evanevanevan

The Court Theatre has announced its 2009/2010 season...and I'm apprehensive.

Court Theatre proudly announces the company's fifty-fifth annual season, which opens with August Wilson's Chicago jazz-era classic Ma Rainey's Black Bottom directed by Resident Artist Ron OJ Parson. The Season continues with Charles Ludlam's camp classic The Mystery of Irma Vep directed by Sean Graney; and the Chicago Premieres of Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking and Tony Kushner's adaptation of The Illusion, both directed by Artistic Director Charles Newell. The Season will close with Athol Fugard's Sizwe Banzi is Dead directed by Resident Artist Ron OJ Parson. The 2009/10 season will be performed at Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis Avenue in Hyde Park.

I would be very excited to see the Didion play...except that it stars Mary Beth Fisher. In fact, it's a one-woman-show. Fisher is one of the most frequently-cast veteran actresses in Chicago - and, in my opinion, inexplicably so. I just don't get the appeal. I've found that she plays every role exactly the same; even at the level of line delivery, she speaks every sentence with the exact same inflection. I've also seen her cast several times as English characters, yet she seems oddly unable to sustain the accent.

I was pleasantly surprised by her understated performance in the first act of Court's recent production of Ibsen's The Wild Duck - yet she closed out the play with a return to that same reliable inflection, which rendered all of Gina's lines as sardonic jokes at her husband's expense. It seemed like they were playing it for laughs, and the audience the night I saw it responded accordingly. I recognize the inherent challenge in presenting that play, as the characters each cling so feverishly to their ideologies that they do appear ridiculous and comical, even though the consequences are tragic. It's similar to the audience laughter I've always witnessed at screenings of Hitchcock's Vertigo - at the tensest moment of Jimmy Stewart's attempted transformation of Kim Novak into his lost love, the crowd uncomfortably laughs at how extreme his obsession is. Even so, I think there are more strategic ways to deal with the absurdity than jokey line deliveries...not to mention the choice of [spoiler alert] dropping a dead body from the ceiling.

I did enjoy The Wild Duck, all the same, and thought many of the performances were quite strong. The biggest problem in the cast was not, in fact, Mary Beth Fisher, but the young woman playing Hedvig. Charles Newell directed her exactly the same as he directed her as the daughter in Court's production of Carousel - a cloying, squealing, scampering moppet of a 4-year-old. Unfortunately, Hedvig is not 4, but 14 - and a precocious 14-year-old at that. Perhaps things are different in Norway, but I don't recall high school freshmen scurrying hyperactively everywhere they go - bent at the waist, literally running between the couch and the bookshelf of the living room. Hedvig's demise was more relief than tragedy in this particular production.

But back to the upcoming season. We've got some August Wilson - and, I mean, he's great, but I feel a little August Wilson fatigue (and find that most of his later plays really needed the help of a red pen). The Kushner and Fugard plays I'm excited to see.

But then...there's the one directed by Sean Graney of the Hypocrites.

Graney is treated like this brilliant wunderkind of Chicago theatre and I have no idea why. He doesn't seem, in my estimation, to know how to read. He either selects plays of pretty dubious quality, or selects plays that I adore...and then proceeds to butcher them. He rides completely roughshod over the texts, thinking he can do a whole lot better by inserting stupid sight gags and silly audio cues. He completely ignores the verbal wit of the playwrights he claims to adore, like Ionesco, and covers up their lines with gimmicks. The Court press release describes the play he is directing as a "high-camp quick-change romp." This is how he approaches every single play he directs.

I do like the Court a lot. For a long time, I thought it was the most consistent theatre in the city. I just hope they can keep it up.

[court theatre]