For those hoping to catch up on their theatergoing during the holiday fortnight, Reader critics offer their recommendations on shows running into the New Year. Check listings for addresses, phone numbers, schedules, and prices.
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Recipe for excellent holiday theater: Take one big dollop of British humorist P.G. Wodehouse’s wit. Add one heaping tablespoon of Mark Richard’s sputtering aristocrat Bertie Wooster and a dash of Page Hearn’s unflappable butler Jeeves. Stir in a couple of delectable supporting performances, a loony plot, and a deliciously clever set design. Let sit for two hours. The result is City Lit Theater’s Jeeves in the Morning (Ivanhoe Theater). Yummy.
–Adam Langer
The immediate draw for director Michael Halberstam’s first-rate revival of Noel Coward’s masterwork Private Lives (Writers’ Theatre Chicago) is Shannon Cochran, best known for her portrayal of the extraterrestrial Sirella in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Teamed with the equally adept William Brown in this sparkling comedy, Cochran is even more formidable, a deft comedian with all the right moves: Coward’s charmer has rarely provoked so many knowing smiles. The Midas touch is everywhere. –Lawrence Bommer
In the 19th century people celebrated Christmas by telling ghost stories–so it’s appropriate that the Free Associates are still running their Halloween show, Back in the Shadows Again: The Lighter Side of “Dark Shadows,” a fully improvised parody of the cult horror soap opera Dark Shadows. The troupe has also brought back Cast on a Hot Tin Roof: A Dysfunctional Dixie Christmas, its seasonal spoof of Tennessee Williams’s melodrama; the two comedies run as a New Year’s Eve doubleheader (Ivanhoe Theater). –Jack Helbig
–Albert Williams
