Standing in the Shadows – Chicago Reader

In a few weeks the national tour of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child lands at the James M. Nederlander Theatre. The play, written by Jack Thorne based on an original story by Harry Potter creator JK Rowling, won the 2018 Tony Award for Best Play. But Rowling's online attacks against transgender people — or in the case of her recent inflammatory comments about Algerian Olympic boxer Imane Khelif, falsely describing her as transgender — may now deter some audience members from attending a show associated with her. (Khelif has filed a cyberbullying lawsuit against Rowling and Elon Musk.)

Even before Rowling's turn to public anti-trans statements, there had been years of debate about how feminist the Potter books actually were. As someone who has never been deeply immersed in Pottermania, I am agnostic on this issue. But if you're looking for a different take on wizards and women on stage, the current production of Black Button Eyes, A bright and burning shadowbased on Jessica Cluess' 2016 young adult novel of the same name, might be just the ticket for you. (It's also cheaper than most Potter show tickets, although it might be worth noting that Cluess herself got into trouble on social media in 2020 when she clashed on Twitter with anti-racism educator Lorena Germán.)

The first book in Cluess' Kingdom on Fire trilogy, adapted and directed by Ed Rutherford, founder and artistic production director of Black Button Eyes. Shadow tells the story of 16-year-old orphan Henrietta “Nettie” Howell (Annemarie Andaleon), who, after the death of her parents, works as a teacher at the Yorkshire girls' school where she grew up. A mysterious visitor, Cornelius Agrippa (Timothy Griffin), arrives and tells Henrietta that she is the Chosen One – a wizard who will help save Victorian England from the Lovecraftian monsters destroying the country. (I suspect his name is a reference to the German Renaissance occult author and polymath, Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa.)

A bright and burning shadow
Until September 28th: ​​Thurs-Sat 7:30pm, Sun 3pm; also Tues, Sept. 10th 7:30pm (industry presentation); Edge Theater, 5451 N. Broadway, blackbuttoneyes.com, $40

She goes off to study magic with him in the Ward, a walled part of London protected from otherworldly predators that feels like Edgar Allan Poe's The Masque of the Red Death. would be if they were wizards rather than aristocrats and the people behind the walls spent their days learning ancient spells rather than dancing, drinking and debauchery.

But there is still a hierarchy within and outside the community. As the play's prologue, delivered by Andaleon's Henrietta, tells us, “Wizards practiced their noble art with wands and channeled the power of the elements. Wizards, cunning and mysterious, spun deceitful spells from thin air. Witches, mysterious and destructive, drew on the forces of nature itself.” According to the prologue, the wizards and the witches worked together to open the door to another realm that unleashed the monsters on England. Most wizards fled and most witches were, of course, burned.

Henrietta brings her childhood friend, Rook (Alex George), to London. Rook is badly scarred from an attack by Korozoth, the demon of shadows and mist. He is what is known as the Unclean One and is only suitable for menial tasks. Henrietta also faces discrimination from Lord Blackwood (North Homewood), an aspiring wizard and snooty patron of her former school. When Henrietta makes the startling discovery that her late father was a wizard and therefore she may not be the Chosen One, her safety and status are put in jeopardy. Or, more accurately, they are put in even more danger than they already were, given all the demons, skinless men, child-eaters, vulture ladies and giant snakes and spiders that roam around.

You definitely get the feeling that Rutherford's adaptation is both a bit cluttered (it took me a while to keep track of all the different terrifying creatures) and not fully fleshed out — which probably makes sense, since it's the first book in a trilogy. Still, it's fun to see the glosses and riffs inspired by 19th-century British literature. A young boy (Jamie Dillon Grossman) selling totems to serve the enigmatic Hargrove (Darren Jones), one of the few remaining wizards, feels like an homage to the Artful Dodger and Fagin in Oliver Twist. In the interactions between Blackwood and Henrietta, there is also a dynamic between Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet from time to time.

The design elements are probably much more homemade than what you see in Harry Potter and the Cursed Childhave a delightfully tactile and low-budget appeal, from long red ribbons and confetti cannons representing the fires Henrietta sets as her emotions take over (emotionality is, of course, associated with women, and so is hardly grandiose enough for a magician), to long tentacles crawling out from the wings of the Edge Theater as the station's world begins to crumble. Jeremiah Barr does an admirable triple-duty job as set and prop designer and technical director, and his work, along with that of lighting designer Liz Cooper, costume designer Rachel M. Sypniewski, and sound designer Isaac Mandel, lends the play's Victorian world a fitting pulp fiction atmosphere.

The play's underlying ideas about class, gender, and predestination versus choosing one's role in life are all fascinating, even if they aren't quite narratively realized. (Though the idea that people's true identities aren't necessarily what they were born with or what others have prescribed for them would be good food for thought for Rowling, at least.) Rutherford, whose troupe is dedicated to “infusing magic into reality,” has always been able to bring a tongue-in-cheek Gothic theatricality to the stories Black Button Eyes brings to the stage, and A bright burning shadowin spirit and aesthetics, is overall a welcome resumption of production for the company after a break in recent years.

Stab in the heart

If you've ever wondered what would happen if you locked Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater's teen angst musical Spring Awakening in a remote cabin with Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th. Franchise, Factory Theater is here to help. Their new musical, Stab in the hearta co-production of Lindley and Hall Productions (Cody Lindley and Nate Hall co-wrote the book and lyrics, with music by Hall), follows the usual cliche of a group of college kids meeting up for a party in the woods and then getting systematically slaughtered.

Stab in the heart
Until Sept. 28: Thurs-Sat 8 p.m., Sun 3 p.m.; accessible performance Sun Sept. 8, understudy performance Thurs Sept. 19; Factory Theater, 1623 W. Howard, 312-275-5757, thefactorytheater.com, $35

Lia (Jasmine Robertson) is a somewhat nerdy freshman whose roommate Trish (Madeline Ackerlund) is impulsive and somewhat id-driven. Trish convinces Lia to join her and her old high school friends for a long weekend at a cabin on Dead Man's Lake. Trish's old gang is a who's who of archetypes: a goofy jock, a mean cheerleader, a lovable stoner, a pair of well-read and politically aware lesbians. And then there's Brent (Zach Moore), Trish's wannabe love interest since middle school, and Trish's old friend Zach (Grant Brown), whose connection to the woods is downright morbid and whose attraction to Lia quickly becomes apparent.

How Spring AwakeningAt particularly tense moments, the cast pull out handheld microphones to sing loudly about unrequited love, dead mothers and the growing pile of corpses around them. When the killer is unmasked, things take a turn for the worse. Scream territory – which means that some developments will not be surprising at all.

But I suppose that's the point. After decades of slasher movies and movies that deconstruct slasher movies, it's pretty hard to narratively shock audiences within the genre. What Lindley and Hall do (aided by Braxton Crewell's deliberately confident direction and a tight four-piece band led by music director Evan Cullinan) is restore some semblance of emotional seriousness rooted in the passionate loves and friendships and traumas of late adolescence, when everything seems to revolve around life and death. In Spring AwakeningThe repressed emotions of provincial German teenagers of the 19th century found expression in rock anthems that took the place of inner monologues. In Stab in the heartThe children's feelings in danger are still the focus, even if they know what awaits them in the forest.