TV with my surrogate dog Clarkie at Jen's house. We watched a certain reality show and suddenly a girl I knew was on it. She was acting all snooty and they showed her at her wedding! So I sent her an email today and told her I'd seen her and congratulations on her wedding. She wrote me back saying it was all staged and that wasn't even her real husband in the episode, they just needed someone to act like a snoot and her friend works for the show. Hilarious. I can't tell you which friend it was (you don't know her) and I can't tell you what show it was because I don't want her to get in trouble and because I'm not yet ready to admit to some of the tragically embarassing reality shows I watch. So don't ask. But you guys, oh  my god, reality shows are staged? Shocking.

Tuesday aka Tonight

Eurydice at Victory Gardens

3 Kittens

Rain on stage is the new black. It's popping up every where. This is the first Sarah Ruhl play I've seen and...I liked it. I don't know anyone else who did. The person I saw it with didn't care for it. But, I think if you are a young woman with a father who has passed away you don't really have any choice but to like the play about a daddy making a special balloon room for his daughter in hell. I liked what it seemed to really be about, or what I interpreted it to be about, where home is, what happens when you abandon your life, forgetting yourself etc etc. I liked a lot of the language which I know other people did not like as much. I liked the balloons. I didn't like the three old people speaking in unison, they stole a lot of the power away from the leads I thought. But iverall, a strong enough piece...I feel confused about why everyone doesn't like this show. It makes me question my taste. But...Ive decided that I just have exceptional taste. Honestly though, although the play was a little overdone in terms of design and language...I could pretty easily hear what the playwright was saying, and I appreciated it.

That's a lot of plays. Pretty decent ones too. Lots of kittens. Way to go Chicago.