The cast of “Sylvester”/Photo: Suzanne Plunkett
RECOMMENDED
The matriarch of the Regency paperback romance novel Georgette Heyer borrowed loquaciously from Jane Austen and then threw in a little bodice-ripping Errol Flynn-on-the- high-seas. If critics accused Heyer of wallowing in overly lengthy exposition, the much-heralded Lifeline ensemble member Christina Calvit’s adaptation cuts through the minutiae to create a universal story, sailing on a whirlwind course.
Calvit’s frequent collaborator and Lifeline Theatre artistic director Dorothy Milne invites an ensemble of eight actors essaying multiple roles to play a theatrical game of Chutes and Ladders, with the understanding that one cannot win the game of life and love without first spinning the wheel of chance. And play they do, sliding in and out of costume designer Rachel Sypniewski’s quick-change clothes, climbing up the ladders and whizzing down the slides of Alan Donahue’s brilliantly whimsical set and somehow landing every moment on a beat.
Comic bits and heartfelt musings are timed to sound cues, which means this highly entertaining game is choreographed within an inch of its giddy life and yet the actors traipse through as though every intention sparks at the moment of understanding, metronome married to passion. The cast of Katie McLean Hainsworth, Terry Bell, Andrés Enriquez, Kate Hildreth, Kristina Loy, Samantha Newcomb, Wesley Scott and Sean Sinitski project pure joy, kids in an English candy store. Newcomb is just right as a young woman demanding her agency in a frowning time, slowly melting into the now-loving quietness of Enriquez’s equally compelling portrait of a gentleman grown stoic in answer to life’s stones, slowly opening to the love of a woman who would insist upon being his equal. And both are Bugs Bunny funny.
I’ve spent my summer gorging on the theatrical gifts of such companies as American Players Theatre, Door Shakespeare and Peninsula Players but this offering gave me greater pleasure. If “Sylvester” is a portent of the type of theater Chicago will enjoy in the upcoming season, I may so forget myself as to whistle in public. (Aaron Hunt)
Lifeline Theatre, 6912 North Glenwood, (773)327-5252, lifelinetheatre.com, $20-40. Through October 29.
Related Stories
One Ghost Will Do: A Review of The Woman in Black at Royal George Theatre There's no moral message or social insight to bog down this heart-pounding holiday journey at The Royal George Theatre.
Hilariously Ham-y: A Review of Spamilton at The Royal George Theatre RECOMMENDED It makes sense that the biggest musical of all time (and by "all time" I mean until something else comes around) is being parodied by none other than “Forbidden Broadway” creator Gerard Alessandrini. Sure, it might be easy to update Hamilton’s opening number to the present time but not many can keep the jokes going for a solid eighty…
A Smarting Delight: A Review of The Liar at Promethean Theatre Ensemble RECOMMENDED If you think that plays in verse ought to be confined to the Elizabethans and their ilk, David Ives’ 2010 “translaptation” of Pierre Corneille’s 1643 “Le Menteur” (“The Liar”) shows how rhythm and rhyme turn the ordinary shenanigans of a pathological liar on the loose into a sidesplitting extravaganza of madcap revelry for lovers of palaver. The antics begin…
Tending the Garden of Earthly Delight: A Review of The Nether at A Red Orchid Theatre RECOMMENDED “These violent delights have violent ends,” wrote the Bard, noting the mortal consequences of our more extreme indulgences. And yet, fiction itself is a space to work out “delights” that would have negative or even disastrous results in reality. After all, the laws of the so-called civilized world are more puritanical than rational. Desire, on the other hand, is natural…
London Below: A Review of Neverwhere at Lifeline Theatre Lifeline Theatre's remount of their adaptation of Neil Gaiman's novel is inventive in design and powerful in its representation.
What a Bomb: A Review of The Man Who Was Thursday at Lifeline Theatre This quixotic adaptation of G.K. Chesterton's novel is both reverent and ridiculous.
