Fit
If one more journalist drags me along on a print tour of the new Mercury Theater and gushes about how “intimate” it is, I’m going to puke. In the theater, “intimacy” is a term as empty as “quality” in the automobile industry: it means “not large.” Sure, the Mercury is intimate. So is the basement at Cafe Voltaire. So are most high-rise elevators. About the only theater in town that has to struggle for intimacy is Steppenwolf, with its curious architectural hybridization of Fermilab and the Grant Park garage.
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Which is where the Prop Theatre enters the picture. The Mercury’s premiere prime-time offering is the absurdly overhyped, overpackaged Pope Joan. But the Prop folks, devotees of outsider off-the-wallism, have taken over the Mercury’s late-night slot, presenting an open-run series of mostly solo performances titled “Sex Talk” (so far there are 12 weeks of shows programmed). The fact that the company responsible for Biker Macbeth, BUK: The Life and Times of Charles Bukowski, and Acme White Trash Lysistrata ended up in the cushy confines of the Mercury may indicate the beginning of a welcome trend: Chicago’s established theaters finally inviting the fringe over to play. (Steppenwolf artistic director Martha Lavey, hosting Red Moon Theatre in the Steppenwolf studio and scouting the Curious Theatre Branch, seems to be on a similar course.) Then again, the Mercury’s executive producer, Michael Cullen, sits on the Prop’s advisory board. Maybe this isn’t the beginning of a trend but a favor.
Magnus and Killen, who have created some memorable solo pieces in recent years, are friends but have never collaborated. Typically Magnus has traveled an inner path. In her recent one-woman show The Willies, for example, she semisomnambulated for an hour. Killen, by contrast, has thrust herself into the big, nasty waking world and reported back to a live audience–although not without wholly imaginary digressions. While Magnus admitted that creating a piece about sex talk didn’t excite her (“It’s not where my head is at right now,” she confessed), the opportunity to team up with a talented and trusted colleague was too good to pass up.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Jim Alexander Newberry.
