Plays of Note Chicago Shakes shows us a good way to feel

THEATER

OPENING

ROut of this world fun Chicago Shakes shows us a good way to feel alienated.

Last year, Chicago Shakespeare off ered We Are Out There, a digital sneak peek of Joe Kinosian and Kellen Blair’s goofy musical adaptation of the 1953 Universal Pictures sci-fi fi lm, It Came From Outer Space, which was itself based on an original story by Ray Bradbury. Now it’s fi nally onstage at Chicago Shakes’s cozy upstairs studio space in a production that’s loaded with groanworthy jokes (including a long setup to a Bradbury shout-out), cheesy eff ects, and everything else you need for the live theatrical equivalent of a retro night at a drive-in. (Well, no popcorn inside the theater.)

The story follows John Putnam (Christopher Kale Jones), a wannabe “astronomer-astrologer” who is convinced that aliens have landed near tiny Sand Rock, Arizona (a town whose main attraction is a sand museum). Because John is an annoying know-it-all, no one believes him, except for his schoolteacher girlfriend, Ellen (Jaye Ladymore), who is also the object of aff ection of the surly and not-so-bright Sheriff Matt (Alex Goodrich). But then the townspeople start acting really weird.

With a spritely score, clever direction by Laura Braza, cunning sets, lights, costumes, and sound design (by Scott Davis, Heather Sparling, Mieka van der Ploeg, and Nicholas Pope, respectively), and a skosh of social commentary (we fear the “other” before we really try to understand them), it’s an absolute toothsome delight start to fi nish. The entire ensemble (most of whom play multiple roles) is pitch-perfect, including Jonathan Butler-Duplessis as everything from a verbose telephone lineman to Coral, the barfl y/confi dante for Ellen who blows the roof off during “I Can’t Figure Out Men”; Sharriese Y. Hamilton as the energetic local muckraker; and Ann Delaney as a daff y old woman and as one of the aliens, who achieves maximum expressiveness with her tentacle appendages. —KERRY REID IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE Through 7/24: Wed-Fri 7:30 PM, Sat 2 and 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM; open captions Wed 7/20, ASL interpretation Fri 7/22, audio description Sun 7/24; Chicago Shakespeare Theater, 800 E. Grand, 312-5955600, chicagoshakes.com, $50-$60.

RYou say you want a revolution? Marie Antoinette and the Magical Negroes considers the costs of rising up.

On one wall of the set for Terry Guest’s Marie Antoinette and the Magical Negroes, now in a local premiere with Story Theatre under Guest’s direction, a large sign tells us “THIS IS NOT HISTORY.” True: what Guest’s skillful sardonic comedy off ers is a funhouse view (with not always so much fun, given the subject matter) of how oppression leads to resistance, and resistance can lead to bloodshed, and bloodshed can lead to freedom. Which in turn can only be maintained with constant vigilance and balancing of countervailing forces, lest the oppressed become the oppressors.

The main attraction in this carnival of carnage is, as the title indicates, the French Revolution. But the time-traveling band of Black players in Guest’s story (who are identifi ed in the program with names indicative of racist stereotyping—Jim Crow, Mammy, Sapphire, Sambo, and Savage—also take us to the JFK assassination, the 1992 LA rebellion, and the Haitian revolution, which took place simultaneously with the unrest in France.

Brenna DiStasio’s Marie laments over her gilded-cage Versailles life that renders her what Maya Vinice Prentiss’s lady-in-waiting Charlotte (who soon joins the revolutionaries) calls “a symbol of a woman, more than a woman.” David Stobbe’s in-over-his-soon-tobe-removed-head Louis XVI reminisces about the glory days of his father’s reign. The servants and courtiers plot, negotiate, and turn on each other as well as the monarchs. A guest appearance by Ida B. Wells (Amber Washington) advocates the power of the pen to fi ght white supremacy, while Toussaint Louverture (Danyelle Monson) relishes describing the vengeance wreaked on colonizing slavers in Haiti.

It’s a smart, dizzying show that feels particularly urgent now. Guest and his ensemble (which also includes Keith Illidge and Nathaniel Andrew) negotiate the hairpin turns in tone from high farce to hushed sorrowful tragedy. Guest isn’t the fi rst to write about the unintended perils of uprisings, but he and Story Theatre have found a fresh and compelling way to revisit the evergreen topic. —KERRY REID MARIE ANTOINETTE AND THE MAGICAL NEGROES Through 7/17: ThuSat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM; Raven Theatre, 6157 N. Clark, 773-338-2177, thestorytheatre.org, $20 ($10 students, active military, and veterans).

RFields of glory A Chicago legend plumbs the blues and her own history in a new show.

In Pearl’s Rollin’ With the Blues, Felicia P. Fields gets a showcase for her indomitable vocals. The Tony nominee (for The Color Purple) is a bona fi de star in the land of musical theater, her voice an irresistible mix of low-down growling blues and clarion-clear belt. As the titular chanteuse in Writers Theatre’s world premiere (directed by Ron OJ Parson), she’s backed by a fi ve-piece band led by Chic Street Man, a star in his own right whose steel-pan guitar can wail and moan in a thousand shades of indigo. Together, they off er an informal concert heavy on audience interaction, storytelling, and instrumental solos.

Fields brings the heat and the sizzle to numbers including “Rough and Ready Man,” but the most powerful parts of the production arrive when Fields tells a deeply personal story about growing up on the south side and being bussed to a high school on the north side—a trek that had her leaving her home while it was still dark in order to make the two buses/one train commute. Getting to school was nothing compared to dealing with the racism she encountered when visiting a white friend’s home a er school. The blues plumb the deepest sorrows and illuminate the most sensual aspects of life. Fields puts the entire spectrum into her voice. She’s spent the past 30-plus years showing audiences precisely why she’s a star. When she makes her entrance in Rollin’ With the Blues, you know you’re in the presence of greatness, and fortunate to be there

It Came From Outer Space LIZ LAUREN

indeed. —CATEY SULLIVAN PEARL’S ROLLIN’ WITH

THE BLUES: A NIGHT WITH FELICIA P. FIELDS

Through 7/24: Wed 3 and 7:30 PM, Thu-Fri 7:30 PM, Sat 3 and 7:30 PM, Sun 2 and 6 PM; Writers Theatre, 325 Tudor Ct., Glencoe, 847-242-6000, writerstheatre.org, $35-$90.

RSouthern gothic heat Violet Sky Theatre debuts with Summer and Smoke.

For their inaugural production, Violet Sky Theatre company has chosen Tennessee Williams’s Summer and Smoke from 1948.

As is expected with any of Williams’s canonical works, Summer and Smoke is a portrait of the delicious agony of unrequited love. Alma Winemiller, the minister’s daughter, has been in love with John Buchanan, the boy next door, for her entire life. When John returns to their small Mississippi hometown a er fi nishing medical school out east, Alma’s feelings return with the vigor of the Gulf winds that the townspeople pray for during their insuff erably hot summers.

Alma is anxious, and Lindsey Zanatta gracefully and authentically carries that burden in her performance. She is quick-witted but reserved, beholden to the expectations of her religious upbringing and the belief that if she is the perfect lady, love will come. As John, Joshua J. Volkers embodies the swagger of a man who can have anything he wants, and he wants it all—sex, booze, parties, and maybe Alma—right now. Where Alma stutters, John stalks. Together, they invoke collective, trepidatious joy in the moments where their power dynamic fl ips, when Alma manages to catch John off his guard.

Summer and Smoke is a spiritual, sexual romantic drama, and Kevin Rolfs’s scenic design nails the southern gothic aesthetic that carries this inherent dichotomy. Where there’s smoke, there’s fi re, and in this performance, it’s stoked by the constant friction between Alma’s beliefs and John’s instincts, the heat when they hold hands. —KAYLEN RALPH SUMMER AND SMOKE Through 7/31: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM, Reginald Vaughn Theater, 1105 W. Thorndale, violetskytheatre.com, $27. v

JULY 7, 2022 - CHICAGO READER 35