The first full-length performance work from Goat Island in four years, “When Will the September Roses Bloom?” closes this year’s PAC/Edge festival on a powerful note. “September Roses” is a formidable piece of work. A plethora of structural principles vie for supremacy—the alphabet, the Fibonacci series, the classic dramatic plot—and each is undercut as quickly as it appears. Gaps in the alphabet are announced and followed consistently, while the missing beginning—well, you’ll have to see for yourself. Add to this complexity the twist that two different versions of the piece exist, containing the same material in a different arrangement, and keep in mind that source texts were penned by such lightweights as Paul Celan, Simone Weil (“vay,” not “while”), and Helene Cixous: the remarkable thing is that the performance maintains a playful energy throughout. Layerings of repeated movement and props that follow their bearers around long after their apparent exhaustion (a toy drum, a cardboard tabletop) lend the proceedings a dream logic that ends up trumping all apparent rational explanations. “September Roses” may be overstuffed with loose threads, and it could probably stand to lose fifteen minutes or so, but it offers the hypnotic fascination of a state-of-the-art performance. The James Taylor songs are gravy. (John Beer)
Journey to the Interior: A Review of The Memory Place at The Edge Theater "The Memory Place” is the tenth iteration of Pivot Arts’ annual festival of theater, music, dance and multidisciplinary performance. This year the co-curators gathered five pieces under a tender theme that places each small audience in a peculiarly sympathetic relationship with the performers.
Dance Top 5: September 2022 It's official: Concert dance is back. September abounds with performances by local, national and international companies.
Stage Top 5: September 2022 A vibrant month in Chicago theater with all the major stages coming back to life, almost at once.
