Spotlight on Reviews

**** Recommended **** To open their final season, First Folio decided to reprise Jeeves Intervenes, which first appeared on the stage in the Mayslake library in 2008.  Most of the original cast members have returned too, making this a delightful evening.  Jeeves Intervenes is a comedy of manners, in a time when disputes and conflicts were settled with civility and good manners.  You can’t help laughing as Jeeves rescues that lovable twit, Bertie Wooster from family follies and his own scrapes.  Jeeves Intervenes is slightly insane and totally hilarious.  4 Spotlights

*** Recommended *** Sometimes directors have a vision for a new approach to a musical.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it fails   Porchlight Music Theatre’s production of Rent it didn’t just fail, it collapsed.  Rent was written as a rock opera about starving artists with all their angst and desperation.  It should be a little ragged, a little dirty, and a lot defiant.  This wasn’t.  Most of the songs were sung in one key – loud.  I really missed the emotion and nuance of Larson’s original score.  3 Spotlights

Camelot is a place where everything is right, in a time long ago….until King Arthur meets and weds Guinevere.  Initially it is a relationship made in heaven and the kingdom is perfect. Then, Lancelot enters the picture. King Arthur is enamored with him and bestows knighthood
and makes him a knight of the Round Table.  And then, Guinevere is enamored with him too and this does not end well.

*** Recommended *** I admit it!  I love Shakespeare, so I always look forward to seeing one of his plays produced at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre – and I usually give them rave reviews, too.  That said, I was kind of disappointed with "Measure for Measure". The acting was wonderful but for the first time ever, I had a hard time hearing/understanding the dialogue.  Normally it takes a minute or two to get comfortable with Shakespeare’s language – because the actors are speaking conversationally.  In this play, I never got comfortable because it seemed like the actors were racing through the dialogue.  3 ½ Spotlights