Review: Trap Door’s The Ugly One Is a Brilliant and Delirious Take on the Construct of Beauty
I always get to shows early. I consider that to be a virtue and also very helpful in getting the vibe of a place. My early arrival habit paid off […]
Review: Trap Door Theatre Devises And Away We Stared for Livestream and Recorded Viewing
Trap Door Theatre’s new production, And Away We Stared, is an example of “devised theater,” a mode of expression that’s been popular in the theater community for years. It‘s a […]
Review: Discourse Without Grammar Displays Trap Door’s Ingenuity in Performance Art
Matei Vişniec’s plays are a bit bewildering and disorienting. They‘re theater of the absurd with a twist. But Trap Door Theatre can be counted on to turn the work of […]
Report: How Virtual Theater Can Expand the Influence of Local Theaters Post-Pandemic
Virtual theater has come in many forms during the last eight pandemic months. Our most recent theater review was actor/clown Bill Irwin’s new version of his bravura performance of On […]
Review: Trap Door Crafts Alas, a Stunningly Theatrical Video Montage
It may be theater…or perhaps film. But it’s not exactly a play. It’s a surreal symphony of exotic makeup and dynamic video editing with original music and voices that speak […]
Review: Lipstick Lobotomy at Trap Door Theatre Plays With Women’s Minds
Trap Door Theatre’s latest production is the enchantingly titled Lipstick Lobotomy by playwright Krista Knight, directed by Kate Hendrickson. It’s a half-true, half-imagined story of friendship between John F. Kennedy’s […]
Review: Should We Fear Disease or Demagogues in Trap Door’s The White Plague?
The White Plague or a new form of leprosy is what everyone fears in the new play at Trap Door Theatre. However, the disease described in Czech playwright Karel Čapek’s […]
Review: Love and Information at Trap Door Mines Our Anxieties About Human Connections
Trap Door Theatre’s production of Love and Information, Caryl Churchill’s 2012 play, is more performance art than theater. But Kim McKean’s direction makes this production sizzle with energy. The nine […]
Review: Ensemble, Mark Larson’s Oral History, Brings Chicago’s Theater Past Alive
Ensemble: An Oral History of Chicago Theater is a book you can enjoy in two ways. You can read it from beginning to end, as you would any narrative of […]
Review: Trap Door’s The Killer Perplexes, But That’s Why It’s Called Theater of the Absurd
The Architect (a nattily dressed Michael Mejia) welcomes a slightly frazzled Bèrenger (Dennis Bisto) for a tour of the Radiant City. It’s a paradise where everything is quiet, sunny, green, […]
The Old Woman Broods at Trap Door Theatre Is an Absurdist, Prescient Satire—or Is It?
In case you think brooding suggests gloom and doom, think otherwise. Trap Door Theatre’s The Old Woman Broods is chaotic, cacophonous and more than a little cuckoo. The 1969 play by Polish […]
Pirandello’s Naked at Trap Door: The Tragedy of a Woman Whose Fate Is in Her Own Hands
It’s Rome in 1922. In his play Naked, Luigi Pirandello, the Nobel Prize-winning author, concocts a puzzling tangle of death and passion. Directed by Kay Martinovich, Naked is now on stage […]