On March 23, 1943, the principal of Woodward High School in Cincinnati, Ohio, walked into the senior English classroom where Eberhard Fuhr was sitting. He said, “I hate to do this, Eberhard. I’m sorry, but I don’t have any options. You’ve got to come with me out into the hall.” Fuhr, who now lives with his wife, Barbara, in Palatine, says, “I stepped out in the hall and these two guys grabbed me, said, ‘Let’s go down to your locker....
David S. Ware Quartet Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » For quite a while now some have predicted a free-jazz/postpunk crossover–and why not? If there’s one thing noise rockers and grunge-ophiles like it’s the unleashed energy and sheer power of overdriven musical machines–all part and parcel of full-tilt free-blown jazz, where instrumentalists test the limits of their tools as a matter of course. Tenor saxophonist David S....
Luscious Jackson The lawn-mower theory can apply to just about anything we associate with one gender–who hasn’t been mesmerized watching a man comfort a child in public? Traditional gender roles haven’t been eroded so far that you see that every day. It can be applied to rock bands, especially in a live setting. Female musicians (and I mean those that play their own instruments) are about the only ones who can get me to force my way up to the stage anymore, even when they’re borrowing from the same tired rock conventions as men....
To the editors: Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Kudos to Mary Bordelon and Ruby Harris (“The Plot to Destroy North Kenwood,” October 15)! Every time I visit my grandfather’s house at 51st and Michigan, I marvel at the few once-grand mansions that are miraculously still standing though not in all of their old glory. There is one in particular that always seems to remind me of the “Meet Me in St....
How does a dance company know when it’s really made the big time? Performing works by great choreographers like Twyla Tharp is grand, but it’s not the big time–no, you’ve got to perform in New York City, the dance capital of the world, get rave reviews, and sell out houses. Not an easy task. But Hubbard Street Dance Chicago–known and respected around the world–finally did just that last fall, filling the Joyce Theater to capacity....
TULA TELFAIR: Six Including This One presents six long, narrow landscape paintings framed separately and mounted vertically, with space between them, on the gallery wall. At first I thought these panoramic views of land and sky might be different fragments of a continuous landscape: a body of water in the third appears to continue in the fourth. But the red rocks at the edge of the third become dark foliage in the fourth....
Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Circle Theatre. Courtesans with heaving bosoms. Rakish men reclining on divans in doublets and Minnie Mouse shoes. Sly sexual intrigues in steamy boudoirs. Illicit groping on virginal white sheets. Mispronounced French names. It must be Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Again. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Over the past decade it’s been difficult to escape modern adaptations of Choderlos de Laclos’ 1782 erotic roman about deadly games of sexual one-upmanship, whether Stephen Frears’s or Milos Forman’s film versions or the plays penned by Heiner Muller and Christopher Hampton, presented at Center Theater and Interplay....
Local Jazz Gets Its Own Label Chicago has never been known as a major recording capital. But lack of tradition hasn’t stopped Neale Parker and Ken Kistner from going forward with Lake Shore Jazz, a new label intended to spotlight Chicago-based jazz artists. Parker, who admits he’s not well versed in jazz music, will serve as the label’s president; he’s also president of Gopaco, Inc., a British holding company with offices in London and Toronto that owns a four-year-old rock and pop label called Griffin with a roster of about 100 artists....
LURRIE BELL Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Guitarist Lurrie Bell is one of the most enigmatic figures in modern blues–his performances and his career spin from inspiration to catastrophe with dizzying unpredictability. On Mercurial Son, his aptly titled latest disc, Bell’s voice quivers with the intensity of the damned–he rips chords into shreds and creates an atmosphere of nightmarish dissociation and despair. Most of the lyrics were penned by WBEZ Blues Before Sunrise DJ Steve Cushing....
Hannah Wilke The classic narcissist, in love with her own image, tries to express that love in life, in art, or in both. But the woman in the multiple photographs of Gestures–grids of 9 or 12 photos arranged on three sheets–is hardly lovable at all. She thrusts her hands against her face, compressing the skin, or stretches her face by pulling at it; she covers her eyes, or places her hands beside her face as if about to pinch it....
Nick of Time With Johnny Depp, Christopher Walken, Charles S. Dutton, Peter Strauss, Roma Maffia, Gloria Reuben, Marsha Mason, and Courtney Chase. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The events in Nick of Time hinge on a kidnapping, but we know the victim’s life is at risk only because her kidnapping advances the plot–though admittedly that plot has a logical coherence lacking in many thrillers....
MARY SHELLEY’S FRANKENSTEIN With Kenneth Branagh, Robert De Niro, Helena Bonham Carter, Tom Hulce, Aidan Quinn, Ian Holm, Richard Briers, and John Cleese. With Arnold Schwarzenegger, Danny DeVito, Emma Thompson, Frank Langella, Pamela Reed, and Judy Collins. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » It’s sad that media critics see fidelity to Anne Rice’s novel in a movie adaptation as a more pressing issue than fidelity to Mary Shelley’s novel, though perhaps it’s not surprising given that a faithful adaptation of Shelley’s novel, with its extended philosophical and political reflections, would be commercially unthinkable....
SEX LIVES OF SUPERHEROES and Michael in Gregg’s Sex Lives of Superheroes is a comic book freak, obsessed with the adventures of ray-gun-toting supermen. Needless to say, Michael doesn’t get a whole lot of dates, so he passes his time lecturing a group of imaginary students about the sexual proclivities of Spiderman, Wonder Woman, and their ilk. In between lectures he eagerly awaits the weekly visits of his ex-girlfriend Lisa, who usually pops by on Wednesdays to snatch any belongings of his that strike her fancy....
A.T.A.T.A. No professional would be so foolhardy. Yet an analogous disaster-in-waiting happens in professional theater all the time. Anyone can put words on a page, and unfortunately just about anyone does. And with the abundance of inexpensive rental spaces in Chicago, it doesn’t take much to become a “professional” theater. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Jennifer Verson, author of Rubicon Theater Productions’ A.T.A.T.A. (which stands for “A Tragedy and Two Acts”), seems to lack the basic skills required to make a piece of writing dramatic....
SWAN LAKE The first act carefully lays out all the elements of a Jungian coming-of-age story: the hero, Prince Siegfried, is about to celebrate his 21st birthday, attended by an ineffectual father figure, his former tutor Wolfgang, who is too old to dance. The men and women of the court also attend the prince, entertaining him with a rather stuffy Renaissance dance. The peasants who dance for him are much more entertaining, but even the best peasant dancer cannot be taught courtly manners....
Daniel Barenboim’s honeymoon at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is clearly over: orchestra members are grumbling about their leader’s bewildering and sometimes bland interpretive choices, loyal subscribers are invoking memories of the Solti era, and the jet-setting European-based maestro has yet to keep his promise of spending more time in the city. About the only good thing to come out of his tenure so far is the scheduling of new music–a move that, not surprisingly, has alienated many old-timers....
At first Devon Brown doesn’t attract much attention, standing in a dark corner of the Exedus II reggae club softly talking to musicians, a red cap pulled over his boyish face. But as he steps into the light, you notice his diamond earrings and chunky gold bracelet with letters spelling “Devon.” Then he jumps onstage, dreadlocks flying, legs swinging, and voice soaring. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » What Brown calls “natural” is a dizzying stage performance that often includes acrobatic dancing and reggae ballads, dancehall tunes, and pop hits....
Rosalie Sorrels –Redd Foxx Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The dreamy young bohemian found herself sidetracked, however, by a combination of personal misfortune and the puritanical ferocity of Eisenhower-era America. She en-dured a gruesome illegal abortion at 16; a year later she gave birth to a baby girl, whom she gave up for adoption. In the process she lost the four-year drama scholarship she’d earned in high school as well as, by her own account, “my desire to be an actress, my self-respect....
We met Craig LaSeur in the weight room of the Lakeshore Athletic Club at Fullerton and Southport. His workout wear came bare, breezy, and ready-to-sweat. Still, members of our Fashion Intelligence Unit, wary of undercover agents, pressed the case. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The heavy-duty outfit balances its bulk on the Everlast belt. Above, the trophy T has been ripped open, Flashdance-style, to expose the outer reaches of LaSeur’s tattoo collection....
Once in a while a last-minute change actually results in a far more interesting program–just take this weekend’s at Grant Park. Originally, mezzo-soprano Tatiana Troyanos and soprano Benita Valente were slated to star in a jamboree of Handel and Mozart arias, which probably would’ve been like a buffet of tasty morsels: filling but unmemorable. With the cancellation of Troyanos due to illness, however, a sumptuous feast is promised instead. Haydn’s blockbuster oratorio The Seasons is the last masterpiece in a prodigious career....
