AGELESS NORTH SHORE » Reviews

Vaudeville Lives: Shtick with Us @ The Skokie Theatre

Don — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 11:00:49 +0000

Today’s guest blogger is retired comedian, Joe Faromone, reviewing the Vaudezilla production of Shtick with Us at the Skokie Theatre.

Some of these performers will appear Tuesday, February 16 @ Blue Bayou, 3734 N Southport Ave. Chicago. 10 PM!

So, I heard that there was going to be strippers in Skokie and I’m like that’s great because the only stripping I ever seen in Skokie was when my ex-wife got rid of the paint in our living room. I told her to get rid of the living room and she told me to get the hell out of the house. But I digress.

Mel the Clown (Noel Williams)

The show begins not with a stripper but with this pretty young thing dressed in red wearing striped stockings named Mel. And a red clown nose. She was on the telephone and being really silly and I wondered if she was one one of the strippers. But she’s not. But she’s really funny. Like a cross between Goldie Hawn from Laugh-In and a Slinky.

Then they have this business about a cable TV show and a pledge drive and this guy who supposed to be a washed-up actor who had a hit show when he was 7.

Tomas

So, then come the acts. And the acts are the best part of the show, but then that’s what a variety show is. Anyway, the first act is this kid. The “Amazing Tomas” or “Tomas the Great” or something, but the kid is good. Short kid, comes out and says he wearing a “Salvation Armani” jacket. Good patter. Like rap or whatever the hell the kids do. He shouts out to the “847″ like they do. Except the “847″ is the suburbs so it’s funny.

He does rope tricks where you cut them and they come together and they come apart. Which is pretty good. But then he “shows his skills” where he ties a knot just with like one hand dangling the rope.

In between the acts, they’ve got this craziness with the girls answering the phones; Siren Jinx, Maria May I, and that Mel with the nose. I keep thinking they’re going to take off their clothes but they don’t.

Then Ms. Barrett All does a fan dance. Just like that one from the World’s Fair, Ann Rand. This lady has got some skills as well cause the blue feathers on this fan hide every thing until she’s ready to give up it up. And she’s rolling around on the stage, wiggling her hips, shaking her platinum blonde wig and waving her spike heeled shoes. And I can tell you when she was ready, so was I.

One of the girls, Maria May I, who’s a bespectacled slender blonde, starts to sing “Unchain my Heart” and she’s got a surprisingly growly voice which is kind of a turn on.

Next, is a strange act even in an evening of strange acts. Irma Bumstead-Winterbottom walks out on stage and looks like she’s smoking a cigarette but isn’t cause it’s a not a cigarette. And she’s a burlesque-personal trainer. She gets this guy out of the audience and makes him do dirty yoga positions and then rides him like a horse while she drinks “homemade prison hooch.” But it didn’t smell like hooch to me. But that’s the show-biz part.

Now we get back to stripping and this little blonde, curly haired firecracker named Wham Bam Pam hits the stage in a Betty Boop like dress that she quickly removes to reveal red, white and blue spangled undies that made me proud to me an American.

Wham Bam Pam

Another of the pretty girls answering the phones gets up to sing and that’s Siren Jinx. She has got some pipes even though she kept her clothes on.

Normally I’m not much of an art lover but this Red Hot Annie did some painting that touched my artistic soul. Or some place. Cause, this tall sexy redhead comes out wearing some lingerie and a painting of a bra and panties where her bra and panties should be. Then she’s starts painting with skin colored paint where her skin should be. And there was a saucy look in her eye when she got to the good parts. Then she takes off her top but the painting is still there. And then takes off the painting but the curtain is still. That was a strip tease.

Greta (Paris Green) photo by K. Leo

The final act was a show stopper. As part of the set up, this big gal named Greta is bossing everyone around and being very corporate and threatening. It turns out she had been a stripper and somehow she is tricked into doing her thing.

Well, let me tell you, Greta has got all the moves and she’s got a lot to bump and grind and she shares it with the audience who was whooping and hollering to beat the boombox.

This is a good show because its entertainment not like where you get hustled for drinks and I could have used a few more bumps and grinds and less of the set up but then who the hell am I.

You can find out about these girls and see some pretty hot (r-rated) video at http://vaudezilla.com/

“Return to Haifa” @ The Next Theatre: The Source Material

Peggy — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 11:00:07 +0000

On Sunday, February 7, we went to the Next Theatre for their premiere of Return to Haifa. Tomorrow, we will publish our review. There is a fascinating back story about this production that goes to the core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Ghassan Kanafani

Ghassani Kanafani (1936-1972), the Palestinian novelist, newspaper man, and spokesman for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine wrote the novella Returning to Haifa, after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. With the border newly opened, his characters Said and Safiyeh leave their West Bank home and travel to see the house in Haifa from which they fled in 1948. Said and Safiyeh discover that a Jewish couple who are Holocaust survivors now live in the house.

The New Yorker in its January 18, 2010 issue says of Kanafani, that he” portrays Israeli settlers sympathetically–perhaps for the first time in modern Arab literature.”

Here is an excerpt from the novella, Returning to Haifa:

He used to know Haifa stone by stone, intersection by intersection. How often he had crossed that road in his green 1946 Ford! Oh, he knew Haifa well, and now he felt as though he hadn’t been away for twenty years. He was driving his car just as he used to, as though he hadn’t been absent those twenty bitter years…The names began to rain down inside his head as though a great layer of dust had been shaken off them: Wadi Nisnas, King Fisal Street, Hanatir Square, Halisa, Hadar.

Suddenly, the house loomed up, the very house he had first lived in, then kept alive in his memory for so long. Here it was again, its front balcony bearing its coat of yellow paint. Instantly he imagined that Safiyya, young again with her hair in a long braid, was about to lean over the balcony toward him. There was a new clothesline attached to two pegs on the balcony; new bits of washing, red and white, hung on the line. Safiyya began to cry audibly. He turned to the right and directed the car’s wheels up over the low curb, then stopped the car in its old spot. Just like he used to do – exactly – twenty years ago. (Ghassan Kanafani, Palestine’s Children: Returning to Haifa and other Palestinian Stories, translated by Barbara Harlow & Karen E. Riley, Lynne Rienner Publishers, London 2000, pp.152/161)

In 2008, in connection with the 40th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel, Israeli playwright Boaz Gaon adapted Kanafani’s novella into the play, The Return to Haifa.

“What’s so special about this production is that it gives an arena for people of both sides to listen to each other’s narratives,” director Sinai Peter told Reuters at the time ahead of the opening night in Jaffa, south of central Tel Aviv.

Palestinian graffiti tribute to Kanafani

The performance of this play angered members of the Israeli right wing because of Kanafani’s connection to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Kanafani was assassinated in 1972 in retribution for the Lod Airport Massacre which killed 26 and injured 80 others at the Tel Aviv Airport.

The Japanese Red Army , a group trained by the PFLP, carried out the Lod attack. In the letter claiming official responsibility the PFLP referred to it as Operation Deir Yassin. This was to portray it as revenge for the 1948 Deir Yassin massacre by Jewish Irgun members.

“He was a killer and a terrorist,” said one of the protesters, Haim Rabinovich, who stood outside the theatre dressed in a Palestinian red checkered headdress and carrying a toy gun. “This is a play for Tehran or Ramallah, not for Israel.”

However, audience member Israeli Uri Yarkoni disagreed. “People need to see there are two sides to this story or we will be bombing and killing each other for another 100 years.”

On the town with Don and Peg: The Next Theatre and Bucky Halker

Peggy — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:00:46 +0000

Don finds out what’s Next.
The set of Next Theatre’s production END DAYS consists of a kitchen and living room side by side

William Dick, Adam Shalzi, Laura T. Fisher, Joseph Wycoff. Photo by Andre LaSalle

but on different planes. The design reflects the unsteady coexistence of faith and reason that forms the central theme of Deborah Zoe Laufer’s award winning comedy.

16-year-old Rachel Stein reacts to her mother Sylvia’s personal relationship with Jesus by going Goth, smoking grass, and trying to be left alone. Rachel’s father Arthur is a depressed 9/11 survivor who exchanged his business suit for a bathrobe and his power lunches for naps.

New neighbor Nelson Steinberg (also 16) dresses as Elvis. His sartorial decision gets him beat up at school, keeps Rachel, his newly beloved, at bay and concerns his rabbi as Nelson prepares for becoming a Bar Mitzvah. And yet, the white jump suit, gold fringe and ultimately the studded belt oddly comfort Nelson.

Joseph Wycoff and Carolyn Faye Kramer. Photo by Michael Brosilow

Sylvia finds her comfort with a very personal Jesus with whom she shares her doubts, her fears, and Starbucks while they sit on lawn chairs and spread the Good News. Rachel’s relationship with Stephen Hawking, often fueled by pot smoke, is more intellectual but no less personal.

The same actor plays Jesus and Stephen Hawking. Hawking gets the better lines but they both provide some big laughs.

END DAYS blends pop culture, astrophysics, Judaism and the Rapture into an engaging look at a suburban family in an existential neighborhood.

To buy tickets, click here. This Sunday, November 8, the playwright Deborah Zoe Laufer leads a post-show discussion after the 2PM matinee.

Peg gets in touch with her inner folky.

Last Friday night we saw Bucky Halker at the Skokie Theatre – the program was the music of Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan. Now, if you’d asked me if I was a fan of the music of Guthrie and Seeger a couple weeks ago, I would have shrugged and said, yeah, I used to like that folky stuff back in the day.

Bucky Halker

But when we got to the Skokie Theatre, Halker was hanging out in the lobby, a friendly good-looking guy greeting folks and chatting before the show. On stage, Halker was that same guy. He doesn’t impersonate the originals. He gives voice to the original artists by absorbing them into his own.

Memories accompanied Halker’s music – singing “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” around a campfire at summer camp (long time ago!), learning to play Joan Baez (Dylan’s ex-lover, but you knew that already) songs on my first guitar, listening endlessly to Dylan in college and beyond – singing “Union Maid” at a rally in San Francisco during my 15 minutes as a revolutionary – seeing Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie at Ravinia – and taking my 17-yr. old daughter to see Joan Baez and Dar Williams at Park West…

Halker is an historian who enriches his performance with just the right mixture of stories from the artists’ lives and the social history of the music. And he plays a mean guitar. He’s got new CDs out with music from Illinois and will be appearing next in the Chicago area at the Chicago History Museum, November 22. Check him out. You might get in touch with some of your own history.

Read all about it. Sheridan Road Magazine’s latest issue.

Don — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 11:05:01 +0000

We at Ageless North Shore are avid readers of the local press. In fact, we subscribe to many publications. One such publication is Sheridan Road. Apparently we subscribe under the name RESIDENT.

For those of you strapped for time we have reviewed the 118 glossy pages of the current issue and can give you a glimpse of “The People and Lifestyles that make up Chicago’s most luxurious and exclusive address—The North Shore.”

Want to leave a major carbon footprint? Looking for some personal transportation? How about a Learjet 31A? It flies at over 500 MPH with a range of 1,500 statute miles at 43,000 feet. You might be thinking, gosh, is this the right time to buy? Has the “pre-owned jet” market bottomed? Well, prices are apparently stabilizing and going higher, so the time to buy is now.

Perfect for the Sunset parking lot: “New Solutions for Uncertain Times?” Is it financial advice? No, it’s Executive Protection (EP). This ad makes the point that EP specialists are not mere bodyguards, but in fact, trained professionals. Their goal is to head off conflict or dangerous situations before they occur. But if it comes to blows, they are “more than prepared.”

Marci/Senior Stylist

On a personal note, in an ad for Pascal pour Elle, there is a photo of Marci, who cuts Don’s hair. We hope this speaks in her favor.

Back to School. Sheridan Road believes that high school is the right place for fall’s “most glamorous and luxurious fashion statement.” Sixteen girls from New Trier, Highland Park and Lake Forest High Schools model outfits which include such diverse components as a $20 black and mustard hand-beaded necklace and a $2095 black cowl neck wool coat.

For parents thinking about this year’s clothing expenses, we added up the totals:

Jackets and Coats…$8886
Dresses………………..$2391
Tops and bottoms…$3593
Purses, jewelry et al.$4709
Shoes…………………..$4164

This is an average of $1518 per outfit. (In an unrelated bit of news from Pakistan, per capita income there rose to $1046 in 2008-09. We’re just saying.)

James Lovell, John Swigert Jr, Disgraced Ex-President, Fred Haise. Jr (nasa.gov)

Q&A with Jim Lovell

Now, this guy is a legitimate hero – and on the 40th anniversary of Apollo 13, “Captain Lovell agreed to undergo another daunting mission: The Sheridan Road Casual Questionnaire.”

Captain Lovell’s pet peeve is driving behind someone who is stopped at a light and talking on their cell phone and doesn’t see the light turn green. Wow.

What the deal with all the tuxedos?

In this quarter’s installment of Sheridan Road there are over 100 photos of couples in tuxedo and formal dress. There are many more pictures of charity events including a “Summer of Love in Lake Geneva” where it appears the guests have raided the costume department of “Hair.”

This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius…right?

La Red Music Theatre – a new kind of theater in Highland Park

Peggy — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 12:16:45 +0000

Famous Last Words – a made-in-48-hrs. Musical!

L to R: Tia deShazor, Zach Zube

August 11 and 12, the North Shore’s newest theater company La Red Music Theatre performed a theatrical feat, creating four 15-minute musicals, Famous Last Words, written, composed, rehearsed and produced in just 48 hours. Jessica Redish, founder and artistic director of La Red, chose quotes at random from a book of “famous last words,” read them to the composers, told them who their actors would be, and 48 hours later four mini-musicals came to life on the stage of the Highland Park Community House.

Even if our minds hadn’t been boggled by the speed of this process, we would have been delighted by the results: witty, sweet, poignant, funny stories, sung and acted with professional prowess by a talented cast of singer/dancer/actors, backed up by Keith Harrison on piano and music by six composers. Imagine a very short Broadway musical, a cast of one (or two or three) with the bare-boards aesthetic of a Chicago storefront theater, and you start to get the flavor of La Red’s Famous Last Words.

L to R: Justin Stein, Laura Scheinbaum and Elana Ernst.

Famous Last Words featured some local talent, including Elana Ernst of Highland Park, Justin Stein of Glencoe, Northwestern University Graduates Andrew Keltz (of Chicago) and Laura Scheinbaum (of Highland Park), and Emily Thompson, Matthew Amador and Tia deShazor of Chicago. Composers are Bobby Cronin, J. Oconer Navarro, Will Reynolds, Jeffrey Thomson and Jordan Mann, all of New York. Director Jessica Redish is a Northwestern grad and Highland Park native now based in New York.

Summertime logo

Monday, August 17 at 7:30pm at the The Highland Park Community House, LA RED will present Summertime, which they describe as “A sweet, sophisticated new musical based on the play of the same name by Charles L. Mee. Love and heartache, passion and betrayal, mothers, daughters, affairs, and a maid.” This show is FREE to the public – CLICK HERE for more details.

La Red Musical Theatre is a non-profit collective of creative professionals who each summer come together to write, produce and perform musicals to “investigate the human condition, enlighten and entertain.” They also sponsor a Young(er) People’s Company. You can find them on Facebook, or email them HERE, or check their website HERE for tickets and information.

-Peggy S.